t's time for everybody here to grow up and see this for what it was and is, a simple misunderstanding because a kid was doing dangerous looking things.. He needs to take his toy home and grow up a bit...
Absolutely not.
He wasn't doing anything dangerous looking.
Oh yes it was, I've seen the pictures. The kid actually built something that COULD have triggered an explosive device out of an alarm clock. He may not have been building it to trigger a bomb, but that's EXACTLY what it could have done had it functioned as the kid said he intended. Now it wasn't connected to a bomb, but it WAS intended to function as a trigger.
I'm telling you, the authorities didn't run off half cocked here, there was probable cause as soon as somebody got the idea that this thing might be usable as a bomb trigger. How that happened is the real question.. Looking at the pictures of the device it is easy to see how it could be interpreted as a home made trigger worthy of a low budget Hollywood movie, so I'm not surprised the police reacted like they did...
He needs to take his toy home and grow up a bit...
Maybe so, but nowhere near as much as the faculty and cops need to grow up. They didn't even let him contact his family before questioning, and you're making excuses for them.
Nope... I'm only explaining why the authorities did what they did.
This thing he built looks for all the world like a device that could trigger a bomb, and given the kids description of what he was trying to build seems likely it would have WORKED as a bomb trigger. So like it or not, intended or not, this kid's device is indeed dangerous on it's face and kids building bomb triggers need to be detained. This explains why he was arrested, why they took his electronic devices and why they searched these devices. It is called probable cause, and by all appearances they had enough probable cause to consider what they did prudent. Once they determined that they couldn't prove the kid intended to harm anybody and they didn't suspect he was building bombs in his bedroom or something they released him.
Now it's for the courts to decide if they really had probable cause, and I'm not so ready to think they just where on some power trip because of the kids name or something, and if it had been my kid, I'm not sure I would be screaming bloody murder about how unfair it all was.
One teacher's stupid choice not withstanding.... I'm sure the teacher was trying to avoid disrupting class and didn't suspect this kid of doing anything dangerous, knowing the kid. It was a prohibited device, she confiscated it and turned it over to the principle.... Who, looking at it, became alarmed by it's internal appearance and called the police officer at the school and things went down hill from there...
Everybody needs to remember that What the kid built COULD have been (and actually if it worked as I assume he intended would have worked as) a triggering device for a bomb and the authorities where totally justified in treating it as such until they proved the kid's intent was innocent.
Sure, that was stupid... But admit that this device, while not an explosive, was EXACTLY the same as a bomb trigger. This kid built, knowingly or not, an actual triggering device out of an alarm clock.
We cannot loose sight of what this device COULD have been used for because it explains why authorities reacted how they did. This wasn't just an innocent shop class project the kid says he intended it to be and until the authorities could firmly establish what his intent was their actions where justified.
That some stupid teacher shoved the thing into a desk drawer, not withstanding.
Oh for Pete's sake... Being arrested requires probable cause, they HAD probable cause believing that the device might be an explosive or related to triggering an explosive (which by the way, is indeed a possible use of what the kid actually built). Subsequently they completed their investigation and determined that the kid didn't intend to use the device to trigger an explosive so they released him.
Sorry if that seems harsh to you, but if you show up with a device that LOOKS like a bomb trigger and could be used as a bomb trigger and then plug it in during English class and it starts making strange sounds, what do you EXPECT is going to happen?
Look, prohibited is prohibited. This device WAS dangerous, though it might not have been an explosive, it had exposed LETHAL voltages when he plugged it in during class. He took apart a PLUG IN alarm clock and soldered wires to it then carried the thing around in a METAL box. That exposes 110Vac which is downright lethal, and has killed many in the past. Taking something to school that could kill somebody is not a good idea and even if the kid didn't intend for this thing to be dangerous, clearly it was and clearly this kind of thing is prohibited by school policy.
The principle is on solid legal grounds here and the kid's parents need to grow up some.
Can you tell the difference between an IED and a metal box the kid just plugged into the wall? I don't think you can. Heck, I've seen pictures of the thing and I'm not sure I could, at a glance, be sure it wasn't going to explode and I'm an electrical engineer... At the very least it looked like a triggering device that used an alarm clock as a trigger.... How can an English teacher or a principle tell for sure? Hint: They can't so the call the police....
Full disclosure.. I home schooled my kids.. But not because the staff at my local school are incompetent or don't care about the kids they are charged with educating.... But because my kids got a better education at home without all the "social" distractions that come with public schools which peddle the "one size fits all" education model which does an average job educating your average kid.
What no push for teacher education? If there is nothing that looks like explosives there is no reason to think its a bomb.
Oh for Pete's sake this "thing" was in a metal box that started making noise when the kid plugged it in during class. Does that sound like it might be dangerous? It does to me. I'm sorry but that warrants a bit of attention by the school's teachers and administrators. I've seen pictures of the INSIDE of this thing and I fully understand how some folks might get the idea that it is a bomb, or at least parts of a triggering device, even if it's totally not what the kid intended so I get why the police where called.
At that point, I can see young lad getting miffed with the whole mess and mouthing off to the administrators and police which leads to him getting cuffed and "detained" briefly for everybody's safety. They don't know what the device is for, it looks like it *could* be a bomb and the kid is acting like he's mad about something so the cops do what their training requires and it's "safety first" so the cuffs go on the kid while they ask him questions to try and figure out what's going on.
Everybody needs to grow up, especially this kids parents... Does it seem like the cops over-reacted? Yea, maybe they did in hindsight, but the kid wasn't hurt, hasn't been charged and everybody has to admit that what he did WAS sort of dangerous looking, even if it turned out to be innocent.
It's a clock, not a bomb. I thought we already established that.
It was a clock built from a clock in a metal box that made noise when he plugged it in. I've seen pictures, it looked suspicious, no doubt about it. Scared the (blank) out of his teachers who called the police who detained the boy, briefly, in the interests of everybody's safety. I'm not saying this was or wasn't an over-reaction only that he was detained and has not been charged. Stuff happens, stupid stuff. It's part of life.
It's time for everybody here to grow up and see this for what it was and is, a simple misunderstanding because a kid was doing dangerous looking things.. He needs to take his toy home and grow up a bit...
but we simply cannot allow a *hobby* to endanger existing aviation activates
Today's hobby is tomorrow's vital technology.
Which justifies nothing. Just like you cannot run a GPS jammer because of the danger to others, you cannot justify the idiots who endanger others with their hobby activities. Or perhaps you'd like to argue that YOUR desires for having fun outweighs the health and safety of those around you?
So if the FAA wants to put limits on the operation of paper airplanes you fly in the front yard, they can do it, as stupid and ill-advised as it seems to you.
And it should seem not only stupid to you, but a solid indication in that situation that we should curb the power and mandate of the FAA. Why am I called stupid, when you advocate this sort of silliness?
You assume the FAA is operating improperly and argue they should have their existing power curbed so you can operate your hobby device as you want. I say they are being responsible to their mandate to keep aviation safe and they are well within their mandate to impose rules on your hobby that encroaches on their domain. You tell me who's being stupid....
If you take the regulatory authority away from the FAA, then you will be compromising their ability to keep air travel in this country safe, which is a stupid thing to do in the long run.
Unless, of course, that doesn't actually happen as you claim.
Again, it COULD happen that a hobby device brings down an aircraft, as improbable as it may be. There is no way the right to practice hobby trumps actually safety of others around you. The FAA doesn't care about your hobby until it endangers aviation safety, but when it sees a risk to safety caused by your hobby you can bet it cares. In addition, if some idiot insists on being stupid and causes an aircraft to crash, you can rest assured they won't be sitting on their thumbs.
Look, just because you and I don't do stupid things with that RC aircraft, doesn't mean there are folks who WILL do stupid things.
I won't fly my RC airplane above a hundred feet or so and I certainly won't fly anywhere near an airport, but that doesn't mean the idiots out there don't and I've seen guys busting the 500' limit for fun and seen idiots out flying their RC aircraft in places I don't see as safe.
But this report shows that there ARE issues. The report does unfairly group stuff that obviously isn't hobby related, but there IS evidence in this report that there are stupid people doing stupid things with these things. Such dangers are admittedly few and far between, but they do exist, and I don't expect the FAA to ignore that, even if the AMA want's to paint the situation as not dangerous.
