Peeping Tom Drones

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — People in Lower Manhattan may want to consider closing their curtains following several reports of a man using a drone to spy into apartments.

A witness, who didn’t want to be identified, said he saw a man flying a drone around the windows of 35 Bond St.

“He was taking pictures through all the windows…basically he was being a drone peeping Tom,” the witness said.

The witness told CBS2 he confronted the man, who told him it was none of his business and then drove off.

Police said they don’t have a complaint on record about the incident.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, April 14 (UPI) -- Residents of an Alaska neighborhood said their privacy is being violated by an unusually high-tech peeping Tom using a camera drone.

Neighbors in the Prominence Pointe area of Anchorage said the drone has been seen flying close to homes and appeared to use its camera to look into windows.

Melissa Bolland said her children alerted her to the drone flying around their home.

"My children noticed it first. It kind of came down, hovered around like above the trampoline over there, went around the house kind of really low, hanging to the windows, and then went straight up to the tree and then off again," Bolland told KTUU-TV.

Neighbor Bri Tollefsen said she tried chasing the drone in her car to find its owner, but she lost track of it.

"My gut feeling is it's here casing homes and trying to find out who's there or not," Tollefsen said. "The moment you feel like your privacy is taken away in your own home, it's not a good feeling."

Police confirmed they responded to at least one call about a window-peeping drone, but the device was not located and no report was filed.

The Federal Aviation Administration bars the use of personal drones over private property without permission and the law requires owners to be within line-of-sight of their aircraft at all times.

So, if you are flying a drone from one apartment building, looking into another apartment building, the owner is playing within the law because the drone is not flying over but beside and the operator has the drone in their line of sight.

Drone Driving and Ducking

By now, thanks to social media, mainstream media, and friends sharing with friends, we all know about the following story:

WASHINGTON — It was 42 degrees and raining lightly around 3 a.m. on Monday when an inebriated off-duty employee for a government intelligence agency decided it was a good time to fly his friend’s drone, a 2-foot-by-2-foot “quadcopter” that sells for hundreds of dollars and is popular among hobbyists.

But officials say the plan was foiled, perhaps by wind or a tree, when the employee — who has not been named by the Secret Service or charged with a crime — lost control of the drone as he operated it from an apartment just blocks from the White House.

He texted his friends, worried that the drone had gone down on the White House grounds, and then went to sleep. It was not until the next morning, when he woke and learned from friends that a drone had been found at the White House, that he contacted his employer, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. He then called the Secret Service and immediately began cooperating with an investigation into the incident.

But, what is all the “fuss” over drones once an attack on POTUS is removed?

Hey... we have used drones in Afghanistan to “hunt down” the enemy, to “spy” on the enemy, and to “kill” the enemy. And, all of that is good news, right?

Hollywood is now using drones to help them capture unusual or difficult scenes on camera to make our movie going experience even more thrilling... but, Hollywood applied for and received a special waiver from the Government in order to do this.

Here is the link to the FAA video and press release: FAA, UAS Groups Join to Promote Safe Flying. (Skip without penalty or visit for useful background information.)

Here is the special website for new drone pilots: KnowBeforeYouFly. The site is promoted by the FAA but apparently not endorsed by it. It is designed to educate private users as well as commercial operators and public entities.

In Drone Users Largely Silent Regarding FAA Rules That May Limit Flights, Gregory S. McNeal notes the minimal number of drone and other hobby aircraft enthusiasts responding to the FAA’s call for comments on its upcoming policy interpreting hobby aircraft rules for the United States.

The public law professor reports in his July 10, 2014 Forbes article on the statistical participation (low compared with other regulatory efforts) and the impact of the planned rules. Under the Administrative Procedures Act, federal agencies are required to seek public input before their rulemaking. Often, comments significantly impact the outcome.
McNeal explains how the policy proposal can adversely change the legal environment for drone hobbyists.

