DailyDirt: Modern Swords To Plowshares

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

As technology advances, it's increasingly obvious that almost any piece of hardware can be used as a weapon, if put in the wrong hands. We can't exactly ban people from brewing their own beer at home because it's possible that they could also incubate a bioweapon with the same equipment. But how about re-purposing weapons for peaceful missions? NASA has inherited a couple pretty nice spy telescopes, and there could be plenty of other scientific uses for certain military hardware.

• A Chinese guided rocket named the SY-400 (aka the Heavy Sword) was fired into a typhoon -- for science. This shot didn't deliver an explosive payload, but a scientific one filled with sensors to collect atmospheric data. [url]
• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) gets the same very bad suggestion a LOT, so it has publicly posted its official answer. The tl;dr version -- it is a VERY bad idea to try to stop a hurricane with a nuclear bomb. The slightly longer answer: the amount of energy needed to stop a hurricane is far greater than any weapon at our disposal; plus, the nuclear fallout would be insanely bad for everyone and everything. [url]
• NASA uses Global Hawk unmanned aircraft to study various atmospheric phenomena. Drones can fly day and night to study hurricanes, and NASA operates a variety of aircraft equipped for scientific missions. [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: drones, global hawk, hurricanes, military hardware, missiles, nuclear bomb, rocket, sy-400, typhoon, weapons, weather
Companies: nasa, noaa

Reports: Department Of Transportation To Require All Drones Be Registered

from the permission-based-innovation dept

We've been waiting forever for the FAA to finally come up with some sort of rules around public drone use in the US. Earlier this month we noted that the FAA had simply ignored the mandated deadline to put rules in place. And in the few cases where the FAA has said stuff, it's been ridiculous or just confusing.

However, reports are emerging that on Monday the Department of Transportation (which the FAA is a part of) will finally release some drone rules... and it's going to include the requirement that all drone purchases be registered with the government. Apparently this is separate from the FAA's rules, which still may not show up for a few years. While the details will matter, if the reports are accurate, that seems like a ridiculous, bureaucratic and cumbersome path to go down. While there are some fear mongering reports about errant drones flying in places they shouldn't, the vast majority of private drone use is not at all problematic. Demanding registration for every single drone, even the personal hobbyist kind, would seem like massive overkill that would likely decrease the usefulness and innovation in a very important emerging field of innovation. Also, it's not at all clear what this means for people who build their own drones (or want to).

At best, it will only serve to drive more of the best innovation out of the US, rather than enabling it to happen here. I'm sure, in typical regulator-think, the bureaucrats assume this is no big deal, because "it's just a registration," but it's still a form of friction that makes it more difficult and annoying to own drones, at a time when the market and the uses of the devices is still growing. I have no problem with using the law to go after people who use drones for illegal purposes in some way, but a registration-first system seems to assume that many uses will be illegal, and if they aren't now, it makes it much easier to criminalize lots of different uses.

Filed Under: department of transportation, dot, drones, faa, registration, regulations

Leaked Documents Show US Drone Killings Racking Up Collateral Damage, Damaging Future Intelligence Efforts

from the death-from-above dept

The Intercept has just published an incredible article (in five parts) on the United States' drone-strike programs. Based on documents handed over by yet another leaker, the article contains some very disturbing information about the CIA's targeted killing activities -- including the fact that targeted killings are rarely well-targeted.

To begin with, there's the problem of distance. The drone strikes in Yemen and Somalia attack targets much further away than those targeted in the Iraq and Afghanistan. Because strikes routinely occur on the outer limits of the Predator drones' range (up to ~1000km), surveillance is abandoned in favor of attacks. When a drone strike does occur, it usually utilizes multiple drones to ensure the target has been killed (the "Find, Fix and Finish" or "F3" cited in the documents). Because of this, lots of "blinking" occurs (gaps in surveillance coverage) that snowballs into future intel gaps that make other "targeted" strikes even less targeted.

Added to this is the fact that blowing someone up doesn't leave much for analysts to sort through.

Deadly strikes thus truncate the find, fix, finish cycle without exploitation and analysis — precisely the components that were lacking in the drone campaign waged in East Africa and Yemen. That shortfall points to one of the contradictions at the heart of the drone program in general: Assassinations are intelligence dead ends.

The ISR study shows that after a “kill operation” there is typically nobody on the ground to collect written material or laptops in the target’s house, or the phone on his body, or capture suspects and ask questions. Yet collection of on-the-ground intelligence of that sort — referred to as DOMEX, for “document and media exploitation,” and TIR, for “tactical interrogation report” — is invaluable for identifying future targets.

