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Drones should be banned from private use, says Google's Eric Schmidt

theguardian.com

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Re: Drones should be banned from private use, says Google's Eric Schmidt

#51

Post by sentenza »

ISL wrote: post #31

The natural cycle continues. Young disruptors grow older and move for regulation and control. If drones are outlawed, only outlaws will have drones. What may be needed isn't laws and regulations, but a common understanding of what is and isn't acceptable for drones. There's not a lot of room on our planet; it's important for us to develop societal norms for where we want and don't want technology. It's jarring to fin…

It is sensible to have regulation.

But his suggestion is so completely asinine, it even directly hurts Google!

If this ever gains any traction, the question will arise why drones in the sky should be unavailable to private individuals but drones moving on the ground should be available.

You know.

Drones on the ground, aka self-driving cars.

Re: Drones should be banned from private use, says Google's Eric Schmidt

#52

Post by ISL »

pan69 wrote: post #50
ISL wrote: post #31

The natural cycle continues. Young disruptors grow older and move for regulation and control. If drones are outlawed, only outlaws will have drones. What may be needed isn't laws and regulations, but a common understanding of what is and isn't acceptable for drones. There's not a lot of room on our planet; it's important for us to develop societal norms for where we want and don't want technology. It's jarring to fin…

> What may be needed isn't laws and regulations, but a common understanding of what is and isn't acceptable for drones. Sure. People don't even seem to understand the rules of road and keep killing each other and themselves, and you're pushing for "common understanding of what is and isn't acceptable". Most people who walk this earth are not as clever as you might think. Just because you're intelligent, doesn't mean…

Fortunately, bombing an embassy is already against the law. No shortage of ways to prosecute.

Re: Drones should be banned from private use, says Google's Eric Schmidt

#53

Post by chestnut-tree »

"Schmidt said Google was "super-sensitive" on privacy..."

This is hard to believe. Let's recall that during the US investigation into the wi-fi data that Google captured, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said Google had "deliberately impeded and delayed" the investigation for months. Earlier this year, the UK Information Commissioner's Office ordered Google to delete captured wi-fi data or face criminal proceedings. Google had earier pledged to delete the data but actually failed to do so. Are these the actions of a company that takes privacy seriously?

Then there is Google's online reach which is simply phenomenal. Now they have an entire operating system (ChromeOS) which could potentially track everything you do online. You can't even print to your desktop printer without being signed in to your Google account. We don't really know what Google tracks or captures because their vaguely-worded privacy policies don't tell us.

The most depressing aspect of all this? Most people simply don't care (including many in the tech community).

Re: Drones should be banned from private use, says Google's Eric Schmidt

#54

Post by baddox »

stcredzero wrote: post #46
baddox wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I threw in the exception lest anyone point out that the US military regularly uses drones to harm people.

I'm not criticizing you. It is a legitimate question. There have always seemed to be exceptions for the government. Does this stem from "war powers?" What is the basis?

I suppose so. Most people agree that it's legal for the government to perform military actions. Which military actions are legal is controversial, of course.

Re: Drones should be banned from private use, says Google's Eric Schmidt

#56

Post by darkarmani »

baddox wrote: post #15
darkarmani wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Same arguments can be used against handheld camcorders, smartphones etc. You mean if you throw them over your neighbor's house?

So then, your point is that multirotors should be banned because your neighbors can now inspect your roof without your permission?

No, my point is that "handheld camcorders" are nothing like multirotors.

Re: Drones should be banned from private use, says Google's Eric Schmidt

#57

Post by excellence24 »

Wow, Eric Schmidt is blinded by his desire to maintain power. His greatest fear is losing his power... He says private drones should be banned and mentions nothing about the commercial use of drones by companies, especially his own company. And then he uses a small isolated example of drones being used for evil as to why they should be banned...terrorists? come on! Nothing is mentioned about drones being used for search and rescue, global natural resource tracking, travel, or even space exploration! This is clearly an attempt by a frightened individual to maintain control.

What we should start considering and making plans for is pooling our resources together in order to setup a system of public, open-sourced drones whose data is freely available to everyone, with an official, central repository backed up and stored at the NSA (after we open-source that and get a public API working).

Google's street view cars would no longer be needed. We could have a real-time digital duplicate of reality running using the NSA's resources. Anybody can plug in and 'teleport' anywhere in the world. Any crime that would happen would be recorded live, and emergency broadcast systems can be implemented.

Unfortunately, no person or company could profit from this publicly available data. Any monetized analysis tool would be duplicated and hosted publicly for free via the NSA web services. All open source and anyone can view and improve the code and master pulls can be voted on by the community.

This is great for location and mapping data, but what about taking it a step further and maybe we could use these drones as a sort of 'opt-in' activity tracker. We've heard of the military using gait detection from drones to track 'terrorists'. Well, how many people can one drone track at a time? Also, can it measure heart-rate, steps taken, breathes per minute, O2 levels, etc... There goes fitbit and fuelband...

This is just getting started, there's still traveling and shipping that can be freed and open-sourced...

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