I'm going to stick out my tongue and call you stupid here...
The FAA must retain the ability to make any rule it likes from ground level up to space and if that impacts your need/want to engage in a hobby when and where you want to, so be it. Yes, congress can step in and tug on the reigns and direct the FAA, but we simply cannot allow a *hobby* to endanger existing aviation activates.
So if the FAA wants to put limits on the operation of paper airplanes you fly in the front yard, they can do it, as stupid and ill-advised as it seems to you. If you take the regulatory authority away from the FAA, then you will be compromising their ability to keep air travel in this country safe, which is a stupid thing to do in the long run.
Problem solved... Just be careful about administrative access controls...
Wouldn't help you at all if the malware was installed in-transit before it arrived at your premise.
That's why I specify MONITORING my network, to catch such stuff happening should it slip in.... But if you are not managing the configuration of your firmware images (i.e. re-flashing them before you put them into production) you have a serious issue with configuration management...
There will never be a time when specialized programmers are unnecessary.... NEVER...
Fredrick Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month" needs to be consulted by those who think otherwise... His sage advice is a true today as it was in the 70's when he wrote that book, all that's changed is the names on the technologies.
Yea, you might have a rash of folks who can drive the mouse around, but you will need the specialized skills working behind that UI to keep it all working...
Please understand.... The FAA does what it does for a good reason in most cases. Elimination of risk in aviation is their mandate and they literally have absolute authority over anything that flies or could affect something that flies starting at the ground and up from there.
The FAA won't hesitate to remove a risk factor like this. Drones have ZERO importance to the FAA, none. A hobbyist Operating a drone has no pull with the FAA. A drone carries nothing that the FAA traditionally cares about, they are not airplanes carrying people and there are no companies that have any financial interest in things that have traditionally driven the FAA's decisions. IF the FAA finds that letting the hobbyist have and operate these small aircraft constitutes a risk to their main mandate (aircraft safety) you can be sure as the sun rises in the east they will put regulations in place to limit that risk. They'd be stupid not to. And if you start hearing airlines and aircraft manufacturers complaining about the hobbyist drones, the jig is up. Regulations will be forthcoming as soon as they can be published in the federal register.
Hobbyists have been flying Remote controlled Aircraft for decades, without issues.
Drone Hobbyists seem to have issues. Why is that.
Easy, space and cost. Flying models take unobstructed space to fly around. Such spaces are usually not found in your local neighborhood so you need some open field somewhere to take off and land in. If you are going to drive someplace to fly your model, it's easy to head away from airports and such. Also, it used to cost you something to obtain a model to fly. It was a couple of hundred dollars between the motor, radio and model. You where naturally more careful with that. I remember the old helicopter models which set you back easily a thousand dollars or more between the radio, gyros, motors and aircraft. I remember one kit where the rotor blades alone where a couple of hundred dollars. Scary amounts of money for most back then so you went to the wide open spaces with that stuff because you didn't want to loose everything if it got away from you.
Drone operators don't need space now. They hover and land in your back yard, or your smaller front yard. Heck all you need is a small sidewalk now, forget needing any real open space. They are also cheap. Yea you can spend as much as you want, but the entry level $100 system is quite capable. This means folks don't mind doing risky things with them. So this "I don't need free space" and "I don't care if it crashes" equates to operating in dangerous locations at dangerous times, including near airports, over large crowds and structures.
Then you add in the "My drone can collect interesting imagery" and ask yourself "of what?" Why of people and interesting equipment of course and you can plainly see why this is becoming a problem.
ONE commercial airliner crash caused by a "drone" and you can bet they will try that. Nothing like a hundred people dying to motivate folks to get something done about it.
IMHO, drone operation should be severely limited by common sense and not just the law. 5 miles away from an airport and under 500 feet isn't enough to keep the idiots from ruining this hobby for everybody. Common sense says you operate these things as far away from airports as possible, as low as possible and also away from buildings and people. Unfortunately, idiots don't have enough common sense fly safely and to see past their selfish desire to fly where it's convenient or interesting to them.
Just because it's hard to enforce, doesn't mean the rule making won't happen.