Stating that 75 percent of operations in the region were strikes, and noting that “kill operations significantly reduce the intelligence available from detainees and captured material,” the study recommended an expansion of “capture finishes via host-nation partners for more ‘finish-derived’ intelligence.”

The "host-nation partners" are also part of the problem. They have their own needs and desires and aren't above having the CIA do their dirty work for them.

In 2011, for example, U.S. officials told the Wall Street Journal that they had killed a local governor because Yemeni officials didn’t tell them he was present at a gathering of al Qaeda figures. “We think we got played,” one official said.

Even in Afghanistan, where surveillance coverage was better and signals intelligence stronger, drone strikes still resulted in the deaths of several non-targets.

[D]ocuments detailing a special operations campaign in northeastern Afghanistan, Operation Haymaker, show that between January 2012 and February 2013, U.S. special operations airstrikes killed more than 200 people. Of those, only 35 were the intended targets. During one five-month period of the operation, according to the documents, nearly 90 percent of the people killed in airstrikes were not the intended targets.

The US government marginalizes this collateral damage by referring to nearly everyone it kills -- targeted or not -- as "combatants," "military-aged males," or simply "enemies killed in action." Very rarely has it been forced to confront the reality of its inaccurate attacks.

But the CIA is sold on the program and it has been for years. Drone strikes may cause a lot of collateral damage and are prone to manipulation by local governments, but the US considers this program to be the most "efficient" way to "eliminate" terrorist threats. It has almost completely eradicated an essential component of its counterterrorism efforts, though. Dead men provide no HUMINT. At one time, capturing suspected terrorists used to be part of the equation. That's no longer the case.

“The drone campaign right now really is only about killing. When you hear the phrase ‘capture/kill,’ capture is actually a misnomer. In the drone strategy that we have, ‘capture’ is a lower case ‘c.’ We don’t capture people anymore,” Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told The Intercept. “Our entire Middle East policy seems to be based on firing drones. That’s what this administration decided to do in its counterterrorism campaign. They’re enamored by the ability of special operations and the CIA to find a guy in the middle of the desert in some shitty little village and drop a bomb on his head and kill him.”

Surveillance now appears to be used mainly for targeting, rather than intelligence. Data and communications acquired by the NSA feeds into drone strike operations -- not to provide information on potential attacks -- but to locate targets. Money and man-hours are poured into surveillance, only to have a possible source of future intel killed off, rather than made use of.

Take the case of Bilal er-Berjawi, known to the US government as "Objective Peckham." British and US intelligence surveilled Berjawi for six years, without ever making a serious move to "capture" him. Once it was decided he was supplying terrorists with weapons and money, the UK government stripped him of his citizenship and a CIA drone strike in Somalia took his life.

The entire Intercept piece is more than "worth reading." It's an essential, damning look at a program the US government has long touted as a success. The leaked documents suggest otherwise. Instead, they point towards an "extrajudicial killing" regime that sanitizes the carnage and deprives collateral damage of its humanity. While the program may have eliminated a few terrorism suspects, the program is predicated on the notion that only those who present an "immediate threat" will be killed. As we can see from the case of Berjawi, this "immediate" threat lasted more than six years and included multiple, unchallenged reentries to the UK.

This is part of who we are as a country: judge, jury and executioner, divorced from the humanity at the other end of the drone strikes by lines of code and thousands of miles.

Filed Under: drone strikes, drones, extrajudicial killing, intelligence, killing, leak, targeted assassination

DailyDirt: Say Cheese... All The Time

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Cameras are everywhere now. That's not really a surprise to anyone. Camera technology has vastly improved and gotten a lot cheaper, and sharing and storing photos is incredibly easy and cheap, too. So what's left for cameras to do? Plenty. There are some innovative new kinds of cameras, like the Lytro which lets you re-focus shots after you've taken them (instead of before). We've also pointed out lensless cameras, single pixel cameras, plenoptic cameras, panoramic cameras... and there seems to be no shortage of cameras and camera accessories on the way.

