African firm is selling pepper-spray bullet firing drones

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27902634

by SworDsy • 12 years ago

57 49 12 years ago

allochthon• 12 years ago

If I were a manager at the mining company that purchased the drones, I would be worried about retaliation in kind by workers who obtained a similar drone.

venomsnake• 12 years ago

Why drones - invest in smart ground based flak cannon manufacturing.

If we can't fly -- we won't let anyone else either - old anti aircraft moto.

sudont• 12 years ago

Indeed. Here's something somewhat related, from PyCon 2012. It deals with using computer vision to fire a squirt gun at squirrels. The principle is basically the same.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPgqfnKG_T4

qbrass• 12 years ago

That would mean your workers had too much disposable income and free time. You should reduce both as a precaution.

TallGuyShort3• 12 years ago

Managers at South African mining companies already have good reason to be worried about retaliation from workers. Details in my other comment on this thread - but in short, buying a drone is really just throwing fuel on an already well-fueled fire in this case.

angersock• 12 years ago

Technical solutions to people problems.

scotty79• 12 years ago

All solutions are technical. Only some are the wrong ones.

bnegreve• 12 years ago

All solutions are technical.

What does this mean? When employees are on strike, one solution is to increase wages. How is this a technical solution?

yellowapple• 12 years ago

I can't wait until someone builds a working ManHack. Only a matter of time at this rate.

jobu• 12 years ago

"Desert Wolf's website states that its Skunk octacopter drone is fitted with four high-capacity paintball barrels, each capable of firing up to 20 bullets per second."

If they sell this in the US our company paintball outings might get a little more interesting.

MasterScrat• 12 years ago

Take a look at this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vICfKPoCubw#t=258

stcredzero2• 12 years ago

How about Terminator themed post apocalyptic LARP?

ChuckMcM2• 12 years ago

I am surprised that anyone would be caught off guard by this sort of thing. After all it is going to be much more effective to fly over a crowd and shoot at them than to try to hit them from behind a riot shield.

The Union outrage is interesting too, mostly because I agree that as your government (or companies) acquire tools for crowd control it certainly has a chilling effect on peaceful assembly. That said I don't see why these folks don't have drones of their own. They were used to good effect to document some of the protests in Turkey. As the drone is probably efiltrating its video during operation it is much harder for a repressive regime to shut it down and suppress the video.

TallGuyShort3• 12 years ago

> That said I don't see why these folks don't have drones of their own

There's some important historical context here. The client was a South African mining company (I assume - it said mining company, and the company is in South Africa). There were recent riots in South Africa between a miner's union and the mine, and the miner's got slaughtered (literally). Most likely not the same company, but miner's in South Africa have a long, unfair history and it's getting worse. They're extremely destitute and there's no way I see them showing up to future protests with their own air support.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marikana_miners'_strike

ChuckMcM2• 12 years ago

The South African's aren't the only one, miners in the coal belt of the US, and in China today, have always been victimized by unscrupulous corporations.

In both those cases having documentation of the problems with video from a drone could have furthered the miner's interest in getting justice. That was what I was trying to say that with my comment about them (the miners) having drones of their own.

_djo_4• 12 years ago

The use of UAVs for commercial use, including this application, is at present illegal in South Africa. So it's not at all certain that the client is a South African mining company.

You're oversimplifying the events at Marikana, which were somewhat more complex.

The shooting itself was preceded by days of violence in which striking miners armed themselves with pangas (machetes) and guns and massacred two police officers, two mine security officers and six other miners accused of not participating in the strike.

It was the South African Police Service, not the mine, which shot 34 miners on that horrible day. They did so after an operation to remove the miners from the hilltop went horribly wrong, causing armed miners to run towards a line of policemen who panicked and opened fire.

It also does not appear that the miners' union involved, AMCU, is negotiating in good faith. Their non-negotiable salary demand of approximately US$1170 in base pay plus another US$470 in benefits takes them into the upper percentile of all South Africans and is more than a software developer with a three-year degree earns on entering the workplace.

