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Bird-Shaped Drone Symbolizes New Forms Of Covert Surveillance To Come (mirror.co.uk)
One security writer in Somali recently discovered a downed metal drone that had been carefully disguised as a bird, a reminder that drones will bring powerful new forms of surveillance. Slashdot reader Stephen Sellner also shares an article by the CEO of one unmanned systems company who's predicting that the commercial drone industry will create more than 100,000 new jobs and generate more than $82 billion for the U.S. economy, and suggesting "security of industrial areas (shipyard, storage facility, etc.) can now be augmented by drones to provide a quick eye in the sky."
But it may be inevitable that drones will be used in a variety of unexpected ways. Airbus is also testing the use of drones for quality inspections on their commercial aircraft. In Iowa, a drone helped lead first-responders to a man suffering from a heart attack. And the U.S. wildlife service is planning to drop peanut-butter pellets onto northeastern Montana to deliver vaccines to prairie dogs -- so that they can then in turn be eaten by Montana's population of endangered black-footed ferrets. Any predictions about drone news we'll be seeing in the future?
But it may be inevitable that drones will be used in a variety of unexpected ways. Airbus is also testing the use of drones for quality inspections on their commercial aircraft. In Iowa, a drone helped lead first-responders to a man suffering from a heart attack. And the U.S. wildlife service is planning to drop peanut-butter pellets onto northeastern Montana to deliver vaccines to prairie dogs -- so that they can then in turn be eaten by Montana's population of endangered black-footed ferrets. Any predictions about drone news we'll be seeing in the future?
Yesterday (Fri), I was watching live feed from airshow @ Farnborough (it's available on YouTube, just look it up) and in first 10-15 minutes there were drones flying.
At some point they've catapulted a robot that looked like some sort of bird of pray and it was flying (propelling) and gliding using its wings like a bird.
That was surreal.
Never mind.
Oh wait, look!
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
that it needs to be perfectly legal to bring down a drone by any means if it is flying over your property without your permission!
These machinations will get better and better, until a roach or mouse sighting will cause alarm on the order of a new level of revulsion.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
This is old news. There are even better drones than this one that not only look like birds but flap their wings like birds too.
A friend who does a lot of contract work for the government(*) told me that we, the US, are developing a small gliding-bird drone that can deliver poison through a dart where a normal bird's beak would be.
The use-case is for the bird to perch somewhere waiting (possibly hanging and recharging from power lines), then when the victim is spotted it glides silently towards the person and sticks beak-first into the neck.
It's got perfect deniability - even if someone catches the drone, it doesn't have "made in the USA" anywhere on it, and even if it did you'd still never find out who was controlling it.
It's one facet of our "asymmetrical warfare" plans.
(*) This is a 2nd hand rumor from someone you don't know on the internet, take it with a grain of salt.
Too bad 99% of those jobs will be in overseas manufacturing and the vast majority of that $82 billion will be into the bank accounts of the wealthy.
Oh, don't fret little man, the drones will be used on you so you'll not be left out of the loop.
--- Keep the choice with the user..
I was thinking it's a crow about to damage my crops!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That beetle is looking at me kinda funny...
A drone-expert friend tells me that it's a commercially-available toy, not some super-duper cutting-edge technology.
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
The 'bird assassin' is not doubt quite expensive and intended for use on politically sensitive targets (Say a leader of an unspecified Middle Eastern nation, who is about to cozy up to Russia instead of the US. Or vice versa.)
The 'Bomb them' drones are meant to 'make an impact' both literally and metaphorically. You're putting the fear into the hearts of all the people that you can kill them at any time and fuck the collateral costs. These drones are also much cheaper and help finance a different sector of your military industrial complex.
The third kind is surveillance drones. Making them look like animals helps evoke aversion to thought crime, and crime by association, but not normally real crime. The latter two are what the 'police state' portion of the current mechanisms need in order to conquer the minds and spirits, as well as the bodies (thanks to the above kinds of drones) of the populace.
I was actually discussing something slightly different 10-15 years ago. The original Predator drones gave an important capability that was often overlooked: It could allow a minority of the populace to control the majority by minimizing the number of personnel needed to operate, rearm, manufacture, and maintain a fleet of drones to keep the majority of the populace in line. Combine that with the new generation of drones and a small group of people at the top, along with their loyalists can control any country on Earth, given a sufficient quantity of all these drones to ensure their doctrine is followed and have the ability to quell almost any unrest (imagine Turkey's recent coup if Erdogan loyalists had this technology and the populace hadn't been out in the streets supporting him.)