• DJI, the Chinese drone manufacturer, is selling a camera for consumers that sits on a gimbal so that capturing smooth video shots is easy. GoPro has a drone, so it makes sense for drone makers to go after high-end cameras. Who wants a selfie stick anymore? [url]
• The Light L16 combines sixteen cameras in a single device, along with multiple lenses with different focal lengths and an infrared-laser range finder. The result is 52-megapixel images that can be taken under challenging low-light conditions and post-processed endlessly. [url]
• For folks who don't want to give up their DSLR -- there's an attachment called the KaleidoCamera that sits between a camera body and a traditional lens. Maybe people should just get used to buying new cameras all the time, instead of trying to adapt new tech onto their old kit -- or maybe someone will finally perfect the digital film cartridge adapter. [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: camera gear, cameras, digipod, drones, dslr, kaleidocamera, l16, photography, sensors
Companies: gopro, light, lytro

FAA Blows Past Mandated Deadline For Drone Regulation Rules

from the given-its-past-rulings,-perhaps-this-isn't-a-bad-thing... dept

Jason Koebel of Vice reports the FAA has missed its deadline to deliver a coherent policy on drone usage.

When Congress passed the FAA Modernization Act in 2012, it gave the agency until September 30, 2015 to fully regulate commercial drones for use in the United States. Well, it's October 1, and we're left with a patchwork of regulatory band-aids, quasi-legal "guidelines," and a small drone rule that still hasn't gone into effect yet.

This should come as no surprise. The FAA seems to be operating from the brainstem when it comes to regulating private drone use. Its previous rulings have been all over the place. On one hand, it recognizes the problems leaving this completely unregulated would pose. On the other, it seems unable to prevent itself from handing down horribly inconsistent rules.

Even Congress has recognized the FAA is unlikely to come up with a final set of drone rules any time soon.

As early as May 2014, Congress acknowledged that the agency would probably miss this deadline.

In a report published then, lawmakers noted that they were "concerned that the FAA may not be well positioned to manage effectively the introduction of [drones] in the United States" and specifically noted that a missed deadline was likely.

The FAA honestly doesn't seem to know what it wants, at least not in terms of long-term guidance. Its stabs at rulemaking have been mostly on-the-spot determinations, each one more contradictory than the last. In 2014, it said delivering the game ball for kickoff at a college football game was not permitted, supposedly because it was "commercial use." Then it turned around and approved drone-mounted cameras for use by movie studios, something entirely commercial.

Here's a quick visual representation of how screwed up the drone rulemaking process is.

As of 2012, the FAA still forbade "commerical use" of drones. Almost two years later, another regulatory agency (the National Transportation Safety Board) pointed out that the FAA had -- nearly three decades earlier -- exempted model planes from its regulatory control. Seeing model planes as analagous to private (i.e., non-government) drones, the NTSB's administrative judge basically said the FAA can't claim control over any and all flying objects. Tacocopters were back in business. At the center of its decision was the fact that the FAA had no active policy on drone use. Its assertions that it should be able to regulate these flights was based on nothing more than the feeling it should be able to do this and an internal memo that had never made its way into the FAA's official policies.

Considering the ubiquity of the technology, it's hugely irresponsible for the FAA to handle this on a case-by-case basis, especially when this process results so often in contradictory rulings. The FAA is correct to err on the side of caution, but it seems unable to see past the dangers drones might pose to other air traffic. In doing so, it has turned its rulemaking process into the worst combination of immobilization and overreactions -- less of a regulatory agency than a catatonic being that responds quickly and violently to certain stimuli. There appears to be little rational thought guiding the process.

While its recent efforts have clarified at least some of the parameters governing private drone use, the rules are still severely limiting. That's its overabundance of caution at work. The FAA certainly doesn't want to be seen as somehow allowing the sort of actions that have given private drone use a public image problem -- like interfering with airborne firefighting operations… or being used as high-flying tools for vandalism.

What is clear is that Congress won't be pushing the FAA towards better rulemaking or holding anyone accountable for its lack of timely rulings. By the time the FAA ever gets around to issuing comprehensive guidelines, they'll already be out of date.

Filed Under: drones, faa, innovation, regulations

Colombia Shows How Not To Regulate Drones

from the pedestrian-waving-a-red-flag dept

As a growing number of Techdirt posts on the subject indicate, drones are fast entering the mainstream. But as they become more common, and as more mishaps involving them inevitably occur, so the calls for government regulation grow louder. Fortunately for the rest of us, Colombia has stepped forward to show us some of the things not to do, as a post on PetaPixel makes clear. The new drone regulations are written in Spanish, not unreasonably, but Pablo Castro has put together a useful summary, singling out four key aspects that give a feel for the general approach.

The first is that drone operators are required to take a training course. Fair enough, you might think, but there are couple of problems with the idea:

[the course] must be taken at an aeronautics school authorised by the Aeronáutica Civil, and to date none has been authorised to teach such courses.

Also, should they be authorised, several of these schools have confirmed these courses will cost at least $5,000 USD. Oh, and by law they must be renewed every six months.

Then, of course there's the mandatory insurance. Again, that would be a reasonable requirement were it not for the following:

no Colombian insurance company offers such coverage for drones at the time of writing this article.

Point three is more subtle:

we must not fly within a 5km radius of any airport. However, we must make sure we establish radio communication with the nearest airport control tower before and during every flight.

Yes, that’s correct: all drone operators must own radios with ranges upwards of 5km and capable of the frequencies airports use, the cheapest of which cost more than a DJI Phantom and require a license to operate legally.

The final aspect is that not only must drone operators submit flights plans to the relevant authorities 15 days before they carry them out, but they must also justify why the job can't be done by conventional aircraft. As Castro remarks:

This last point contains an obvious hint as to why the Aeronáutica Civil has taken such a drastic stance on drones. It turns out this entity is tightly connected to the handful of aviation companies that used to make thousands of dollars on every flight involving aerial photography, videography, and the like, but with the widespread use of drones, their precious cash cow is dying. So unsurprisingly, corruption is the real motivation behind this new law, not the safety of our citizens.

And if corruption is not an issue, lobbying most certainly will be. As drones become more common and more capable, we can doubtless expect to hear calls for regulations restricting them in various ways. The justification may be "safety" or "national security", but in many cases, the real reason will be the fears of the traditional aviation companies that they are about to be replaced by much-cheaper drone-based services.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: colombia, drones, regulations, uavs

DailyDirt: Flying Contraptions

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Flying machines have been with us now for a little over 100 years. We still don't have flying cars clogging up the skies, but that's probably not such a bad thing. However, we still have a bunch of folks trying to improve upon flying in various ways. All kinds of quadcopters appear to be the trendy way to get things in the air nowadays, but we still have quite a ways to go before we're flying as gracefully as birds.

• Omni Hoverboards has set a world record for a functioning hoverboard: the longest distance for a person to travel on one. (#SYTL) This hoverboard looks like it's just two quadcopters stuck together so a person can stand on top of them, and it's pretty loud. On the plus side, it works on water, and it doesn't require liquid nitrogen or superconducting magnets. But it only goes about 900 feet or so, and drops somewhat abruptly. [url]
• The Black Knight Transformer is a truck-helicopter hybrid vehicle that doesn't look like an Autobot or a Decepticon at all. This vehicle can be remotely piloted, and it only seems to fly a few feet off the ground. Someday, it might be able to carry a bunch of troops and/or gear to difficult-to-reach locations, but for now, it doesn't look like an incredibly reliable means of transportation. [url]
• The Solar Impulse 2 is the first solar-powered plane that can fly continuously, day or night... for about 120 hours. This plane is going to try to circumnavigate the globe, but its batteries overheated on a flight from Japan to Hawaii. It also only fits one pilot, but we'll probably see a drone version of this (without a pilot on board at all) serving wireless internet someday soon. [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: airplanes, black knight transformer, drones, flying machines, helicopter, hoverboard, quadcopter, solar impulse 2, transportation

US Counterterrorism Official Says US Is 'The Angel Of Death' And Should Be Target Killing ISIS Tweeters

from the winning-hearts-and-minds dept

A few weeks ago there was a fair bit of controversy after a US drone-strike killed an ISIS "hacker" who was, among other things, popular on Twitter. While US officials tried to paint him as a much bigger deal behind the scenes, some are now admitting that he was just noisy online. ABC News is reporting on the supposed internal debate among US counterterrorism officials concerning how to best deal with ISIS Twitter users. Some are arguing that these guys are small time annoyances, while others are arguing that we should just straight up kill ISIS tweeters. This next quote is fairly incredible.

“We are the angel of death. This war is a propaganda war too. Why only limit it to military leaders? Should we be ignoring the propagandists that speak English and are tech savvy who know how to reach westerners?” a senior counter-terrorism official knowledgeable about the counter-ISIS strategy told ABC News. “I don't see why you would want to curtail either targeting strategy. This is also a war of ideas.”

And if you're running a propaganda war, do you really think the best strategy is to kill people for speaking their minds? That doesn't convince anyone to change the way they're thinking. It just radicalizes more people. Having US officials state "we are the angel of death" doesn't project anything other than pure bloodlust among US officials. It suggests a war where at least some US officials think the way to deal with ISIS is to stoop to their level -- by mindlessly killing people we don't agree with and assuming it's "fair game" so long as they've mouthed off online.

As for Junaid Hussain, the guy killed in that drone strike, the report confirms what we'd heard from a bunch of people: despite what US officials put out in the news about his death, the reality was he was just a guy with a Twitter account who was loud:

“Junaid Hussain was a Twitter noisemaker and a hack hacker. He wasn't a first disseminator on anything important, as far as I can tell. Nothing at all in his profile leads me to think he'd be close to the inner circle of leadership,” said “ISIS: The State of Terror” author J.M. Berger, who tracks jihadists online.

In the article, those defending killing ISIS tweeters claim that it makes sense because they believe that it somehow stops the recruitment of English-speaking individuals into ISIS:

“So the English-speaking ISIS guy that is removed, in a drone strike for example, could equal a thousand potential fighters who never self-radicalize and leave home,” said Anderson, who was a top aide and advisor to the current and former Secretaries of Defense.

Except there's an implicit assumption in there: that these Twitter accounts are successfully recruiting members of ISIS by the thousands. As we've pointed out before, the evidence suggests that, while the internet may play a part in radicalizing some individuals, it's likely a fairly small part. Your local (in person) social network is a much, much bigger factor, and almost no one is simply becoming radicalized because they started to follow an ISIS person online.

Either way, it's difficult to see how deciding to just start killing off people for being mouthy online is going to convince anyone who hates the US that they're somehow on the wrong track. It seems like it will only confirm their preheld opinions. But, you know, the "angel of death" apparently doesn't give a shit:

“Shoot your mouth off all you want. Eventually we are going to kill you,” the senior counter-terrorism official said.

I can't see how that makes us any safer. It seems like quite the opposite is likely.

Filed Under: counterterrorism, drones, extrajudicial killing, isis, propaganda, targets, tweets

DailyDirt: Our Crazy Drone-Filled World

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

If you haven't seen any tiny remote-controlled quadcopters circling in the air, you might need to get out a bit more. Maybe we shouldn't get too paranoid about these things, thinking they're black helicopters for the 21st century, but if you hear constant artificial buzzing noises, perhaps you should start gearing up to defend your home. Drones could be delivering your pizza for dinner someday, but there are all kinds of uses for this technology.

• If you combined enough tiny drone engines together, could you build a 1-man helicopter? Apparently, yes. But it'll only fly for a few minutes and doesn't get too far off the ground. It also vaguely looks like a contraption from the early 1900s, and this isn't the first multi-copter ever flown that we've seen. [url]
• Drones can kill a lot of stuff, but how about mosquitoes? Spraying mosquito larvae from quadcopter drones to prevent mosquito growth will be tested this year in Florida -- with approval from the FAA. [url]
• Some folks don't want drones flying all over the place, and Boeing has a laser cannon just for them. Boeing's Compact Laser Weapon System can shoot down small aircraft from a pretty good distance (as long as you can see your target with binoculars), and it only takes a couple of seconds to set a drone on fire. It's probably a bit more expensive than a shotgun filled with birdshot, but it's a lot more accurate and cool. [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: aircraft, compact laser weapon system, drones, flying car, helicopter, laser cannon, mosquitoes, multi-copter, personal mobility, weapons
Companies: boeing, faa

DailyDirt: Playing Nice With Others, While Piloting Drones

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Drones are becoming more common and more useful all the time, and at the same time, these devices are also getting to be more of a nuisance/threat for air traffic and important (sometimes life-saving) activities. Firefighters in helicopters are grounded when drones could potentially interfere with their work because it's a safety hazard to the helicopter and its passengers. The FAA hasn't yet come up with a complete set of drone-specific regulations, so for now, there's a bit of legal limbo and some strange rules to follow that don't always make sense.

• The quickest way to get a drone pilot license is to learn how to fly a hot air balloon first? A legal loophole for drone licensing allows aspiring commercial drone operators to satisfy the pilot license requirement with relatively cheap ($5000 or so) lessons for hot air ballooning for just a few weeks. The education isn't totally useless, but perhaps more drone-specific requirements would make more sense in the future. [url]
• The PowerUp 3.0 paper airplane is the first FAA-approved powered paper airplane to fly commercially in US airspace This is a toy that you can buy now (in our deals store, to help us out), but if you want to use it for commercial purposes, maybe check out some hot air ballooning lessons, too. [url]
• The Los Angeles Police Department was distracted by a hobbyist drone operator while searching for a suspect by helicopter. This hobbyist drone was flown within 50 feet of a LAPD helicopter, and this probably won't be the last time a drone will clash with police authorities. [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: air traffic, drones, helicopters, hot air balloons, lapd, paper airplane, pilot, pilot license, powerup, regulations