In the US, non-commercial drone use is still a mostly unregulated affair, although we wouldn’t necessarily expect it to stay that way indefinitely. Official regulations refer to all unmanned aerial drones as UAS (unmanned aerial systems) and don’t differentiate for personal drones. All guidance relating to ‘model aircraft’ use is exactly that – guidance, rather than ‘regulation’.

So, where are we heading with all these drones?

• We can use them to track down bail jumpers
• We can use them to stalk females
• We can use them to spy on celebrities
• We can use them to find missing children
• We can use them to deliver goods and services
• We can use them on ranches to find missing cattle

Are drones here to stay?

Yes, I would say they are but like alcohol and marijuana, they are going to disrupt our lives as our regulatory agencies figure out and decide just how they are going to be regulated.

But, with that said they are going to cause a few problems in the process. I would suspect that unsavory types will use them to fly at night in and around suburbia and with special cameras spy on and videotape unsuspecting people who mistakenly left their curtains open

I am sure that the Mexican Drug Cartel has already toyed with the idea of using drones to smuggle drugs over the boarder relatively risk free.

Then, there is the college frat house that uses drone to deliver drinks to its special members at parties.

In time, law enforcement will use them to catch speeders so that they will not be able to hire a lawyer and have the ticket thrown out of court on a technicality.

Like everything, drones will be used by some for good and by others for bad as is their choice and their right and has been going on since mankind could walk, talk, and think.

Some of us will think they should be severely regulated while others will take the opposite viewpoint.

So, what is a drone?

Basically, a drone is an unmanned aerial vehicles.

There are many different names for these aircraft. They are called UAS (unpiloted air system), UAV (unpiloted aerial vehicle), RPAS (remote piloted aircraft systems) and model aircraft. It has also become popular to refer to them as drones.

Their flight is controlled either autonomously by onboard computers or by the remote control of a pilot on the ground or in another vehicle. The typical launch and recovery method of an unmanned aircraft is by the function of an automatic system or an external operator on the ground.

Historically, UAVs were simple remotely piloted aircraft, but autonomous control is increasingly being employed. One of the best known and widely used types was the Nazi-German V-1, that flew autonomously powered by a pulse jet. Its successor was the Nazi-German V-2, also autonomous but rocket powered, and partly functioning ballistically.

They are usually deployed for military and special operation applications, but also used in a small but growing number of civil applications, such as policing and firefighting, and nonmilitary security work, such as inspection of power or pipelines. UAVs are often preferred for missions that are too "dull, dirty or dangerous" for manned aircraft.

And, the ultimate decision will be make by our Government and then our law enforcement will have a new task to make sure the law is followed and the courts will open their doors to hear cases where the police may have abused their responsibilities.

The fact remains is that this is technology that will move economies forward into new frontiers and should not ever be prevented from taking place. And, society's responsibility is to find creative ways to deal with both the good and bad of this progress.

Progress is inevitable.

Drone Pestering

With drone sales soaring it’s inevitable that new and nefarious applications for them will emerge. Never has a technology emerged which someone, somewhere has failed to find an annoying or illegal use for.

There have already been several cases of celebrities including Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez and Rihanna having their privacy invaded by paparazzi drone pilots hovering overhear and snapping away on a remote-controlled camera.

One was even said to have disrupted Tina Turner’s wedding.

But even non-celebrities may not appreciate having the whirring aircraft flying near their homes or places of business.

Enter the Rapere, a prototype drone-hunting drone which can down other tiny unmanned aircraft by entangling special string in their rotors.

A group claiming to be “commercial drone developers” have created the machine which can automatically identify drones, hover above them and release a “tangle-line” that falls into their rotors and causes it to crash. It will then return to its base station for recharging and re-arming.

It has been designed to be faster and more agile than other drones to ensure that they can't escape - partly by limiting flight time and therefore reducing weight.

“Having worked in the UAS industry for years, we've collectively never come across any bogus use of drones. However it's inevitable that will happen, and for people such as celebrities, where there is profit to be made in illegally invading their privacy, there should be an option to thwart it,” the group say on their website.

“It can tell the difference between a bird and a drone, and will fly over top of any drone within range, then disable it.”

The designers are still working on refining the design and in talks about mass production, but warn on their website that “it won’t be cheap”.

“It will be priced as a professional tool - we don't want this to become a toy people can use to disrupt legitimate drone use.”

There could also be legal problems. The issue of whether or not it would be legal to use is summed up on their website: “it depends on how you plan to use it, and where you live”.

Drones Deliver

Google has built and tested autonomous aerial vehicles, which it believes could be used for goods deliveries.

The project is being developed at Google X, the company's clandestine tech research arm, which is also responsible for its self-driving car.

Project Wing has been running for two years, but was a secret until now.

Google said that its long-term goal was to develop drones that could be used for disaster relief by delivering aid to isolated areas.

They could be used after earthquakes, floods, or extreme weather events, the company suggested, taking small items such as medicines or batteries to people in areas that conventional vehicles cannot reach.

"Even just a few of these, being able to shuttle nearly continuously could service a very large number of people in an emergency situation," explained Astro Teller, Captain of Moonshots - Google X's name for big-thinking projects.

Google's self-flying vehicle project was first conceived of as a way to deliver defibrillator kits to people suspected of having heart attacks. The idea was that the drones would transport the equipment faster than an ambulance could.

"When you have a tool like this you can really allow the operators of those emergency services to add an entirely new dimension to the set of tools and solutions that they can think of," said Dave Voss, incoming leader of Project Wing.

The prototype vehicles that the company has built have successfully been tested by delivering packages to remote farms in Queensland, Australia from neighboring properties.

Australia was selected as a test site due to what Google calls "progressive" rules about the use of drones, which are more tightly controlled in other parts of the word.

Project Wing's aircraft have a wingspan of approximately 1.5m (4.9ft) and have four electrically-driven propellers.

The total weight, including the package to be delivered, is approximately 10kg (22lb). The aircraft itself accounts for the bulk of that at 8.5kg (18.7lb).

The small, white glossy machine has a "blended wing" design where the entire body of the aircraft provides lift.

The vehicle is known as a "tail sitter" - since it rests on the ground with its propellers pointed straight up, but then transitions into a horizontal flight pattern. 

It's Not DiGiorno

MUMBAI: Would you like your pizza home-delivered by an unmanned drone? That may not be impossible in future, for a little-known pizza chain in Mumbai last week succeeded in making a test-delivery less than 3km away from its outlet in Lower Parel by using a remote-controlled, GPS-enabled drone.

The 'customer' was actually a friend of the chain's CEO, so it was technically not a sale, as commercial deliveries by drones are not allowed in India. Yet, in a way, it was a first for a product delivery Amazon has only planned. On May 11, the drone took off from the Lower Parel outlet and, flying at a speed of 30km an hour, manoeuvred its way atop the city's mill district to reach its destination, a high-rise in Worli, in nearly 10 minutes.

The drone dropped the 13-inch plain margherita pizza, weighing half a kilo, on the 21st floor rooftop (where it was collected by the 'customer') before taking off again for the return journey. The speed with which the delivery was made thus beat the record for most leading pizza chains, which manually deliver pizzas within 30 minutes.

The drone used in the operation was custom-made, said an official from the pizza chain, adding that an auto engineer friend of his had helped him make the flight possible. The official said the chain had carried out the test-delivery as an experiment because it wants to be ready when regulations in India allow for such methods of product delivery.

Drones are mainly used in India by film-makers for shooting movies. But the regulations are clear that they can fly only at an altitude of between 200 to 400 feet. Drones are also barred from flying over security establishments, and there are technical difficulties like a limited operating radius of 8 km, after which their batteries go dry.

The official from the pizza chain claimed that the company had operated within the ambit of the law and added that they were hopeful of a change in regulations in the next 4-5 years. "While the technology exists, we cannot use it commercially at present," the official said.

Assassination Program

The National Security Agency is using complex analysis of electronic surveillance, rather than human intelligence, as the primary method to locate targets for lethal drone strikes – an unreliable tactic that results in the deaths of innocent or unidentified people.