We'll get our hands on these things too. Better for watching the police, my dear. And without putting yourself within firing range. Sounds good to me..
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
With the exception of the occasional mad man anything evil that gets done is done for the sake of controlling access to or the use of wealth. People don't generally want to watch random blokes for the fun of it (rule 34 excepted). They're looking to hurt you because you're threatening either their money or their master's money.
Rather than worry about a symptom of wide spread institutional evil ( surveillance ) why not attack root causes ( wealth inequality and the desire of a lucky few to preserve the privileges such a system grants them).
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Tomorrows headline: "Bird shaped tracking device dropped by drone leads military to insurgent headquarters"
Or to random persons house. No problem, there's plenty of missiles...
Strangely enough, I was watching 'Eye in the Sky', where such a drone was used.
Even stranger, the drone in the film was being used to conduct surveillance on Somalis.
I wonder if the film makers are privy to some informatation that we aren't?
Deal with reality - the world as it is - rather than ideality - the world as you would like it to be.
I know of a local company that has one in production (for a while) that looks like a hummingbird..this hideous pigeon is old news and not news unless we are talking about antiquated hardware. This is nothing and since the hummingbird drone is not exactly a secret I am sure it is also 'old tech'.
Pteranodons would be more stealthy. No one expects to see any, so won't be looking.
Sorry, NOTHING beats the cat copter, well maybe the cat copter chasing the bird drone: https://youtu.be/uJfM23iChzs
I would totally think that thing buzzing in the sky with propellers was a bird. Totally. /s
In any conflict zone, anyone worried about drone surveillance would have a strong incentive to kill as many actual birds as possible, just in case any of them were drones (and to make any actual drones more easily detectable).
If you wanted a way to (further) incentivize the extinction of actual birds, I can't think of a better way then to disguise surveillance drones as birds.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
I heard that.
Where is Somali? Are they so hungry they ate an "a" from the end? Or was it an autocorrect and the place is Socali?
They were already deploying drones that looked like dragonflies 9 years ago: http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Can I get one that looks like the mechanical bird Clash of the Titans?
I have an inclination,
To enjoy this insinuation.
This needs an exclamation,
But distracts from subjugation,
Of solar excitation,
Not meeting the expectation.
Six suspected criminals killed after refusing to disclose all financial account pass-codes for civil forfeiture acquisition after reasonable suspicion on account of diminutive suspected criminals seen by remote-officer performing potentially drug-related transactions in front of the house using possible drug-paraphernalia ranging from "girl scout cookies" to the notorious "doctor barbie"
Numerous sonic emissions of a hostile tone were directed at the remote-officer after initial location-suppression, who opened fire on the suspects before taking the fight to the criminals located within the home in response, stating "I believed I had reason to fear for my drone". Extended family of the downed criminals are expected to be fined under reinforced CFAA provisions, to cover the emotional and financial damages suffered by the remote-officer's operator in the pursuit of his legal duty.
Could we make it unambiguously legal to shoot these things as long as they aren't actually in flight, then enact legislation requiring them to look like George Bush Junior and Tony Blair?
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
http://m.imdb.com/title/tt2057392/
Real life catching up with movie science.
We are going to see some very confused hawks.
Someone needs to do a study on this. Bird do weird things - will they recognise 'not food' on the first attempted bite, or swallow a bundle of wires and snapped-off plastic bits? If birdlike drones become commonplace (as toys, I'd imagine) then it might have some ecological impact.
It's still just another propeller driven airplane that's disguised as bird. As someone who expected to see ornitopter I was very disappointed...
FESTO already is way past that piece of crap - https://youtu.be/nnR8fDW3Ilo
There was a robotic falcon on demonstration at the Farnborough airshow this year. https://youtu.be/B2mR7q1M6j8
Here prairie dog, prairie dog, prairie dog! Have a nice peanut butter treat... BAM!! Black footed ferret attack.
Someone is designing 'drones' that mimic the ones in The Incredibles.
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=bird+drone+alarm+incredibles&view=detailv2&&id=1B73B0AC97883DCA6DA8ED68989F2F5F5CA03885&selectedIndex=0&ccid=%2bUxGVYl9&simid=607988682359702154&thid=OIP.Mf94c4655897d237eb99d765a96a8e5c5H0&ajaxhist=0
News at 11.