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UK Government Wants Prisons Geoblocked By Drone Manufacturers (thestack.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A new report from the UK's Ministry of Justice promises to work with drone manufacturers to get prison locations geoblocked as a native feature of the drone, in the face of rising incidents of drone incursion into prison space. The report, which outlines many proposed reforms to the UK's prison system, says that the MoJ will "trial, together with industry, the inclusion of prison coordinates in no-fly zones which have the potential to be programmed into the majority of drones on the market (although we must think carefully about how much information we are willing to put into the public domain and therefore make available to the criminal community)." The last few years have seen increased pressure on government to enforce geoblock zones on drone manufacturers, who have responded to controversial drone incursion incidents with permanent or temporary geoblock software updates.
Good job no criminal smuggler would dare hack their drone to ignore the geoblocking, or just buy one without a GPS.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
[2 Prison guards speaking, in British accents]
Guard 1: Wot's that then?
Guard 2: Looks like a drone, doesn't it? It's flying right at us, looks like it's got a package suspended from it. That would no doubt have some contraband in it, wouldn't it?
Guard 1: Well, should we alert the others?
Guard 2: No need. They can't fly over the prison, you see. There's a little bit right in there, which actually stops the thing from flying over any prison. Brilliant, isn't it?
Guard 1: Brilliant! But it looks like it just flew over the wall and into the yard, when is that bit supposed to kick in to stop it?
Guard 2: It did fly over the wall, didn't it? See if you can reach the warden on the radio.
Guard 1: What should I tell him?
Guard 2: Tell him that we're in the wrong place, apparently the prison got moved and we need to know where we're supposed to be.
-fin-
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
What about Drones where you turn off the GPS and just fly the thing manually?
Did you even read the fucking article or summary? Christ sakes man.
You must be new here.
Trying to hamstring every legally purchases hobby drone is not the way to go.
Is anyone who legally purchases a drone really going to care if they can't fly the drone over prisons anymore? What legitimate reason is there for flying drones over prisons?
Who owns the database? How big a database is required? Who pays the cost for the creation and storage of the database and its maintenance and updates? And the increased drown cost for extra computes and storage on the drone. What about homemade or open source drones. It is not effective to have this operate at the drone level. Can I add my house to the list if I do potentially classified work at home. What about drawing up industrial contracts that effect the economy if leaked? Heck commodities futures are affected by crop reports, do we block all the places those are written up? Is being on the list enough for other attack vectors? Is the list itself secret? How do you manage that in an open source world?
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
The constitution was written by men and men are fallible. Maybe paying restitution to the victim might be a good way to punish criminals?
Murder victims might not appreciate being paid after they die. (not that they particulary get much from their killer going to jail)
The problem with fines as punishment is that, most people who commit crimes don't typically have a lot of money in the first place, that's why they turn to crime. Also, one might consider crime an investment. Got no money? Rob a bank, what's the worst that can happen, you have to give it back?
Also, what's the fine for murder? $1million? Some rich people might consider that worthwhile, and some poor people will never have that money to pay in the first place. Or is the fine based on % of income? Someone vandalizes your $30,000k car, but because they're poor, they're only fined $20.
Paying restitution simply won't work for the vast majority of crimes. As much as I hate how bad the conditions in some prisons may be, there really isn't a better alternative. I think the best compromise is a prison system that is based more on reform rather than punishment. Prisoners should be treated like people instead of animals too. Some nations do that, and it does cost more per prisoner, but they tend to have much lower re-incarceration rates.
The choice typically comes down to a punitive prison (like the US) where you pay $X but the average prisoner has a 77% chance of reincareration or a reform based prison where you pay 30% more but maybe only a 15% reincarceration rate.
In the long run treating humans like humans saves you money.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I think the FAA has greatly underestimated the chaos that will ensue when the air is full of drones that can buzz your house and invade your privacy. So why not allow individual property owners to have their property geoblocked up to a certain altitude, say 500 feet. I can have my phone listed in the federal Do-Not-Call Registry. Why not have a federal geoblock registry to keep the pesky things away?
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition