Drones over US to get weaponized – so far, non-lethally | Hacker News Reader

Drones over US to get weaponized – so far, non-lethally

rt.com

46 pointsph0rque42 comments

There's no such thing as a non-lethal weapon: there are only less lethal weapons.

Even a fist can be lethal, either by design or bad luck.

When you start using weapons, you start risking deaths.

That's not to say that all use of weapons is always morally, wrong, but it IS designed to deflate the idea that force can be used without risk.

A few years back Boston cops use a "non lethal" pepper ball, shot a student straight in the eye, penetrated her brain, and dropped her in a fraction of a second, stone dead.

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2004/1...

Police also kill people all the time using "non lethal" tasers. The firm manufacturing them and the police have a vested and shared interest in denying that any of these deaths were actually caused by the weapons; it is - apparently - sheerest coincidence that people die of heart attacks at the same time that they're hit with 50,000 volts.

This is exactly what I was thinking. Not only that, this also leads to a slippery slope argument. Maybe later they'll announce that, in certain crime infested areas they have slightly stronger non-lethal weapons and allow it to escalate it from there. After that project an area as total mob territory and say that you absolutely need lethal weapons just to protect the drones since the criminals have technology to capture it and they don't want them to reverse engineer it, because if they do then this is a potential threat to the freedom loving people. So, first they'll start with self-destructive weapons and then slowly make it more potent until it becomes deadly lethal. And then they'll say that it costs too much to make different variants and that your tax money can be used for something better if you allowed them to make just one model. They PROMISE not to use it unless absolutely necessary and it is at that point in time you know, shit has officially hit the fan.

That's a very broad definition. With enough effort and (bad) luck, almost anything can be lethal. It then become convenient to differentiate things which are designed to kill (lethal weapons), things which are designed to incapacitate without killing (non-lethal weapons) and things not designed to do either (not weapons).

Your definition would place almost everything into one category: lethal weapons. And that isn't very useful.

Do there need to be shades of grey when we're talking about weaponizing drones? This just shouldn't happen. What's not useful is creating rhetorical space in which the acceptability of this technology is debatable.

The fact is, we need to scale down the militarization of police across the board, not debate how quickly or in what form advanced military technology should be given to the police.

Foregoing discussion because something "just shouldn't happen" is not really the best way forwards. It would be if everybody clearly agreed on what should be, but people clearly don't.

For what it's worth I actually agree with your premise: I would like the police's capabilities limited as well. However, part of being rational is questioning weak arguments regardless of whether they support your point or not.

Just taking your conclusion as an axiom with no support is not particularly conducive to reasoned discourse. (This is why arguing religion with the truly devout is rather difficult--God is axiomatic to them.)

Logic is the best tool we have--save perhaps for the scientific method--to make decisions. It's worth maintaining regardless of the issue in question.

So yes--there always need to be shades of gray. Reasonable people reasonably disagree on almost every issue, because basically no nontrivial issue that isn't contrived is entirely obvious.

Perhaps you are fundamentally correct and your arguments stronger--I certainly think so. But this does not mean the issue should not be discussed. I've been wrong before!

Anyhow, I've gone well off-topic now, and I'm typing this on a cell phone. I think discussion is always useful, and it took me an absurd number of words to say that, do I'll say no more.

Actually, one interesting thing about drones is that, in theory, _all_ activity can be logged. And secondly, the person operating it is in no danger, so there would be absolutely no justification for excessive use of force, because even if someone, say, pulled a gun and shot the drone... oh well, it's just a drone.

Exactly. There should be no debate about whether these weapons can be lethal. The debate should be about whether there should be civilian drones at all, and why the hell they need weapons mounted to them.

Humans in the heat of the moment do stupid violent things. I would bet weaponized drones would cause less fatalities than in person officers. Make the decisions completely autonomously by computer and you will probably see even less mistakes. Plus, there is a huge class of crime, the inner city, where police do practically nothing currently. Drones might well stop gang violence.

The possibilities really become clear though internationally. If foreign governments, such as mexico, recruit drones, they might well solve their violence problems pretty quick.

This is a joke, right? Weaponized drones controlled by a fully automatic computer? Jesus, just try to make a computer that decides when it's safe to cross the street.

I don't see how the international angle affects the debate on whether they should be used in the US.

In twenty years or so, this could easily be widely available, just like machine guns today. Even if there was an explicit ban on the endproduct itself, the basic technology could be understood well enough to allow underground manufacturing. If true, this would allow anonymous murders and a complete breakdown of law and order. The more advanced miniature variants with face recognition software, might elude detection and jamming technologies. Popular officials might find it too dangerous just to go outside. This would provoke even more intrusive surveillance systems.