Look at the rules about pointing lasers at aircraft. It's nearly impossible to track such events to their source, but they manage to do it occasionally and then make the best example of the idiot possible. Flying a drone is going to be a whole lot easier to enforce than catching someone with a laser pointer. A drone won't fit in your pocket, unless you have really baggy pants. Plus, it is going to take a couple of minutes to land that drone, collect it and do something with it, where a laser pointer can be in a pocket in seconds.
I have just finished the article and where I don't fully agree with the previous poster, his point is valid.
The operator of the drone and the Academy of Model Aeronautics are hardly unbiased observers of what's happening in the air. What seems to be totally safe for the drone operator is downright dangerous incursion to even small aircraft. Where it is obvious that the FAA is being alarmist here, that's how the organization works, that's how the FAA has made air travel as safe as they have, and I don't think we should change it.
The FAA looks at any avoidable risk, especially one that has zero impact to the cost and efficiency of aviation operations, as a risk that should be avoided. This is how it should be. The FAA's work is about saving lives and if flying your drone endangers the lives of those flying around in some aircraft, they rightfully conclude that your drone needs to go away.
IMHO, being a pilot AND an AMA member who flies radio controlled aircraft, drones (and RC aircraft) need to be operated as far away from full sized aircraft as possible. They also need to be operated away from people and structures for safety's sake. Those who don't realize this and insist on pushing the separation between models and real aircraft are going to ruin this for everyone. Heaven forbid that some "I have my right to fly my drone anywhere I want" yahoo causes an accident and kills somebody, because you can bet there will be a huge push for some serious regulations and fines. But the FAA is going to be forced into making some rules here and going after the nut cases with huge fines, just like they do with the laser pointer wielding idiots blinding pilots for kicks.
Idiots are why we cannot have nice things without oppressive regulations...
For Pete's sake... I'm pretty sure that nobody is going to sneak in and comprise my firmware, unless of course they are a duly authorized administrative type and in that case the gig is up anyway, they can do *anything* they want on my network equipment if they can load firmware. The idea in that case is to MONITOR and catch the fact that unauthorized firmware has been loaded.
Look there is NOTHING you can do to be 100% secure. One thing you simply cannot do anything about is your approved administrators. All you can do about the insider threat is to MONITOR and hope you can detect when someone on your trusted list does something bad to you (either because they don't like you, got tricked or somehow exposed their credentials to the bad guys).
Real security has at least two fronts... Prevention - Where you make it hard for attackers to succeed.... And Detection - Where you find successful attacks that have already happened. If you don't do both, You don't really have a security plan worth anything.
If it's somehow racist to suggest folks show up at the polls with a photo ID
if you look at the statistics for who has a photo ID and who doesn't have a photo ID, it SURE IS racist to suggest using its absence as a filter to remove voters.
See what I mean? Partisan rhetoric will make it impossible to find agreement on online voting rules. We cannot even agree on Voter ID rules.
I already do this at home, only I'll warn you it's expensive to buy the managed switches you will need.
I've been using the old Linksys small business switches which are way out of support, have a quirky web interface that requires a very old version of IE to actually use and are generally limited to 100BaseT speeds. However, it allows me to have a switch fabric that is both redundant and available at all the points I need in my home. I have two active routers, both are OpenWRT based, one that faces my ISP and my DMZ, and the second that fronts the various internal networks with the DMZ.
I'm currently working on replacing the old Linksys switches with more OpenWRT based devices that support 802.1Q VLANs, Mainly because it's getting hard to manage the Linksys stuff, but I'm going to loose STP capability which will make my switch fabric non-redundant. I've been picking up WNDR4300 and WNDR3800 routers and loading OpenWRT for this. You get 5 gigabit ports and VLAN capability for less than $40, plus it can serve as an Access Point and even as a wireless network extender if you don't have Cat5 access everyplace you want.
Even at home, all the administrative interfaces to my network infrastructure are on a private VLAN which you can get to from specific hosts inside my network, but NOT from anyplace else. It could be safer, but I'm pretty sure that I'd catch anybody who managed to figure out a way to get administrative access to anything...
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Absolutely not.
He wasn't doing anything dangerous looking.
