Posted on 12/19/2012 7:03:56 PM PST by Seizethecarp
Less than a month ago, rumors that celebrity news and gossip website TMZ was interested in obtaining a paparazzi drone prompted privacy concerns and public debate about the appropriate personal and commercial uses of unmanned aerial vehicles.
Now, a new online video poses a more troubling question: What if civilian drones are equipped to shoot more than just pictures?
Titled “Citizen Drone Warfare” and posted to YouTube last week by an anonymous man calling himself “Milo Danger,” the video shows a hobbyist drone equipped with a custom-mounted paintball pistol flying over a grassy field and peppering human-shaped shooting-range targets with pellets.
Following an attack pass by the drone, one of the targets sports three large red blotches on its head and neck area.
“I wanted to show an inevitability of what I think will happen with these drones,” said “Milo,” who lives on the West Coast and spoke to The Washington Times on condition of anonymity. “I’m not advocating bad activities. But I wanted to raise some of the ethical issues we need to think about with this new technology.
Though Federal Aviation Administration regulations do not explicitly mention the use of firearms on drones, they do prohibit any type of recreational flying or dropping objects from aircraft that endanger life or property.
DIYDrones.com, a drone hobbyist website and online community that counts defense and aerospace engineers among its 32,000 members and averages more than 1.5 million page views a month, discourages using or modifying drones for any uses that are “potentially illegal or intended to do harm.”
“We’ve banned the weaponized use of drones,” said Chris Anderson, the site’s founder. “So in our community, the reaction to this video is dismay.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Horse droppings.
I've had a rather large RC helicopter crap itself to death at high RPM and launch a blade at me that hit me in the triangle. The repairs cost about $240 but the blade that hit me didn't even snag a thread on my field jacket. That's an 18" wooden blade at max speed. I was very close when that happened.
/johnny
/johnny
Yes, I'll name the top three.
1. Government
2. Government
3. Government
Dream on...
You can buy a fully functional drone w camera (routed to your smart phone) at any Verizon store.
There was a great episode of “Magnum P.I.” that opened and closed with the same problem. John Hillerman’s character was waking up Magnum while trying to reenact famous Battle of Britain dogfights with a couple of R/C planes.
At the end, Magnum reenacted some ack-ack with a side-by-side 12 gauge.
Priceless.
I have the right to fly a drone. I have the right to bear arms. What’s the problem?
Just like with guns, I’d rather that citizens be allowed to have any armed drones that the government can possess, than ban them. I trust my neighbors more than I trust the government, even if I can’t trust either 100%.
I predict that there will be a video or two in the next few months from a do-it-yourself drone that flies out over area 51, avoids detection, and catches a glimpse of a flying saucer in a hangar with an alien being beside it. It will be a fake; disinformation generated by the military.
I always suspected that philatelists are ticking time bombs.
The look on the deer’s face is priceless! :-)
Would be easy to build an Rc blimp with electric motors, nearly silent, fit it with nightvision cameras especially a bombsight and make some DIY smart bombs, themselves basically inverted fired model rockets.
The Gov’t is already behind the scenes gonna crack down on the hobby and such. Last year or this year they captured a ‘terrorist’ who was gonna use some movie plot attack with RC planes and such.
Add a pound of plastique and there’s your guided missile on the cheap.
Time to pick up a goose gun and move out to the boondocks...
Where do people think the military get’s their ideas from? Pull it out of their asses? Ban one type of weapon, and ingenuity will quickly fill the vacuum.
If they try to crack down the same will happen when they try to restrict gun ownership, more will buy, and it is far easier to make your own drone, you can fly one with your phone.
You can create a flying aircraft carrier like the dirigibles of the past that launched biplanes, instead you can launch smaller drones.
In the war of tech it can only be won through sheer numbers. They can have bigger badder drones but can you kill a swarm of hornets with bullets?
Its all about fear and intimidation, we are fearless and we spit into the wind, call us crazy stupid and rednecks. But we are as many as the grasses upon the plains.
A real gardener would never bring a rake
to a pick axe fight.
RC is line of sight control. Drones have autonomous GPS-guided navigation that can be programed for the drone to move to a series of “way points” that can be set for any point in three dimensions (above ground, of course!)
Several years back a hobbyist flew his “toy” drone airplane on GPS autopilot from Ireland to the US. The Islamist at the link below pulled the kit together to attack the Capitol and Pentagon!
“The jihadist drummer: Muslim musician held over plot to attack Pentagon with remote-controlled toy plane packed with explosives”
Did you go to the link at my tag line? The head of Air Force research sent me a thank you note back in 2006 when I brought this attack vector to his attention. Just sayin’.
That was after I first went to the Secret Service and they put me in a holding cell before turning me loose with the suggestion that I “get my meds checked.” Funny how often I hear that! That was when I decided the Air Force would be more receptive to my concerns.
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