Quadcopter drone group held in London airport on suspicion of terrorism

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/innovation/item/27915-quadcopter-drone-group-held

by th0ma5 • 14 years ago

34 21 14 years ago

MrEnigma• 14 years ago

It looks like they were only held for a couple of hours and released. Not that I think this is right, but they are flying with lots of wires/electronics/batteries.

cpswan4• 14 years ago

It's crazy how the whole movie plot driven security industry has been able to associate naked electronics with bomb making. A friend was commenting last night that the bare PCB of the Raspberry Pi could be seen as dangerous/threatening, and I was speculating about how much trouble I'd get in if I tried to take Arduino based home made toys on a flight.

mc32• 14 years ago

I think you'll be fine.

Friend of mine had a kind home-made led flashlight (small PCB and gangly wires). Friend was pulled aside for questioning and demonstrated its 'torch' capability and then let go thru. The delay was about 20 minutes though. It is silly, but if they've not studied any (even basic breadboarding) electronics, then anything out of the ordinary like that will look 'weird' and arouse caution.

the_rara_avis• 14 years ago

FWIW, I've flown with an Arduino kit (wires, etc.) in the US and encountered no issues.

planetguy2• 14 years ago

Honestly, there are people at the border whose entire job is to look for suspicious items. (It's not like the threat of a bomb attack in London is a purely hypothetical one, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_... ). If you're gonna carry a suitcase full of weird-looking homemade electronics across the border, then yeah, you're probably gonna wind up answering some questions about 'em. In the end, they were correctly determined to be no threat and free to go with their drones.

adaml_623• 14 years ago

Also they were coming directly from Dublin to London. Anyone with a knowledge of history should understand the significance of that. Sad but true. Security staff are paid to be paranoid.

I don't think this story has anything to do with Drones per se. I think the same phenomena would be triggered by any suitcases full of electronics.

cpswan4• 14 years ago

I'm now feeling lucky that the OSHUG meeting last night, where the topic was drones, didn't get raided - http://oshug.org/event/20

cpswan4• 14 years ago

Here's what happens next:

1. Drones become more and more popular as kids/hackers toys

2. Eventually a drone is used in a real terrorist plot

3. Our politicians over react and ban drones

4. We all write tweets and blogs about what clueless morons our politicians are because the whole thing has been widely understood since (before?) Scott Adams wrote 'The Religion War'

5. Drones don't get unbanned for use outside of police/law enforcement because of whining from the hacker community

gouranga3• 14 years ago

All while our unwanted persistent state of war rages and our supposedly but not appointed military counterparts fly armed drones to kill and name people under our name.

Fuck this planet sucks. actually no, humans suck as a race.

theklub• 14 years ago

Join the Pirate Party...I did today. Seriously.

theorique• 14 years ago

* supposedly but not appointed military counterparts fly armed drones to kill and name people under our name.*

Don't worry, it's all cool - they only kill the BAD guys! ;)

MaysonL• 14 years ago

since (before?) Scott Adams wrote 'The Religion War'

David's Sling by Marc Stiegler(1988) comes to mind as a precursor.

RedwoodCity• 14 years ago

Glad to see that european airport secuirty is just as incompetent as american TSA officers.

In the future have your robots sent by post in advance of your arrival and terrorism officials will be none the wiser.

vampirechicken• 14 years ago

Repressive governments always fear artists.

mikeash2• 14 years ago

They were questioned by customs because they had a lot of weird stuff in their luggage, and then were allowed through after two hours. Why is this news?

cpswan4• 14 years ago

Customs don't normally call the special branch, and whilst being detained for hours is now normal practice in the US it's still (thankfully) pretty unusual in the UK.

planetguy2• 14 years ago

It was two hours. I've spent pretty much that trying to get through customs at Gatwick without suspicious items in my luggage. At least these guys probably had somewhere to sit while they were waiting.

mikeash2• 14 years ago

How unusual is it, though? I imagine it's still something they do multiple times per day, given the large volume of travelers they process.

Quadcopter drone group held in London airport on suspicion of terrorism

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