Hacker News Reader

I feel like blinding sensors or pilots might be easier?

Easier, but prohibited by treaty.

See “The Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons, Protocol IV of the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_on_Blinding_Laser_W...

It’s quite short and to the point. No weapons designed to permanently blind people are allowed. Incidental blindness is ok, also if you get blinded while looking through binoculars that’s fine. Blinding sensors is also fine.

The US seems to sometimes honor treaties, and sometimes not. Unless they get caught. Snowden and countless other whistleblowers have taught us that.

This one seems odd. If this weren’t explicitly allowed, it could rather easily stop most aerial operations. While it is nice for pilots, it seems to cancel out the potential to just make sending pilots on military runs in feasible in the first place.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_on_Blinding_Laser_Wea...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com