Oh yes it was, I've seen the pictures. The kid actually built something that COULD have triggered an explosive device out of an alarm clock. He may not have been building it to trigger a bomb, but that's EXACTLY what it could have done had it functioned as the kid said he intended. Now it wasn't connected to a bomb, but it WAS intended to function as a trigger.
I'm telling you, the authorities didn't run off half cocked here, there was probable cause as soon as somebody got the idea that this thing might be usable as a bomb trigger. How that happened is the real question.. Looking at the pictures of the device it is easy to see how it could be interpreted as a home made trigger worthy of a low budget Hollywood movie, so I'm not surprised the police reacted like they did...
He needs to take his toy home and grow up a bit...
Maybe so, but nowhere near as much as the faculty and cops need to grow up. They didn't even let him contact his family before questioning, and you're making excuses for them.
Nope... I'm only explaining why the authorities did what they did.
This thing he built looks for all the world like a device that could trigger a bomb, and given the kids description of what he was trying to build seems likely it would have WORKED as a bomb trigger. So like it or not, intended or not, this kid's device is indeed dangerous on it's face and kids building bomb triggers need to be detained. This explains why he was arrested, why they took his electronic devices and why they searched these devices. It is called probable cause, and by all appearances they had enough probable cause to consider what they did prudent. Once they determined that they couldn't prove the kid intended to harm anybody and they didn't suspect he was building bombs in his bedroom or something they released him.
Now it's for the courts to decide if they really had probable cause, and I'm not so ready to think they just where on some power trip because of the kids name or something, and if it had been my kid, I'm not sure I would be screaming bloody murder about how unfair it all was.
One teacher's stupid choice not withstanding.... I'm sure the teacher was trying to avoid disrupting class and didn't suspect this kid of doing anything dangerous, knowing the kid. It was a prohibited device, she confiscated it and turned it over to the principle.... Who, looking at it, became alarmed by it's internal appearance and called the police officer at the school and things went down hill from there...
Everybody needs to remember that What the kid built COULD have been (and actually if it worked as I assume he intended would have worked as) a triggering device for a bomb and the authorities where totally justified in treating it as such until they proved the kid's intent was innocent.
Sure, that was stupid... But admit that this device, while not an explosive, was EXACTLY the same as a bomb trigger. This kid built, knowingly or not, an actual triggering device out of an alarm clock.
We cannot loose sight of what this device COULD have been used for because it explains why authorities reacted how they did. This wasn't just an innocent shop class project the kid says he intended it to be and until the authorities could firmly establish what his intent was their actions where justified.
That some stupid teacher shoved the thing into a desk drawer, not withstanding.
Oh for Pete's sake... Being arrested requires probable cause, they HAD probable cause believing that the device might be an explosive or related to triggering an explosive (which by the way, is indeed a possible use of what the kid actually built). Subsequently they completed their investigation and determined that the kid didn't intend to use the device to trigger an explosive so they released him.
Sorry if that seems harsh to you, but if you show up with a device that LOOKS like a bomb trigger and could be used as a bomb trigger and then plug it in during English class and it starts making strange sounds, what do you EXPECT is going to happen?
Look, prohibited is prohibited. This device WAS dangerous, though it might not have been an explosive, it had exposed LETHAL voltages when he plugged it in during class. He took apart a PLUG IN alarm clock and soldered wires to it then carried the thing around in a METAL box. That exposes 110Vac which is downright lethal, and has killed many in the past. Taking something to school that could kill somebody is not a good idea and even if the kid didn't intend for this thing to be dangerous, clearly it was and clearly this kind of thing is prohibited by school policy.
The principle is on solid legal grounds here and the kid's parents need to grow up some.
Can you tell the difference between an IED and a metal box the kid just plugged into the wall? I don't think you can. Heck, I've seen pictures of the thing and I'm not sure I could, at a glance, be sure it wasn't going to explode and I'm an electrical engineer... At the very least it looked like a triggering device that used an alarm clock as a trigger.... How can an English teacher or a principle tell for sure? Hint: They can't so the call the police....
