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Drone believed to have hit British Airways flight 'may have been a plastic bag'

telegraph.co.uk

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Re: Drone believed to have hit British Airways flight 'may have been a plastic bag'

#41

Post by setra »

cpncrunch wrote: post #24
Zigurd wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As soon as drones are required to have geofencing, you will find they become useless for monitoring the police, factory farms, pollution, "black" sites, etc. Humans die because of those things, while no practical benefit to aviation safety has been proven. And yeah, controlled airspace has been used to prevent monitoring of police, in Ferguson, for example.

Another slippery slope argument. We're talking purely about controlled airspace here. Those things you mention have never been controlled airspace.

In general the slippery slope is not actually a fallacy.

Re: Drone believed to have hit British Airways flight 'may have been a plastic bag'

#42

Post by jobu »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #27

Slightly misleading headline. Basically they haven't confirmed it's a drone so they can't rule anything out, or as he puts it "it could have been a plastic bag or something". They don't seem to have any evidence suggesting it's a plastic bag and not a drone (and vice versa).

It's unclear to me why they think it was a drone or a bag instead of a bird.

This whole thing seems overblown. They have no idea what they hit, and it didn't cause any damage to the plane.

Re: Drone believed to have hit British Airways flight 'may have been a plastic bag'

#43

Post by pmarreck »

hirsin wrote: post #33
Splines wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a danger to this though; if drone pilots are universally expected to be warned when they fly in dangerous areas, then pilots will start flying "to the edge" and expect the technology to always keep them in line. I would be surprised if restricted areas were stable enough that drones could store a database of no-go areas and keep it up to date easily. It would be more straightforward to set clear policy and pr…

That's actually good precedent to bring up - has e.g. Google Maps or more infamously, Apple Maps, ever been held liable for bad directions? I believe it's still seen as the end user's responsibility to obey the laws, especially when the safeguards fail.

Someone got killed recently because Waze took them to a same-named street but in a bad neighborhood in Brazil

Re: Drone believed to have hit British Airways flight 'may have been a plastic bag'

#44

Post by EdHominem »

amelius wrote: post #23
cpncrunch wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>First you must put a GPS in each device A gps costs under $1 today: http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/gps-chip-price.html >Also, the forbidden areas may vary It's mostly airports that we need to worry about, and they don't tend to change much. Sure, TMA boundaries might vary occasionally, but that's not really much of a worry, because most drones won't be up at 1000+ ft.

What about its weight?

More importantly, what failure modes does it have? Do you have to have GPS lock to takeoff? What if you lose it while flying?

At DEFCON someone demonstrated dropping drones from the sky by spoofing GPS coordinates to inside an airport. Funny, but it guarantees I won't be buying one of them because of the potential for harm to my camera, etc.

Re: Drone believed to have hit British Airways flight 'may have been a plastic bag'

#45

Post by EdHominem »

blakeyrat wrote: post #32
ddispaltro wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah mission creep would be the best way to describe what I'd be afraid of with geofencing.

I'm not sure I agree with geofencing, but it's also true that drone operators appear to be, by and large, acting like complete jerks and someone needs to get the message across somehow.

A jerk owns a drone? Better pick on the non-jerks!

A bad guy used encryption? ...

Re: Drone believed to have hit British Airways flight 'may have been a plastic bag'

#46

Post by jdietrich »

cpncrunch wrote: post #24
Zigurd wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As soon as drones are required to have geofencing, you will find they become useless for monitoring the police, factory farms, pollution, "black" sites, etc. Humans die because of those things, while no practical benefit to aviation safety has been proven. And yeah, controlled airspace has been used to prevent monitoring of police, in Ferguson, for example.

Another slippery slope argument. We're talking purely about controlled airspace here. Those things you mention have never been controlled airspace.

British law is very restrictive on the use of camera-equipped UAVs. Without specific permission from the CAA, it is unlawful to use a small unmanned surveillance aircraft within 150 metres of "any congested area" or within 50 metres of "any vessel, vehicle or structure which is not under the control of the person in charge of the aircraft".

Re: Drone believed to have hit British Airways flight 'may have been a plastic bag'

#47

Post by lukeadams »

pmarreck wrote: post #43
hirsin wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually good precedent to bring up - has e.g. Google Maps or more infamously, Apple Maps, ever been held liable for bad directions? I believe it's still seen as the end user's responsibility to obey the laws, especially when the safeguards fail.

Someone got killed recently because Waze took them to a same-named street but in a bad neighborhood in Brazil

http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/05/americas/brazil-wrong-directio... seems to be the story you are referencing.

Re: Drone believed to have hit British Airways flight 'may have been a plastic bag'

#48

Post by EdHominem »

cpncrunch wrote: post #22
nitrogen wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're talking about voluntary geofencing here, by the companies themselves. Much as I like the idea of keeping drones away from planes, just look at how governments have abused other "voluntary" restriction systems. For example, ISPs install filters for ostensibly noble causes, then governments commandeer them for more questionable uses.

Sounds like a slippery slope argument. Which governments of civilized, democratic countries have commandeered ISP's filters for questionable uses? If you're talking about the UK porn filter, it is the other way around: government has instituted a law saying they have to do it. Even if it were a law, I don't see the issue that you are arguing. You're essentially saying "I don't want a law that says drones are banned b…

> Sounds like a slippery slope argument. [...] it is the other way around: government has instituted a law saying they have to do it.

Yeah, that's the point. When the technology has been demonstrated to work (even if badly) in some areas it's suddenly mandated in other areas.

Now we have a technology that was so-so at blocking unwanted porn being used for everything from catching pedophiles to checking for intel leaks. A false-positive in porn blocking was annoying, in pedo-detection it can ruin lives. Worse, when functioning properly it can prop up repressive regimes.

> Are you saying you don't want any laws at all, and people should just be able to do anything they want?

Is that the only choice? Egregious laws that harm innocents and don't actually solve the issue versus no law at all? Well in that case, it's clear. No law is better than being stuck with bad law that doesn't actually help...

But thankfully those aren't the only options. We can push back against bad laws (useless, abusive, etc) and accept the good ones.

> "I don't want a law that says drones are banned by default from controlled airspace, because the government might change it's mind and also ban drones from places that embarrass the government", which is just another slippery slope argument.

No, we don't want useless technological measures mandated that claim to block drones from airports, but fail to actually help in a real security context. Because those useless security rules have only one real purpose - banning civilians from inconvenient things.

Laws, like lines of code, have a distinct cost and we should only add the ones that will actually help.

Re: Drone believed to have hit British Airways flight 'may have been a plastic bag'

#49

Post by d33 »

gregmac wrote: post #39

Wow, this is an elected official? > Transport minister Robert Goodwill admitted authorities had not yet confirmed whether what struck the Airbus A320 > Mr Goodwill also dismissed calls for tighter rules on drone use to protect against terror threats insisting current rules governing drone use were strong enough. He said it would be much easier for terrorists to attack airports on the ground with rucksacks or car bomb…

Nonetheless, the amount of hype in the original news clearly show the state of paranoia the contemporary society is in.

Re: Drone believed to have hit British Airways flight 'may have been a plastic bag'

#50

Post by cpncrunch »

amelius wrote: post #23
cpncrunch wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>First you must put a GPS in each device A gps costs under $1 today: http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/gps-chip-price.html >Also, the forbidden areas may vary It's mostly airports that we need to worry about, and they don't tend to change much. Sure, TMA boundaries might vary occasionally, but that's not really much of a worry, because most drones won't be up at 1000+ ft.

What about its weight?

30g.

http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/wholesale-price-1575-4...

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