There seems to be a broader trend where our offensive technologies are moving much faster than our protective systems. At a state level, this has been handled by deterrence. Fortunately, for nuclear weapons, the necessary materials were rare enough for regulation to be possible. But deterrence wont work when these technologies become popularly available. Hopefully, there is some non-brutal solution that we can find for this problem.

Now that is cool (in a horrible way). I'd never linked anonymous assassinations being carried out by drones built and controlled by garage hackers. I was more worried about government-controlled, weaponized drones monitoring citizens domestically. Though I'd say in less than 3 years the technology and economics will allow amateurs to build weaponized drones with face recognition for ~$1000.

Perhaps Anon will build their own drones to take-down government spy drones?

Or imagine a worldwide, anonymous, crowd-funded assassination network funded by bitcoins; targets decided via user votes and hits performed by weaponized drones that have no trace. They could even simply be suicide drones packed with explosives, controlled autonomously to fly at a target via face recognition.

...aaaaaand now I'm probably on a watchlist for typing that :)

I think you vastly over estimate the 'criminal underworld'. The DOD might be able to make miniature lethal drones using facial recognition software in 20 years. But, probably not. The idea that criminals will start mass producing such things cheaply is silly in your lifetime is just shy if ridiculous. Talking about building stuff is easy, but actually building stuff is hard.

PS: Problem #1 people don't look up that often. Problem #2 there are a lot of people walking around out there. And it just get's worse from there.

Well, I'd love to be wrong about this and hope that you are right. What worries me is that key parts of the technology, like the processor, sensors and software might be available cheaply due to their civilian uses. Manufacturing ability could well be scarce, but these weapons could pass through illicit distribution networks which today distribute machine guns and rocket launchers. I didn't fully understand your postscript, but regarding visibilty, I admit I dont know much here - for instance, how small of drone would be realistically possible for a non-state producer. But I dont see a clear knockdown argument, given that drones are used effectively today. Again, I hope you are right and that there are more technical obstacles out there.

The US will just ban PCs like it banned chemistry sets.

Cory Doctorow's talk "The coming war on general computation" is a very interesting take on that: http://craphound.com/?p=3817

It is not about making it yourself from scratch and doing research and experiments, I think it is about buying the parts from China and assembling.

Say IED builders in Afghanistan, probably do not have PhDs in physics and chemistry but they can build effective shaped charges to pierce thick tank armor.

So at some point you could just order parts from some place. Assemble, then upload the picture of face it needs to recognize, approximative coordinates and press the "take-off" button.

I don't know, I think this sounds disturbingly doable in the near future. Both your problems are essentially "opportunities to strike are few." But the point of drones is that they're cheaper than humans. If you can afford to tail someone with 2 goons, maybe you can afford 20 drones all along their typical route. And the drones can recognize license plates and other non-facial things to help them hone in.

As for facial recognition software, there's probably already an Android app for that. Sure, there's a lot of work involved - it has to recognize the person, it has to drive around autonomously, it has to aim and fire. But most of those may be pluggable components of hardware and software soon, coming from perfectly innocent projects.

I think drones may well be a big problem in the near future.

I think you vastly over estimate the 'criminal underworld'

This would be the same criminal underworld that currently builds 60-foot submarines?

There's money in that. There's less (steady) money in assassinating the president. In fact, I imagine assassinating a president creates more problems than it prevents.

What about assassinating rival mob leaders who are cutting in on your drug business? Plenty of money in that.

You don't have to think criminal organizations since they have little to gain from attacking public officials -- that is just likely to get too much attention.

Think China sending a drone and using it to assassinate the the president. Make it fly away and destroy itself over water or some other place where it won't be recovered.

Later on it might be possible for people like McVeight to use a drone to kill the president rather than blow up a federal building.

Just make sure you have your properly registered tracking chip charged and programmed with your destination (and route thereto, approved 24 hours in advance) and you will be fine. For your convenience, we will embed it for you.

Don't worry, we would never make you travel with papers. That's for a fascist state.

The biggest gripe I have with weaponized drones is the disconnection between people and responsibility. When a policeman shoots somebody, the ultimate responsibility for the shot is clearly attached to him and there’s little space for denial. When a drone harms somebody, the responsibility for the act is no longer obvious. The government can talk about security logs and similar precautions all night long, but there’s always a way around that. Whenever something can harm humans on purpose, there should be another human directly attached to it.

