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Drone ‘Nightmare Scenario’ Now Has A Name: ARGUS

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Re: Drone ‘Nightmare Scenario’ Now Has A Name: ARGUS

#31

Post by alan_cx »

richardjordan wrote: post #11
jmeekr wrote: post #6

I'm trying to keep the Orwellian thoughts out of my head, but this skips a few steps of creepiness for me. Is this even deemed legal/illegal?

We live in a nation which likes civil rights in the abstract but not in the implementation. This causes us all to lose. A plurality exists to clamp down on many freedoms. Use cases to deny first amendment rights are popularized - heck our biggest media companies built on the back of the first amendment now wish to see it neutered. Gun rights folks want the Obama administration to pursue second amendment restrictions,…

Um, well, we know.

Well, I know. You know. Others seem to know. We are not special people with special knowledge. So we must presume every one, or at least a majority know. Unless of course we clever people want to label them ignorant, or what ever.

So, tell me, why are "we" voting for this?

At some point, those with the vote need to take some responsibility for what we are voting for, and stop blaming those we give a mandate to.

Re: Drone ‘Nightmare Scenario’ Now Has A Name: ARGUS

#32

Post by cromwellian »

The JSTARS aircraft which has been around for 20+ years is kind of interesting as a forerunner. It can track 600 ground targets (vehicles) over 50,000 sq km using radar. This was 20 years ago, and that is the unclassified portion. We don't really know how it's improved since then, or how many simultaneous targets it can actually track in 2012.

During the DC Sniper incident, they were debating posse comitatus and whether or not to bring one of these craft into action to track cars in the vicinity of a reported sniper attack.

Re: Drone ‘Nightmare Scenario’ Now Has A Name: ARGUS

#33

Post by alan_cx »

mc32 wrote: post #10
[deleted] wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

It definitely has lots of possible good uses. It remains to be seen if some of the capabilities get abused and if they do whether people judge that as too high a price for the conveniences, or if they judge it to be, on the whole, worthwhile given the benefits (mostly conjecture till implemented, at this point). If they could put this along the drug routes (if they can deal with the difficulties of monitoring over wa…

I don't care what the good is. I simply don't want to be policed by robots.

And yes, I object to a lot of what is already deployed, including CCTV, speed cameras, etc. I don't mind so much on private sites, but it should never happen in public space unless, IMHO, its for a limited operation of some sort.

Reading your contribution makes me think you have been willingly "divided" off in to one camp. For you its border protection. Other will have other issues, drugs, immigrants, terrorists, poor people, ghetto control.... Even so, the second you give an inch, the authorities will encourage mission creep. Then those who approved of the original spin will begin to disapprove, but by then, damage will be done and it will be far too late to reverse it.

See, Im willing to be that the would be many who would approve of these things being armed and taking down targets on US soil. The public will accept it, until granny is taken out.

If we carry on this way, it wont be long until we are all required to carry trackers so some creepy organisation can follow us 24/7 on bloody google maps.

What continually worries me is watching old dystopian scifi films. They are like a check list of today's society. Watch them a year later and you'll be able to tick off more.

But, then, we do keep consenting to it. We do keep voting for it. So, I guess we want it. And who am I to object to the democratic will of the people?

Re: Drone ‘Nightmare Scenario’ Now Has A Name: ARGUS

#34

Post by nacker »

tekromancr wrote: post #21
cromwellian wrote: post #7

I'm afraid the genie is out of the bottle. ARGUS uses mobile phone sensors. Cameras are becoming almost "too cheap to meter", and too small to notice. Billions of people now walk around with mobile phone cameras, so chances are you're going to be recorded by someone in public, especially as cameras continue to evolve. It may be some small consolation that consumer cameras are ground level, and decentralized, where as…

What if we went the completely opposite way? Forgo ALL privacy? Everyone has access to everyone else's data and metrics. If the genie is all ready out of the bottle, this might be the best outcome.

Yes, when faced with apparently insuperable force, why not just lie down and concede?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome

Re: Drone ‘Nightmare Scenario’ Now Has A Name: ARGUS

#35

Post by bluedanieru »

alan_cx wrote: post #31
richardjordan wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We live in a nation which likes civil rights in the abstract but not in the implementation. This causes us all to lose. A plurality exists to clamp down on many freedoms. Use cases to deny first amendment rights are popularized - heck our biggest media companies built on the back of the first amendment now wish to see it neutered. Gun rights folks want the Obama administration to pursue second amendment restrictions,…

Um, well, we know. Well, I know. You know. Others seem to know. We are not special people with special knowledge. So we must presume every one, or at least a majority know. Unless of course we clever people want to label them ignorant, or what ever. So, tell me, why are "we" voting for this? At some point, those with the vote need to take some responsibility for what we are voting for, and stop blaming those we give…

Because everyone has a slightly different take on what rights who should have. House divided against itself and all that. It's not so much respect for freedom, or lack of it, but rather no respect for fellow citizens.

Re: Drone ‘Nightmare Scenario’ Now Has A Name: ARGUS

#36

Post by vdm »

hype7 wrote: post #14
owksley wrote: post #12

This is, alas, the inevitable consequence of the technological progression that most of us here strive towards on a daily basis.

And it's also why we shouldn't just be focused on creating the technology, but we should be increasingly focused on the system (society) into which it is being placed.

... or art which helps people imagine it.

Re: Drone ‘Nightmare Scenario’ Now Has A Name: ARGUS

#37

Post by realo »

nacker wrote: post #34
tekromancr wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if we went the completely opposite way? Forgo ALL privacy? Everyone has access to everyone else's data and metrics. If the genie is all ready out of the bottle, this might be the best outcome.

Yes, when faced with apparently insuperable force, why not just lie down and concede? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome

Funny you mention that. It does not work.

http://youtu.be/q3Ypefy31K4

Re: Drone ‘Nightmare Scenario’ Now Has A Name: ARGUS

#38

Post by faxilux »

logn wrote: post #28
tekromancr wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if we went the completely opposite way? Forgo ALL privacy? Everyone has access to everyone else's data and metrics. If the genie is all ready out of the bottle, this might be the best outcome.

No, this means that petty street crime, protests, rallys, etc. are being monitored but closed-door talks between politicians, lobbyists, and finance execs are not. It's directly targeting the blue-collar outdoors and protecting the white-collar. But in reality this isn't about fighting crime even. It's about making money. It's no secret that our wars our dying down. How will the drone manufacturers make money? They r…

If all privacy is forgone the politicians privacy would be dropped too. While this is of course difficult to enforce (something like Google Glasses that constantly stream? Or even implants?) it would create a society devoid of hidden intentions. Crime would be easily solved as well, and politics would be completely transparent.

I am twisted on this issue, but it is definitely an interesting viewpoint to consider.

Re: Drone ‘Nightmare Scenario’ Now Has A Name: ARGUS

#39

Post by SimonPStevens »

tekromancr wrote: post #21
cromwellian wrote: post #7

I'm afraid the genie is out of the bottle. ARGUS uses mobile phone sensors. Cameras are becoming almost "too cheap to meter", and too small to notice. Billions of people now walk around with mobile phone cameras, so chances are you're going to be recorded by someone in public, especially as cameras continue to evolve. It may be some small consolation that consumer cameras are ground level, and decentralized, where as…

What if we went the completely opposite way? Forgo ALL privacy? Everyone has access to everyone else's data and metrics. If the genie is all ready out of the bottle, this might be the best outcome.

I can't recommend "The Light Of Other Days" (Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter) enough for an exploration of this topic. It's a fictional novel where a specific technology gradually erodes privacy to quite an extreme level - It's very interesting speculation in the light of the way that current technology is trending. Great book.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Light-Other-Days-Arthur-Clarke/dp/00...

Re: Drone ‘Nightmare Scenario’ Now Has A Name: ARGUS

#40

Post by 0x0 »

brigade wrote: post #30
yk wrote: post #15

A 1.8 Gpixel sensor has at 24 frames/s and 24 bit/pixel a data rate of nearly a TBit/s. So I would actually like to see, how they are handling such a data rate (inside of the drone). And how they actually get the data out of the drone. And to look a bit more into this numbers ( and using the numbers from Backblaze [1]) it seems that the uncompressed video of a single drone over a year would cost $1.5e9, of course div…

1.8 Gpixel sensors don't exist, due to physics. It's combining 368 sensors. No one stores or transmits uncompressed video outside of RAM. 15Mbps is decent for 1080p24, so 1.8 Gpixel 24fps would be decent at 15Gbps. Assuming say 14 hours of daylight (drones can't stay up indefinitely and night vision has different requirements), that's no more than ~100 TB per mission or day. As for getting the data out, I'd assume th…

The announcer in the video claims "a million terabytes of video a day" at 2:45. That sounds like science fiction and has to be off by several orders of magnitude.
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