According to a former drone operator for the military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) who also worked with the NSA, the agency often identifies targets based on controversial metadata analysis and cell-phone tracking technologies. 

Rather than confirming a target’s identity with operatives or informants on the ground, the CIA or the U.S. military then orders a strike based on the activity and location of the mobile phone a person is believed to be using.

The drone operator, who agreed to discuss the top-secret programs on the condition of anonymity, was a member of JSOC’s High Value Targeting task force, which is charged with identifying, capturing or killing terrorist suspects in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

His account is bolstered by top-secret NSA documents previously provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden. It is also supported by a former drone sensor operator with the U.S. Air Force, Brandon Bryant, who has become an outspoken critic of the lethal operations in which he was directly involved in Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen.

In one tactic, the NSA “geolocates” the SIM card or handset of a suspected terrorist’s mobile phone, enabling the CIA and U.S. military to conduct night raids and drone strikes to kill or capture the individual in possession of the device.

The former JSOC drone operator is adamant that the technology has been responsible for taking out terrorists and networks of people facilitating improvised explosive device attacks against U.S. forces in Afghanistan. But he also states that innocent people have “absolutely” been killed as a result of the NSA’s increasing reliance on the surveillance tactic.

One problem, he explains, is that targets are increasingly aware of the NSA’s reliance on geolocating, and have moved to thwart the tactic. Some have as many as 16 different SIM cards associated with their identity within the High Value Target system. 

Others, unaware that their mobile phone is being targeted, lend their phone, with the SIM card in it, to friends, children, spouses and family members.

Some top Taliban leaders, knowing of the NSA’s targeting method, have purposely and randomly distributed SIM cards among their units in order to elude their trackers. 

“They would do things like go to meetings, take all their SIM cards out, put them in a bag, mix them up, and everybody gets a different SIM card when they leave,” the former drone operator says. “That’s how they confuse us.”     Read More:

It's A Violation Guys...

A US predator unmanned drone armed with a
missile stands on the tarmac of Kandahar military airport.
Photograph: Massoud HossainiAFP/Getty

A United Nations investigation has so far identified 33 drone strikes around the world that have resulted in civilian casualties and may have violated international humanitarian law.

The report by the UN's special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, Ben Emmerson QC, calls on the US to declassify information about operations coordinated by the CIA and clarify its positon on the legality of unmanned aerial attacks.

Published ahead of a debate on the use of remotely piloted aircraft, at the UN general assembly in New York next Friday, the 22-page document examines incidents in Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Pakistan and Gaza.

It has been published to coincide with a related report released earlier on Thursday by Professor Christof Heyns, the UN's special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, which warned that the technology was being misused as a form of "global policing".

Emmerson, who traveled to Islamabad for his investigation, said the Pakistan ministry of foreign affairs has records of as many as 330 drone strikes in the country's north-western tribal areas since 2004. Up to 2,200 people have been killed – of whom at least 400 were civilians – according to the Pakistan government.

In Yemen, Emmerson's report says that as many as 58 civilians are thought to have been killed in attacks by UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles). 

"While the fact that civilians have been killed or injured does not necessarily point to a violation of international humanitarian law, it undoubtedly raises issues of accountability and transparency," the study notes.

Reaper UAVs, used by the RAF in Afghanistan, have a range of 3,700 miles (5,900 km), a maximum airspeed of 250 knots and can ascend to 15,300 meters (50,000 feet), the document explains. Their missions can last up to 18 hours.

The Reaper carries three cameras as well as laser-guided bombs. Three communication networks relay information between the RAF ground station in the UK and the UAV: 

"a secure internet-based chat function, a secure radio routed via satellite and a secure telephone system".  

Read more…  

More and More Drones

Accra, Ghana:  Blue-helmeted United Nations peacekeepers deployed in African countries may soon have a new tool in their arsenal: the surveillance drone.