Full disclosure.. I home schooled my kids.. But not because the staff at my local school are incompetent or don't care about the kids they are charged with educating.... But because my kids got a better education at home without all the "social" distractions that come with public schools which peddle the "one size fits all" education model which does an average job educating your average kid.
What no push for teacher education? If there is nothing that looks like explosives there is no reason to think its a bomb.
Oh for Pete's sake this "thing" was in a metal box that started making noise when the kid plugged it in during class. Does that sound like it might be dangerous? It does to me. I'm sorry but that warrants a bit of attention by the school's teachers and administrators. I've seen pictures of the INSIDE of this thing and I fully understand how some folks might get the idea that it is a bomb, or at least parts of a triggering device, even if it's totally not what the kid intended so I get why the police where called.
At that point, I can see young lad getting miffed with the whole mess and mouthing off to the administrators and police which leads to him getting cuffed and "detained" briefly for everybody's safety. They don't know what the device is for, it looks like it *could* be a bomb and the kid is acting like he's mad about something so the cops do what their training requires and it's "safety first" so the cuffs go on the kid while they ask him questions to try and figure out what's going on.
Everybody needs to grow up, especially this kids parents... Does it seem like the cops over-reacted? Yea, maybe they did in hindsight, but the kid wasn't hurt, hasn't been charged and everybody has to admit that what he did WAS sort of dangerous looking, even if it turned out to be innocent.
It's a clock, not a bomb. I thought we already established that.
It was a clock built from a clock in a metal box that made noise when he plugged it in. I've seen pictures, it looked suspicious, no doubt about it. Scared the (blank) out of his teachers who called the police who detained the boy, briefly, in the interests of everybody's safety. I'm not saying this was or wasn't an over-reaction only that he was detained and has not been charged. Stuff happens, stupid stuff. It's part of life.
It's time for everybody here to grow up and see this for what it was and is, a simple misunderstanding because a kid was doing dangerous looking things.. He needs to take his toy home and grow up a bit...
Would a kid of any other background been arrested?
YES....
What do you think will be your margin of victory?
About (-100)%. I'll get exactly two votes, mine and some dead guy from Detroit.
Do you think it'll be a landslide?
On top of me? Yes...
Are you insane?
Yes, he is.
but we simply cannot allow a *hobby* to endanger existing aviation activates
Today's hobby is tomorrow's vital technology.
Which justifies nothing. Just like you cannot run a GPS jammer because of the danger to others, you cannot justify the idiots who endanger others with their hobby activities. Or perhaps you'd like to argue that YOUR desires for having fun outweighs the health and safety of those around you?
So if the FAA wants to put limits on the operation of paper airplanes you fly in the front yard, they can do it, as stupid and ill-advised as it seems to you.
And it should seem not only stupid to you, but a solid indication in that situation that we should curb the power and mandate of the FAA. Why am I called stupid, when you advocate this sort of silliness?
You assume the FAA is operating improperly and argue they should have their existing power curbed so you can operate your hobby device as you want. I say they are being responsible to their mandate to keep aviation safe and they are well within their mandate to impose rules on your hobby that encroaches on their domain. You tell me who's being stupid....
If you take the regulatory authority away from the FAA, then you will be compromising their ability to keep air travel in this country safe, which is a stupid thing to do in the long run.
Unless, of course, that doesn't actually happen as you claim.
Again, it COULD happen that a hobby device brings down an aircraft, as improbable as it may be. There is no way the right to practice hobby trumps actually safety of others around you. The FAA doesn't care about your hobby until it endangers aviation safety, but when it sees a risk to safety caused by your hobby you can bet it cares. In addition, if some idiot insists on being stupid and causes an aircraft to crash, you can rest assured they won't be sitting on their thumbs.
Look, just because you and I don't do stupid things with that RC aircraft, doesn't mean there are folks who WILL do stupid things.
I won't fly my RC airplane above a hundred feet or so and I certainly won't fly anywhere near an airport, but that doesn't mean the idiots out there don't and I've seen guys busting the 500' limit for fun and seen idiots out flying their RC aircraft in places I don't see as safe.
But this report shows that there ARE issues. The report does unfairly group stuff that obviously isn't hobby related, but there IS evidence in this report that there are stupid people doing stupid things with these things. Such dangers are admittedly few and far between, but they do exist, and I don't expect the FAA to ignore that, even if the AMA want's to paint the situation as not dangerous.
