Ukrainians modify civilian drones for military use | Hacker News Reader

Ukrainians modify civilian drones for military use

economist.com

26 pointsgreen-eclipse20 comments

Are there any rules about drone footage retention? Ie- for review that the combatants weren't surrendering, that prohibited weapons weren't used, etc.

Using makeshift implements in war doesn't exempt them from humanitarian law, and from some of the most popular clips, the attacks seemed to target the sleeping or wounded, and people who are fleeing.

While I'm glad this war isn't being as censored as US military actions, I also haven't had much luck locating informed discussion on topics re: IHL.

> target the sleeping or wounded, and people who are fleeing

None of these are illegal in warfare under any of the various conventions or treaties on rules of war. There are actually, very few illegitimate targets in war such as POWs, humanitarian workers, and surrendering soldiers. In addition there has been extensive evidence of perfidy on the Russian side requiring extreme caution when accepting a surrender.

Killing surrendering soldiers is a gray area depending on the nature of the surrender. Have they dropped their weapons, are their friends still shooting at you, have their officers offered surrender, etc... Since the Russians declared no-quarter in Bakhmut they have forfeited that privilege for the most part. If they had immediately retracted the order and condemned the officers who issued the order then I could see a case being made they should still be offered that privilege. However, they have yet to do so and it is far too late.

https://lieber.westpoint.edu/wagner-groups-no-quarter-order-...

Things are going to get wild in the US the first time someone uses a drone to take out a corrupt cop who received a paid vacation as punishment for brutalizing an innocent person.

I dont know of any real vigilante examples on Police in US.

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

Christopher Dorner is one example. He was fired for reporting a training officer for police brutality and then decided to start killing police and their families. It was an utter shit show.

> At about 5:30 am (PST), at least seven LAPD officers on a protection detail of an unnamed LAPD official's residence in the 19500 block of Redbeam Street in Torrance opened fire on the back of a light blue Toyota Tacoma and shot its two occupants, Emma Hernandez and her daughter, Margie Carranza delivering newspapers for the Los Angeles Times.

Wow, shit show indeed. If Im reading this right Dorner failed to kill even a single dirty/bad cop he was accusing of using excessive force. He killed "daughter of Randal Quan, the former LAPD captain who represented Dorner at his 2008 dismissal hearing" and two random police officers. Looks like revenge, not vigilantism.

Vigilantism and revenge are often two sides of the same coin. If people were just rounding up criminals and peacefully providing them to the police for justice along with evidence and testimony then it wouldn't be vigilantism. Vigilantism is essentially just retributive justice without the benefit of due process.

That's because it's too hard to get away with it.

Drones will change the balance of power and you'll definitely start to see more of it.

It'll go both ways. All ways. The US is going to have its own version of [The Troubles][1] by 2033.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles

Why won’t the police be supplied with countermeasures and drones of their own?

Short of a ubiquitous gorgon stare[0] level of surveillance, how do you stop someone from deploying an autonomous drone with facial recognition that hunts down a particular individual?

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

Don’t drones require registration in the US? So any event like this will become a cyber investigation. And for the first one likely even considered domestic terrorism so it would use the NSA’s gorgon stare to trace back the purchaser and operator.

As the article says anyone can buy a drone from aliexpress or build their own.

But then it should be pretty easy to detect unregistered drones when they hit the air.

And again, I think if someone built their own drone from parts, the surveillance drag net would be able to trace down purchases.

Below 100 feet it is remarkably difficult to detect and stop a drone in time to defend an attack. Especially since they can be fully automated, have onboard inertial measuring units and computer vision. Your best defense would be hunter killer drones over high value targets or trained birds. But defense always lags offense.

Guided missiles used to be an expensive proposition. Now they are off the shelf parts for a couple thousand on digikey.

At the point you decide hurting people is ok you are usually mentally unstable enough to not be aware or care. People this bad in the head end up shooting up a school, or like the last SS/swastika tattoo sporting Texas neo Nazi attack a mall in predominantly white neighborhood. Mindless violence combined with suicide by cops.

Somehow we seem to be past the IRA/Baader–Meinhof politically motivated organized groups, and deep into incel suicides. You wont find Carlos the Jackal in the west outside movie screens.

much more likely to be used by motivated terrorists than vigilantes.

In this scenario, what is the difference?

the targets

Search for ukraine drone fpv will surface some examples of a particular use case

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