These machines are remote controlled by humans, in this sense they are not different from conventional weapons.

"According to our security logs the machine was not under our operator's control at the incident time. An investigation is currently running to find the attacker who took control of the drone. We will make sure such thing won't happen again."

You are right. These hooligan hackers nowadays...

Predictable. And a few months ago when they said they were going to fly drones those who brought up weaponization were called insane conspiracy loons.

Our reactions to the thought of armed drones firing on American citizens on American soil should not be very different from our reactions to using these against our enemies.

American politicians often said, after 911, that the attacks were "cowardly." I suppose that's because they were against unarmed citizens. But still, the attackers did it knowing they would die. Evil, yes. Cowardly? I don't see that.

On the other hand, I bet Al Qaeda gets lots of propaganda value out of our drone attacks. "Those cowardly Americans kill us without even risking their lives." And if a drone strike kills innocent people, that's quadruple propaganda points. If it even IS propaganda anymore...

What happens when* private citizens can have access to this? In Marrooned in Real Time, written 25 years ago, Vernor Vinge posits it would lead to the collapse of government and the rise of sovereignty of the individual. Is this likely? Vinge is a foremost visionary but does seem to have a libertarian bias.

Regardless, like biotech, I hope we do not stifle open development of tech that puts a lot of power for creating the dangerous in the hands of the individual even if though they have a great potential for good. It turns the use of such things into black magic. And if there is anything I have learned from Harry Potter and other fantasy, the kind of people who use Black magic have no scruples. Better would be to turn the same tech to architecting better defenses.

* When because with the ever increasing ease of hardware hacking, reprogrammable hardware and 3D printers; DIY versions of these are only a matter of time.

>She explained that an officer operating an armed drone from afar would simply not have the same understanding of a situation that an officer on location would have.

Remoteness is double edged. You might have less immediate insight (if it could not pick up audio signals, for example and only relied on video) or did not have coordination with confederates on the ground, on the other hand, if the situation were to break out, there is less immediate threat and the "officer" would also feel less immediate threat to cause defensive or offensive reaction or action.

In other words, remoteness might allow the "officer" to maintain a cooler head in the "midst" of a melee and respond less impulsively (or reactively).

If the legal system works like it should, the officer behind the drone will be required to maintain a cooler head since they are under no direct personal threat to their safety.

If the legal system works like it should.

"I only had grainy black and white footage, how could I have known that it was a candy bar not a grenade?"

That's a net plus, isn't it?

She's seeing it as net negative. I don't think it necessarily has to be negative. It could be, but there is more chance for net positive.

It'll be interesting to see the crowd dynamics in such a situation and how rules of engagement adjust to crowd behavior.

May I be the first to say, what could possibly go wrong?

If you ask people whether they want weaponized drones patrolling their country they'll say "of course not." If you ask the same people whether they want themselves and their families most effectively protected from violent criminals or terrorists, they'll say "of course!" I'm not saying either reaction is unreasonable.

I think this could be made tolerable but I have little confidence that it will be done in such a way.

It's currently very difficult to have full transparency when police engage a subject, but because a drone is very computerized, that changes. Imagine if every time a drone engaged a suspect any details surrounding the situation were automatically put on a public website, available to be scrutinized. It could actually increase both transparency and public safety.

Is that something police/govt would actually buy into? Probably not.

Amazing...

All these people still think the technology doesn't exist...

This technology tree went:

DIY Garage Hackers>government>military>private sector>DIY Garage Hackers...

Its still a vicious circle.

They already have palm-sized(even smaller) quad-rotor drones that have offensive(lethal) capabilities.

All the people thinking this technology will be used for Right, and Wrong....Are completely correct.

It will be a game changer for sure.

It's time for DIY anti-drone flak gun project on Kickstarter.

Eh, DICE supposedly nerfed this in the last patch.

1984 here we come!

>Drones over US to get weaponized – so far, non-lethally

Yep, that would be great for the next time the general population thinks the government/big corps pair gets too self-complacent and dictatorship like.

The next "Chicago '68" style event (or any of the blood soaked demonstrations/strikes/etc in the past) could be met with these things.

Essentially nulling this "right to bear arms" thing, which was supposed to mean the right for the people to be able to overthrow a government they thought illegitimate (and not the right to shoot some burglar).

This entire article appears to be based off of the ramblings of one sheriff's deputy in Texas.

I've read that RT is not a trustworthy news source. This would appear to back that conclusion.

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