Drones are heading to eastern Congo as part of an intervention force to root out the rebel groups that have destabilized the region for years. Meanwhile, the UN is mulling the idea of unarmed drones sent to Ivory Coast as the country recovers from nearly a decade of civil unrest. 

 

Experts say unarmed drones could give often-beleaguered peacekeepers an edge in missions where they can be outfoxed by guerrillas, who often have greater numbers and more local knowledge than UN forces possess.  

“It’s an essential tool that’s ideal for many missions,” says Walter Dorn, a professor at the Royal Military College of Canada and a former consultant to the UN.

Already officials are looking at whether drones may be useful for peacekeeping in South Sudan, he says. “It can also be very valuable if you’re sending out a patrol to have a UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] in advance so you can tell the conditions of the road, if bridges are washed out, or even if there are ambushes on the road.”

In Ivory Coast, militants loyal to former President Laurent Gbagbo are using the dense forest along the country’s border with Liberia to hide out and stage attacks. Peacekeepers often show up at the sites of these attacks too late, or are victims themselves. Seven blue helmets from Niger were killed last June in an attack blamed on the militants.

In a report sent in March to the Security Council, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon proposed sending drones to Ivory Coast even as he planned to pull out several hundred blue helmets.

The secretary-general also proposed the deployment of drones during the planning stages of the Congo intervention force.

 

The force’s conception came after the M23 rebel movement’s takeover of the provincial capital, Goma. Peacekeepers initially fought back against the rebels but later retreated.

“In the DRC [Congo], the UN has been condemned on numerous occasions for not knowing when rebels were attacking civilians (even, sometimes, a few kilometers from UN camps),” writes Lise Morje Howard, an expert on peacekeeping at Georgetown University, in an e-mail.

“In the regional neighborhoods of the DRC and Cote d'Ivoire [Ivory Coast], war spreads across borders like a disease. The ability to monitor borders and conflict areas from the air could very well help stem the spread of war,” she added. 

The UN has lacked a reliable surveillance strategy since the days of the Rwanda genocide in 1994, Dr. Howard says. The general in charge of UN troops during the genocide lamented that he had no idea what was going on in much of the country during the slaughter.

Drones could help solve that.

“They can just stay in the air for a long time. They can cover a lot of distance, and remain on station possibly tens of hours,” says Douglas Barrie, a military aerospace analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. “In the UN context, I would imagine those being a particular attraction.”

Robot Wars

Google's Eric Schmidt

The head of Google has warned drone technology proves a serious danger to global security and privacy unless an international treaty is put into place controlling the technology fast.

Eric Schmidt today said that the technology for armed unmanned planes will soon pass into the hands of terrorists posing huge security concerns across the globe.

He also said that ever expanding drone technology is making smaller and cheaper models, including nano-drones, which could be used by nosy neighbors spying on each other in a dispute.

'You're having a dispute with you neighbor,' he told The Guardian. 'How would you feel if your neighbor went over and bought a commercial observation drone that they can launch from their back yard. It just flies over your house all day. How would you feel about it?'

On Thursday, Idaho's Republican governor signed a law restricting the use of such pilot-less aircraft by police and other public agencies in a bid to protect privacy rights.

The state now requires law enforcement to obtain warrants to collect evidence using drones following in the footsteps of Virginia, which also introduced such a measure.

'We're trying to prevent high-tech window-peeping,' Idaho Senate Assistant Majority Leader Chuck Winder, sponsor of the measure told Reuters.

Law enforcement agencies have been known to use small drones, which cost as little as $30,000, to locate marijuana farms and track fugitives.

Schmidt also warned that deadly armed drones could soon be used by terrorists following the proliferation of state drone strikes over recent years.

'I'm not going to pass judgement on whether armies should exist, but I would prefer to not spread and democratize the ability to  fight war to every single human being,' he said.

'It's got to be regulated. It's one thing for governments, who have some legitimacy in what they're doing, but have other people doing it...It's not going to happen.'

He added that drone technology will become more and more normalized part of warfare.

'It's probable that robotics becomes a significant component of nation state warfare,' he told the newspaper.      Read more: