Serious question - is there any actual evidence that there was ever a real drone? There are no available pictures of the supposed drone, which seems odd if it was 'buzzing the tower'. It also seems odd that it kept 'popping up' in random places, yet nobody managed to follow it with their own drone, or track it on radar. And now the police are arresting people with no connection to the incident and clearly still have…
Gatwick drones pair 'no longer suspects'
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Re: Gatwick drones pair 'no longer suspects'
#92Serious question - is there any actual evidence that there was ever a real drone? There are no available pictures of the supposed drone, which seems odd if it was 'buzzing the tower'. It also seems odd that it kept 'popping up' in random places, yet nobody managed to follow it with their own drone, or track it on radar. And now the police are arresting people with no connection to the incident and clearly still have…
Well... https://twitter.com/TomPugh212/status/1076874388761440260
Same account a little later https://twitter.com/TomPugh212/status/1076939198043746305
67 independent reports and a damaged drone near last sighting.
Re: Gatwick drones pair 'no longer suspects'
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe it is more likely to be a foreign nation proving a capability. They've just shown that with a team of a dozen people or so and some moderately sophisticated drones, they could shut down every major airport in the country more or less indefinitely.
I doubt it. That would be like burning a zero-day exploit. I think the airports have been absolutely asleep at the wheel because OF COURSE this was a risk. OF COURSE I would have set up TDoA equipment and had a company with anti-drone tech on speed dial (at the very least) if I were responsible for an airport bigger than a hobbyist field. I bet you could get cover for Gatwick with TDoA equipment for less than $10k ea…
The airports and pilots actually raised the problem with the UK government for years, to the point where in 2017 a law was passed that forbids to fly drones in the vicinity of airports and other sensitive areas. Aviation activism is similarly the reason for newer drones shipping with geolocking capabilities enabled by default. The problem is that the mainstream political scene saw these changes as resolutive (which they are not, as we’ve just seen) and just dropped the subject. This goes double for the UK, where Brexit has basically frozen any political and governmental activity that is not absolutely essential.
Re: Gatwick drones pair 'no longer suspects'
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe it is more likely to be a foreign nation proving a capability. They've just shown that with a team of a dozen people or so and some moderately sophisticated drones, they could shut down every major airport in the country more or less indefinitely.
I doubt it. That would be like burning a zero-day exploit. I think the airports have been absolutely asleep at the wheel because OF COURSE this was a risk. OF COURSE I would have set up TDoA equipment and had a company with anti-drone tech on speed dial (at the very least) if I were responsible for an airport bigger than a hobbyist field. I bet you could get cover for Gatwick with TDoA equipment for less than $10k ea…
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Re: Gatwick drones pair 'no longer suspects'
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://twitter.com/GlytchTech/status/1076715652843487232?s=...
Didn't the drone disappear to recharge/replace batteries and return multiple times? I thought this meant it must be intentional and not accidental. Though, the accidental explanation is arguably more ominous/terrifying. It reminds of the episode "Autofac" from the "Electric Dreams" series.
Hah, that's the first time I've heard "disappeared/reappeared". It's plausable, but are there multiple witnesses/reliable video?
Re: Gatwick drones pair 'no longer suspects'
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe, but that's not what I asked. Don't habeas corpus laws provide public access to a (perhaps private) legal review? When do laws require sharing results with the public, as the GP comment claimed? Can there be checks on authoritarian abuse that don't require public dissemination? Is the threat of publicity exactly the same thing as a requirement for publicity?
Imagine a country where the police arrest people and they vanish in the middle of the night, with no way to determine what their status is.
How does your question relate to publicity at all? Habeas corpus covers that situation, assuming the country you're imagining complies with habeas corpus standards.
Re: Gatwick drones pair 'no longer suspects'
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll admit to not knowing what CAA rules a receive-only system would need, but this is not knowledge that is that specialized. I'm saying the hardware is yes about $10k for sufficient coverage, COTS, and maybe you're right that a proven company would charge 100k and up. But you could hire someone competent for $300k/y to just implement it, and then deploy everywhere. (300k would get you someone competent enough) But…
I don't think that is receive only, there is an active radar. The iron drone system seems catered to detect mortar/missile/UAV rather than consumer drones so it's certainly overkill and could be done for less. Drones and UAV can cost more than $10k in hardware alone. I'm not familiar enough with the sensors and the technology on the detection side but wouldn't assume that anything comes cheap. There are no product se…
> I don't think that is receive only, there is an active radar
I said TDoA, not radar.
> I'm not familiar enough with the sensors and the technology on the detection side but wouldn't assume that anything comes cheap
I'm not assuming.
Re: Gatwick drones pair 'no longer suspects'
#98I'm sure the two of them are enjoying having their faces plastered over the sunday news ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs/the_papers ) and sorting through all the lovely messages they've received over the last day or so.
Being accused is the same as 100% guilty, and being guilty is always reason for pubic shaming and unlimited amounts of vitriol. Good ol' British press logic. I wonder where they get their journalists from. Is there an education to be a heartless bastard with no sense of ethics? Or do they train them in-house?
This satirist wrote a scathing lookback of 2018, and British journalists didn't get a free pass either. Writing about Khashoggi, he says:
Perhaps the saddest part of this whole business is knowing that there are so few British journalists committed enough to get murdered: you could silence most just by breaking the fingers they use to do select all, copy, paste. Nobody’s going to flay you to death just for barking offers of money through the letterboxes of recently bereaved parents, or trawling for offensive tweets with your free hand. Of course, there are a lot of good journalists. Perhaps journalist is now just too broad a term, in much the way the word actor encompasses everyone from Meryl Streep to Sooty.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/22/frankie-boy...
Re: Gatwick drones pair 'no longer suspects'
#99Serious question - is there any actual evidence that there was ever a real drone? There are no available pictures of the supposed drone, which seems odd if it was 'buzzing the tower'. It also seems odd that it kept 'popping up' in random places, yet nobody managed to follow it with their own drone, or track it on radar. And now the police are arresting people with no connection to the incident and clearly still have…
> is there any actual evidence that there was ever a real drone?
Yes: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1828378/Video-D...
Re: Gatwick drones pair 'no longer suspects'
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're missing his point. Your distinction still places the trust in the discretion of the police/press. If they don't disclose the name, then it's harder for character witnesses to come forward (e.g. the couple's neighbors in this case).
I don't think it works like that. Character witnesses are organised in private by a defence lawyer, who - of course - knows the identities of the accused. Not by a public announcement in the press. Front page headlines along the lines of "The police believe these people are criminals who caused huge inconvenience and suffering to hundreds of thousands of people - would someone like to say a good work about them?" pro…
> Front page headlines [...] probably aren't the best way to guarantee a fair trial.
Again, this sub-thread's premise is that "naming people who've been arrested is an important measure against authoritarian regimes."
The point is, you wouldn't get a "fair trial" in an authoritarian society. Knowing whether you're in one is tough (It could be as low-level as local law enforcement.) Given these two points, it's a values-based argument that more information is better. That's all.
Of course, it's horrible when someone gets wrongfully accused. I don't know where the sweet spot is. I'm outsourcing much of my trust to other citizens.