Do Creeper Drones Have Rights? That’s what I asked you a few weeks ago, and surprisingly there was a fair bit of interest in the question.
I still don’t know what the answer is to that question, but when I say that I mean “I don’t know what the ethical answer will be.” I’m going to tell you what the actual answer is, and if you’re a drone “pilot” you won’t want to hear it.
Everybody from Jane’s to WIRED is reporting on Boeing’s drone-killing laser. If the weapon can see the drone — and the weapon can see as far as you can with binoculars — the drone is going down. And it can kill the drone in many fascinating ways, some of which would be hard to distinguish as deliberate from the wreckage.
This weapon is a, ahem, “peace dividend” from larger Boeing efforts to target missiles and combat-sized UAVs with laser energy, and look for it to be thrown in as a freebie for governments who buy the anything from a 747 Cargo to the aforementioned major-league laser. Right now it needs a human operator to identify the drone but it locks and tracks without further assistance. In the future, the software that runs it will identify drones at a mile’s distance and cheerfully drop them.
Given some recent drones-dropping-drugs-over-prisons incidents, this is just the ticket for our ever-expanding prison-industrial complex to spend a couple hundred million dollars for non-rehabilitative purposes. O Brave New World!
You, on the other hand, will go to jail if you use a shotgun on a drone. You prole, you. If you want an image of the future, imagine a drone stomping on a human face, forever.
I’d imagine the laser is pretty expensive. Though as we touched upon in our last conversation, those using firearms to rid their property of drones are facing expensive punishment:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/new-jersey-drone-shooting-case-213450
Our drone-defender facing 18 months to 10 years, plus attorney’s fees. Ouch.
I did run across this recently as this topic got me thinking — what if there were a way to disrupt the radio frequency of the drone…. and tada, a google search later:
http://www.jammer-store.com/trc-3-universal-remote-control-jammer.html
The nerds are way ahead of me.
From their description: “Different surveillance drones, flying UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) and remotely controlled robots are getting popular these days. They come in many different shapes and with lots of functions. Those surveillance drones are also may be either professionally made or home-made, though both can do their snooping job quite well. Of course, professionally developed and constructed models are much better and have more features useful to their owner but their cost is much higher. As long as many of those surveillance drones are controlled via remote controls, this device can protect your privacy from being compromised by those robots.”
Still not cheap, but much quieter than a 12 gauge shotgun, not illegal to “discharge/use” and leaves no evidence of your countermeasures. Though I wonder, does the drone fall out of the sky? Start flipping around uncontrollably? Fly normally on its course till it’s out of range of your jammer and then continue flying? Someone with electronics/drone experience please fill in the gaps for me.
Interesting web site that jammer-store. The five comments were strange and not one of them seemed to have passed third grade English. I also liked the logo on the top of the page
“Your work is important, thanks for helping protect people from the tyrannical exploitation of advanced technology”
Although in their quote they managed to spell tyrannical wrong, I am a crappy speller but with autocorrect there is no excuse.
I’m guessing that for the manufacturers of the jammer, English is not their first language.
pew pew mufugga
” I am a crappy speller but with autocorrect there is no excuse.”
Droolers , you know .
-Nate
#dronelivesmatter
#rotorsupdontshoot
#dontlazemebro
Drone jammers will probably be grouped in with cell phone jammers: illegal to own or use because local law enforcement will be using drones.