I'm going to stick out my tongue and call you stupid here...
The FAA must retain the ability to make any rule it likes from ground level up to space and if that impacts your need/want to engage in a hobby when and where you want to, so be it. Yes, congress can step in and tug on the reigns and direct the FAA, but we simply cannot allow a *hobby* to endanger existing aviation activates.
So if the FAA wants to put limits on the operation of paper airplanes you fly in the front yard, they can do it, as stupid and ill-advised as it seems to you. If you take the regulatory authority away from the FAA, then you will be compromising their ability to keep air travel in this country safe, which is a stupid thing to do in the long run.
Problem solved... Just be careful about administrative access controls...
Wouldn't help you at all if the malware was installed in-transit before it arrived at your premise.
That's why I specify MONITORING my network, to catch such stuff happening should it slip in.... But if you are not managing the configuration of your firmware images (i.e. re-flashing them before you put them into production) you have a serious issue with configuration management...
There will never be a time when specialized programmers are unnecessary.... NEVER...
Fredrick Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month" needs to be consulted by those who think otherwise... His sage advice is a true today as it was in the 70's when he wrote that book, all that's changed is the names on the technologies.
Yea, you might have a rash of folks who can drive the mouse around, but you will need the specialized skills working behind that UI to keep it all working...
Please understand.... The FAA does what it does for a good reason in most cases. Elimination of risk in aviation is their mandate and they literally have absolute authority over anything that flies or could affect something that flies starting at the ground and up from there.
The FAA won't hesitate to remove a risk factor like this. Drones have ZERO importance to the FAA, none. A hobbyist Operating a drone has no pull with the FAA. A drone carries nothing that the FAA traditionally cares about, they are not airplanes carrying people and there are no companies that have any financial interest in things that have traditionally driven the FAA's decisions. IF the FAA finds that letting the hobbyist have and operate these small aircraft constitutes a risk to their main mandate (aircraft safety) you can be sure as the sun rises in the east they will put regulations in place to limit that risk. They'd be stupid not to. And if you start hearing airlines and aircraft manufacturers complaining about the hobbyist drones, the jig is up. Regulations will be forthcoming as soon as they can be published in the federal register.
Hobbyists have been flying Remote controlled Aircraft for decades, without issues. Drone Hobbyists seem to have issues. Why is that.
Easy, space and cost. Flying models take unobstructed space to fly around. Such spaces are usually not found in your local neighborhood so you need some open field somewhere to take off and land in. If you are going to drive someplace to fly your model, it's easy to head away from airports and such. Also, it used to cost you something to obtain a model to fly. It was a couple of hundred dollars between the motor, radio and model. You where naturally more careful with that. I remember the old helicopter models which set you back easily a thousand dollars or more between the radio, gyros, motors and aircraft. I remember one kit where the rotor blades alone where a couple of hundred dollars. Scary amounts of money for most back then so you went to the wide open spaces with that stuff because you didn't want to loose everything if it got away from you.
Drone operators don't need space now. They hover and land in your back yard, or your smaller front yard. Heck all you need is a small sidewalk now, forget needing any real open space. They are also cheap. Yea you can spend as much as you want, but the entry level $100 system is quite capable. This means folks don't mind doing risky things with them. So this "I don't need free space" and "I don't care if it crashes" equates to operating in dangerous locations at dangerous times, including near airports, over large crowds and structures.
Then you add in the "My drone can collect interesting imagery" and ask yourself "of what?" Why of people and interesting equipment of course and you can plainly see why this is becoming a problem.
ONE commercial airliner crash caused by a "drone" and you can bet they will try that. Nothing like a hundred people dying to motivate folks to get something done about it.
IMHO, drone operation should be severely limited by common sense and not just the law. 5 miles away from an airport and under 500 feet isn't enough to keep the idiots from ruining this hobby for everybody. Common sense says you operate these things as far away from airports as possible, as low as possible and also away from buildings and people. Unfortunately, idiots don't have enough common sense fly safely and to see past their selfish desire to fly where it's convenient or interesting to them.
