NFOA MEMBERS FORUM
General Categories => Information Arsenal => Topic started by: GreyGeek on March 11, 2013, 02:06:56 PM
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The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) obtained through a Freedom Of Information Act request (FOIA) a list of who is flying them and where: https://www.eff.org/foia/faa-drone-authorizations (https://www.eff.org/foia/faa-drone-authorizations)
Not all of the users of Drones are government or military. Some are educational institutions. What has become very popular among hobbyists and academics is called a "Quadcopter", which has four propellers and is very agile. FAA restricts private/personal drones that you or I could fly to 400 feet in altitude and no closer that 3 miles from an airport. It should be obvious that those who fly any kind of personal "drone" abide by FAA regulations. As a pilot I'd hate to fly into a 2 or 3 lb quadcopter. With all that metal and batteries it would be worse than flying into a duck.
Most of the personal quadcopters are less than 18" in diameter and can't fly very high because of the limitations of the remote controller and the inability of their motors to fight against breezes more than 4 mph. But, some can be over 3' wide and carry significant loads. I saw a video of one that had an automatic handgun attached, if the video wasn't cgi. You can see all kinds by doing a "quadcopter" search on YouTube. You'll also see videos of folks breaking the law by flying higher than 400 ft. I suspect that in the near future the FAA will restrict the weights of any kind craft capable of hoovering to less than 18" maximum width.
There is a MUCH bigger, zoomable Google Map of authorized drone flights here: http://tinyurl.com/b8nvtsr (http://tinyurl.com/b8nvtsr)
I was surprised to note that many have been flying for several years already, especially the academic drones, some of which are no longer flying because the COA (Certificate of Authorization) has expired, probably because their research project was completed or the grant money ran out. Some of the "drones" are scale models of commercially available private aircraft. A military type Raven drone was flying over Missoula, MT, to track forest fires, but its COA expired.
However, I get the suspicion that the FOIA request wasn't totally honored because the number of drone locations is far below the estimated numbers of known, military type drones. The Grand Forks County sheriff is known to have flown Predator drones but those records are incomplete.
From the perspective of personal freedoms and protection against warrantless spying there is a concern. The explosion of street cams and cams + mics in buses is just as alarming. Will the US citizen be willing to eventually accept a "Big Brother" camera + mic on every corner? I suspect that they will. When that arrives you can kiss free speech good bye because any speech which doesn't toe the Party line is now, even in the US, considered "hate" speech.
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More curious about how one would build a signal jammer...kind of cool to see one short circuit..no? :laugh:
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More curious about how one would build a signal jammer...kind of cool to see one short circuit..no? :laugh:
That would get you a visit from the FCC, the FAA, as well as whatever agency owned the aircraft.
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They have the little quadcopter ones at the Verizon Wireless store. You "see" through the camera on them via your tablet computer, then tilt and move the tablet to fly the thing. Would be a fun toy if a person had money to burn... but they would also be fun to shoot down, should one come hovering over your yard. I foresee that situation happening soon when some neighbor kid flies it over swimming pool of the girl next door when she's suntanning.
As with all this stuff the risk of privacy violations, and data hacking/spills, is higher with the private sector (Google, etc.) than with government usage.
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November 2012.. Pennsylvania gun club shoots down animal rights drone flying over their property.... :P
http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Flying-Camera-From-Animal-Rights-Group-Shot-Down-at-Pigeon-Shoot-Cops-179983451.html (http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Flying-Camera-From-Animal-Rights-Group-Shot-Down-at-Pigeon-Shoot-Cops-179983451.html)
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And, in the realm of invasion of privacy... Google is paying big bucks in fines for data mining from 'google earth' mapping and siphoning data from 'unsecured' WiFi connections.
http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/03/13/google-pays-7m-fine-to-settle-wi-fi-privacy-case/ (http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/03/13/google-pays-7m-fine-to-settle-wi-fi-privacy-case/)
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Mine fly near ameristar casino, and I think I am within 3 miles of the airport not sure. 400 feet is pretty high for something that must stay in sight.
(http://i50.tinypic.com/34r7io3.jpg)
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Just FYI, since you guys can relate, I do fly RC jets rc planes, quads etc.
A similar analogy exits between firearms and "drones". For example, someone may call firearm an "assault rifle" though an AR-15 only really looks like one. The same is true for drones. My stuff looks like "drones" and they are unfarily attacked by the FAA and other parts of our government. The term drone actually refers to quite large, unmanned aircraft designed to fly far out of sight. They are controlled by satallite or some very tall radio tower, not the little hobby radio I have.
My RC stuff must stay in sight in order for me to control it.
So in short, rc planes, the quads at the store etc are not the "drones" the FAA is worried about. Trying to ban them or control them is about as stupid as trying to ban or control an ar-15 in a way that had nothing to do with the crimes committed. Except in my case, there are no crimes it is pure hype. There are no crimes, incidences or antying to base the attempts to control them, simply media fear.
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Google is paying big bucks in fines for data mining from 'google earth' mapping and siphoning data from 'unsecured' WiFi connections.
