Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones

dronexl.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 334 posts

Re: Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones

#311

Post by pj_mukh »

appplication wrote: post #281
pj_mukh wrote: post #111

As someone who works in this space, the headline is a bit of a stretch. The overlap in the locations of Pokemon Go Player data and any active Drone heavy theaters of war is a tiny sliver (or zero?). The military contractor (Vantar/Maxar) in question basically admits so but just "reserves the right" to use the data which is the political battle line ala Claude and DoD. This is mostly an ideological battle.

Interestingly, I have some weirdly relevant direct experience to share here. Pokémon Go was released at the beginning of July 2016. A week later, the Air Force kicked off its Red Flag exercise in Nellis AFB outside of Vegas. For the several thousand active duty folks participating, this is a month-long TDY from their normal base to Vegas. The premise is a large-scale war simulation, and it encompasses essentially all…

Pokémon Go being a military base opsec psyop is certainly a possibility. Just not what the original article is talking about.

Re: Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones

#312

Post by [deleted] »

ranger207 wrote: post #302
john_strinlai wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

military folk love their acronyms! i had no idea what "TDY" was. for others like me who may not know their military acronyms: AFB = air force base TDY = temporary duty SCIF = sensitive compartmented information facility OPSEC = operational security

temporarily deployed yonder

[deleted]

Re: Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones

#313

Post by fragmede »

maratc wrote: post #229
krunck wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“We just launch it and we know everything will be dead – everything that will be found there in this particular area will be dead,” says Kokhanovskyy. “There is no connection to the drone at all, you cannot see the video, nothing… Everything it sees will be killed.” Because there are never any civilians caught in the middle of two warring armies, right? I think the ICC will be getting real busy soon.

> ICC will be getting real busy soon How likely is your opinion to change in the light of the information that, according to the article, it's Ukraine who uses these drones?

A war crime's a war crime. Doesn't matter if the Ukrainians did it, or the Russians, or Palestinians or Israelis. Or The UN or USA or NATO or Canadians. The only time a war crime's not a war crime is if it's a terrorist group doing it, because then it's terrorism instead of a war crime.

Re: Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones

#314

Post by Muromec »

hgoel wrote: post #273
Muromec wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to kill some redacted that are sitting in a trench inside the killzone but don't want to risk your own life, the ground drone with a machine gun (remote operated as of now) goes there. It was April this year when the news were saying a position was taken over by remote drones alone. With news being Ukrainian propaganda you can of course take it with a grain of salt, but it's probably at least somewhat tru…

I thought that was still human-in-the-loop? The drone's onboard computing identifies a potential target from a distance such that EW isn't effective, the human confirms it, and the drone moves in closer to attack. At this point jamming doesn't matter because the drone already has its orders.

The last piece I heard was talking about no human in the loop for anti-drone turrets because it hinges on sub second reaction time which human operator can not deliver.

With drones themselves receiving targeting it's different so at least for some time it will have the operator in the loop. But if the operator again becomes the bottleneck due to operator to drone ratio (drone production doubles every N months, while conscription ... lets just say doesnt), it will go out of the window really fast. It will also more consistently target specific body parts to juice that wounded to killed ratio.

An assumption that there is some distance from which you still see the **, but don't get affected by jamming is not the strongest one too.

Re: Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones

#315

Post by Muromec »

fragmede wrote: post #313
maratc wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ICC will be getting real busy soon How likely is your opinion to change in the light of the information that, according to the article, it's Ukraine who uses these drones?

A war crime's a war crime. Doesn't matter if the Ukrainians did it, or the Russians, or Palestinians or Israelis. Or The UN or USA or NATO or Canadians. The only time a war crime's not a war crime is if it's a terrorist group doing it, because then it's terrorism instead of a war crime.

Terrorist is a fancy word for an enemy combatant that you don't like so much they don't get the POW status.

Re: Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones

#316

Post by dragonwriter »

fragmede wrote: post #313
maratc wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ICC will be getting real busy soon How likely is your opinion to change in the light of the information that, according to the article, it's Ukraine who uses these drones?

A war crime's a war crime. Doesn't matter if the Ukrainians did it, or the Russians, or Palestinians or Israelis. Or The UN or USA or NATO or Canadians. The only time a war crime's not a war crime is if it's a terrorist group doing it, because then it's terrorism instead of a war crime.

"Terrorism” and "war crimes” are overlapping categories, and being done by something independently defined as a “terrorist group” isn’t what defines something as “terrorism”, rather doing terrorism is what makes a group a terrorist group.

Re: Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones

#317

Post by Muromec »

tpolm wrote: post #274
krunck wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“We just launch it and we know everything will be dead – everything that will be found there in this particular area will be dead,” says Kokhanovskyy. “There is no connection to the drone at all, you cannot see the video, nothing… Everything it sees will be killed.” Because there are never any civilians caught in the middle of two warring armies, right? I think the ICC will be getting real busy soon.

“We just launch it and we know everything will be dead – everything that will be found there in this particular area will be dead,” says Kokhanovskyy. Everything! Everything! Like all the deer, all the rabbits, all the decoys! Obviously we trust Kokhanovskyy

if there is no video with jamming artifacts and banging music, it doesn't count

Re: Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones

#318

Post by ibizaman »

lmf4lol wrote: post #20

And here I am, trying to make our product as privacy friendly as possible. Trying to follow GDPR and the AI act. Trying to respect my users.. And then there are those guys... and they make billions, by giving a flying f*ck about ethics or what so ever. And NO ONE will hold them accountable. NO ONE! Because either they lack the power, or they are bought and in it on the scheme. I accept that the world is like that. Ju…

Keep the good work! I am betting also on making a product that respects its users.

Re: Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones

#319

Post by bcantrill »

kaladin-jasnah wrote: post #210
l23k4 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Niantics founder has CIA roots This is not at all an honest way of saying "Niantics founder raised money from In-Q-Tel"

Isn't Oxide Computer also funded by In-Q-Tel?

We have taken funding from In-Q-Tel, yes. The idea that taking funding from IQT amounts to "CIA roots" is preposterous: aside from the fact that IQT writes very small checks (And as long as I'm elaborating on IQT, let me add that they have been a terrific partner for us -- and we have found the individuals we have worked with there to be of exceptionally high character.

Re: Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones

#320

Post by kaladin-jasnah »

bcantrill wrote: post #319
kaladin-jasnah wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Oxide Computer also funded by In-Q-Tel?

We have taken funding from In-Q-Tel, yes. The idea that taking funding from IQT amounts to "CIA roots" is preposterous: aside from the fact that IQT writes very small checks ( And as long as I'm elaborating on IQT, let me add that they have been a terrific partner for us -- and we have found the individuals we have worked with there to be of exceptionally high character.

Wow, I didn't expect to get a reply from you! I appreciate the transparency. Stuff like this somehow makes Oxide a desirable place to work to me!
Post reply on HN