Just because it's hard to enforce, doesn't mean the rule making won't happen.
Look at the rules about pointing lasers at aircraft. It's nearly impossible to track such events to their source, but they manage to do it occasionally and then make the best example of the idiot possible. Flying a drone is going to be a whole lot easier to enforce than catching someone with a laser pointer. A drone won't fit in your pocket, unless you have really baggy pants. Plus, it is going to take a couple of minutes to land that drone, collect it and do something with it, where a laser pointer can be in a pocket in seconds.
I have just finished the article and where I don't fully agree with the previous poster, his point is valid.
The operator of the drone and the Academy of Model Aeronautics are hardly unbiased observers of what's happening in the air. What seems to be totally safe for the drone operator is downright dangerous incursion to even small aircraft. Where it is obvious that the FAA is being alarmist here, that's how the organization works, that's how the FAA has made air travel as safe as they have, and I don't think we should change it.
The FAA looks at any avoidable risk, especially one that has zero impact to the cost and efficiency of aviation operations, as a risk that should be avoided. This is how it should be. The FAA's work is about saving lives and if flying your drone endangers the lives of those flying around in some aircraft, they rightfully conclude that your drone needs to go away.
IMHO, being a pilot AND an AMA member who flies radio controlled aircraft, drones (and RC aircraft) need to be operated as far away from full sized aircraft as possible. They also need to be operated away from people and structures for safety's sake. Those who don't realize this and insist on pushing the separation between models and real aircraft are going to ruin this for everyone. Heaven forbid that some "I have my right to fly my drone anywhere I want" yahoo causes an accident and kills somebody, because you can bet there will be a huge push for some serious regulations and fines. But the FAA is going to be forced into making some rules here and going after the nut cases with huge fines, just like they do with the laser pointer wielding idiots blinding pilots for kicks.
Idiots are why we cannot have nice things without oppressive regulations...
For Pete's sake... I'm pretty sure that nobody is going to sneak in and comprise my firmware, unless of course they are a duly authorized administrative type and in that case the gig is up anyway, they can do *anything* they want on my network equipment if they can load firmware. The idea in that case is to MONITOR and catch the fact that unauthorized firmware has been loaded.
Look there is NOTHING you can do to be 100% secure. One thing you simply cannot do anything about is your approved administrators. All you can do about the insider threat is to MONITOR and hope you can detect when someone on your trusted list does something bad to you (either because they don't like you, got tricked or somehow exposed their credentials to the bad guys).
Real security has at least two fronts... Prevention - Where you make it hard for attackers to succeed.... And Detection - Where you find successful attacks that have already happened. If you don't do both, You don't really have a security plan worth anything.
If it's somehow racist to suggest folks show up at the polls with a photo ID
if you look at the statistics for who has a photo ID and who doesn't have a photo ID, it SURE IS racist to suggest using its absence as a filter to remove voters.
See what I mean? Partisan rhetoric will make it impossible to find agreement on online voting rules. We cannot even agree on Voter ID rules.
I already do this at home, only I'll warn you it's expensive to buy the managed switches you will need.
I've been using the old Linksys small business switches which are way out of support, have a quirky web interface that requires a very old version of IE to actually use and are generally limited to 100BaseT speeds. However, it allows me to have a switch fabric that is both redundant and available at all the points I need in my home. I have two active routers, both are OpenWRT based, one that faces my ISP and my DMZ, and the second that fronts the various internal networks with the DMZ.
I'm currently working on replacing the old Linksys switches with more OpenWRT based devices that support 802.1Q VLANs, Mainly because it's getting hard to manage the Linksys stuff, but I'm going to loose STP capability which will make my switch fabric non-redundant. I've been picking up WNDR4300 and WNDR3800 routers and loading OpenWRT for this. You get 5 gigabit ports and VLAN capability for less than $40, plus it can serve as an Access Point and even as a wireless network extender if you don't have Cat5 access everyplace you want.
Even at home, all the administrative interfaces to my network infrastructure are on a private VLAN which you can get to from specific hosts inside my network, but NOT from anyplace else. It could be safer, but I'm pretty sure that I'd catch anybody who managed to figure out a way to get administrative access to anything...