That accusation was generated by Microsoft and Apple (both of which did the same or similar things), AND, it is entirely bogus. Here's why: wifi's operate at several fixed bandwidths, which vary from Tier I at 1.25 Mb/s to the average in the US, which is about 8 Mb/sec. The Google Street View cars usually travel at around 25 mph, which is about 37 feet per second. The average wifi device has a 3 to 6" antenna and transmits at a power of between 75 and 250 mw, which is the maximum. Usually it is factory set to about 125 mw or less. Some manufacturers allow you to set the power of the transmitter through their html admin page. but some do not. Assuming full power the average range of a wifi is 300 feet, or a diameter of 600 feet. The Google Street View car will traverse that 600 feet in about 16 seconds. During that time they will intercept, for the 8mb/s connections, 128 mb of data. You may think that is a lot, but it is not, because most of that data is HTML markup language and the IPv4 IP (internet protocol). The average IP packet is around 1460 bytes (the max ethernet packet size is 1,500 bytes). Depending on the various and optional flags which can be set the actual data that an IP packet carries can be less than 1,200 bytes.
Now, while you are browsing this web page (this one, the one you are reading now) right mouse on an empty part of the page and select "View Page Source". FireFox readers may have to use a menu option to see the "view source" option. What you see when you open that source page is what is called HTML code, short for HyperText Markup Language. It is how web pages are encoded so that your browser can make sense of them and display them properly. Notice that the actual text is much less, on most web pages, than the code which makes up the frames, windows, graphics, links, etc.... So, while what I have written up to this point is about 1,500 letters (1 byte per letter), the source code you are looking at can be 10x as much, or more. IOW, of that 128 mb of data there is probably less than 10 or 12 mb of actual information. But, that much info is transmitted only if one is in a "download" mode. Most people set on a web page, reading it, like you are doing here. Were Google to intercept you and take less only 16 seconds the most they'd get is this web page, which is public information anyway, including the IP address of the NFOA website, which is public.
They'd also get your wifi ESSID (name) and your IP address, but both of those are public as well. And, while they are moving they are recording GPS data so they will be able to match your ESSID with a specific location. However, THAT TOO is public information. Most internet users are using a dynamic internet connection, which means your ISP can give you a different IP address every time your lease expires and your WIFI device negotiates with your ISP for a new least, which usually means a new IP address. So, the specific IP address you use at any given time is meaningless because it may be given to someone else the next day. IF you are running an encrypted connection (using TOR or something similar) then Google gets no information or HTML data of what's on the pages you browse, or where you browse.
Basically, the Federal government, at the bequest of Microsoft and Apple, got the FCC to investigate, but the FCC found nothing, which they admitted a couple months ago. But, they needed to recoup the costs of the investigation so they did what is easy to do for any federal regulatory agency to do, find some obscure reg and squeeze some cash out of Google. They know it will be more economical for Google to pay the measly fine than to pay a bunch of lawyers for several years fighting it. Microsoft is using that tactic, which depends on their financial clout and an NDA, to extort cash from device vendors that are using Android to power their smartphones. MS has made more money by extortion than they have by selling WinPhone8 or Win8. We wouldn't have known about this because of the NDA's, but Barnes & Noble refused to sign the NDA and then blew the whistle on how they operated.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111109/02574116691/barnes-noble-claims-that-microsoft-patent-shakedown-over-android-is-antitrust-violation.shtml (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111109/02574116691/barnes-noble-claims-that-microsoft-patent-shakedown-over-android-is-antitrust-violation.shtml)
Microsoft is using "Bing" to compete against Goggle's search engine. But, they were caught using Bing as a wrapper for Google searches!
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/microsofts-bing-uses-google-search.html (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/microsofts-bing-uses-google-search.html)
and apparently they still were last fall:
http://www.webpronews.com/cutts-last-time-i-checked-bing-was-still-using-google-as-a-signal-2012-09 (http://www.webpronews.com/cutts-last-time-i-checked-bing-was-still-using-google-as-a-signal-2012-09)
What about Apple? Most of you are familiar with Apple's map/gps fiasco last fall when drivers following Apple's GPS data drove into lakes and one even took a wrong turn into a seedy part of a town and experienced events that called for a CCW. Just Google "Apple GPS problems"
Essentially all that Google was doing with Street View cars, besides photographing the environment from a public street, was matching up ESSID names with GPS data, for all the good that will do them. You can change your ESSID any time with little effort. Their big thing, then, was to match geographic locations with actual photographs taken at the street level. If Microsoft or Apple are showing you the same thing they are using Googles photos.
But, Apple did something much worse than anything Google did: they tracked your comings and goings using the GPS data in your iPhone! http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2383943,00.asp (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2383943,00.asp) and they shared it with police on more than one occasion. Of course, PC Mag gets ad revenue from Apple so they softened the full impact of that tracking. Others were less charitable and explain why it matters, if you don't already understand: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2011/04/how-apple-tracks-your-location-without-your-consent-and-why-it-matters/ (http://arstechnica.com/apple/2011/04/how-apple-tracks-your-location-without-your-consent-and-why-it-matters/)
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That would get you a visit from the FCC, the FAA, as well as whatever agency owned the aircraft.
Yes, I understand, but there is no law against having the knowledge of how-to...I`m a machinist by trade and have the knowledge to build all kinds of thing that would land me in the clink, so I don`t.
Probably have to be much more complicated than say coupling an old citizens band with a few parts from radio shack and a solar powered weenie roaster from the guide :laugh:
Those are some awesome looking RC jets! skydve76
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So in short, rc planes, the quads at the store etc are not the "drones" the FAA is worried about. Trying to ban them or control them is about as stupid as trying to ban or control an ar-15 in a way that had nothing to do with the crimes committed. Except in my case, there are no crimes it is pure hype. There are no crimes, incidences or antying to base the attempts to control them, simply media fear
Great point!