Moreover, each time the government and the mines reach an agreement with AMCU on wages, AMCU has added additional demands not previously mentioned. It's clear their main desire is to extend the strike, already the longest in South Africa's history and responsible for two successive quarterly declines in GDP this year.

Those types of wages aren't sustainable, so we're starting to see the mining companies adopt the same techniques used in Australia and elsewhere which are more automated and require far fewer workers.

In the end those who suffer will be the miners and their families, most of whom live in dirt-poor rural areas and have no other income options. They've been abused by the mining companies and their own union in equal measure and let down by an incompetent government. There's no good outcome for them now.

coldtea3• 12 years ago

Most likely not the same company, but miner's in South Africa have a long, unfair history and it's getting worse.

Not much unlike the miners in the US:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_County_War

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_County,_USA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Which_Side_Are_You_On%3F

qq66• 12 years ago

The large companies are much more likely to have the protection of the state for their drones, while the worker's drones are more likely to be ruled illegal and confiscated etc.

downandout2• 12 years ago

For a mining (or any) company to buy this to control workers is reprehensible, and it's rather shocking that they would publicize this as their first order. They could have just as easily said that an undisclosed buyer has purchased the first 25 of them. It's as if they are trying to market this as a slave-control copter.

However, this makes me wonder why we don't have small military drones with guns on them. It seems like they only have the large missile carriers and tiny surveillance drones. Something in the middle that is armed would eliminate most soldier-to-soldier battlefield confrontations. They could just send several small armed drones out and fire at their opposition with near perfect accuracy for every bullet since a computer would control the aiming and firing.

bmelton• 12 years ago

Define 'small'? Recoil and weight are the primary factors, I assume, in why no such beast exists.

Anything in the size of the average quad-copter is going to have to manage the fact that its flight trajectory would be significantly altered with each shot. The guys at Red Jacket invented something like that, and the way they mitigated the recoil was to have the barrel pointing straight down, which limits the effectiveness dramatically.

You're right, clearly, in that there's a lot of room between the missile and surveillance drones, but big enough to fire a rifle round might be a bit bigger than you suspect.

downandout2• 12 years ago

Agreed that a quad-copter wouldn't be able to handle the recoil, and that weight is a factor - bullets are (relatively) heavy. I was just saying that something the size of a Predator drone isn't necessary for close combat. I'm sure that there is some engineering magic that could be done to manage both of these issues in a relatively small package.

jqm3• 12 years ago

Float the barrel and have the recoil absorbed by springs or shock absorbers. Kind of like cannons on 18'th century ships rolling backwards as they fired absorbing much of the recoil until stopped by a rope.

Sure, there is still a flight modifying force. Calculate and correct it as much as possible with an equal and opposite force from the motors or a blank countershot.

I do think smaller weaponry of this type is coming.

jqm3• 12 years ago

I'm betting we will have exactly that before too long.

Small warfare drones. And semi-autonomous warfare vehicles of which several can be controlled by one operator. And... it looks like all those hours of video games may pay off (for certain countries) after all.

mattgibson• 12 years ago

Surely these won't be too effective. They'd be easily brought down by getting anything at all (fishing wire, string, etc) fired from a makeshift catapult caught up in the rotors.

High tech crowd control that can be defeated with stuff you've got lying around in the kitchen doesn't seen too useful.

6d0debc071• 12 years ago

Provided someone brought the kitchen with them, sure.

Though I think you may underestimate how easy it is to dodge relatively slow moving things in the sky. I could see that sort of thing being defeated by the operator flicking the drone up sharply when people start throwing stuff.

jqm3• 12 years ago

How about a cheap little suicide drone launched by the "protesters"?

But ya, it seems some sections of rope with weights on the end (or improvised rope launchers) might be standard protest equipment if these things become widely deployed.

jotux• 12 years ago

They should send the drone to defcon this year to compete in defconbots (defconbots.org).

jayshahtx• 12 years ago

Side note: I'm always a little bothered when people attribute something from "Africa". Africa has 54 countries, c'mon people

ars2• 12 years ago

What about when they attribute it to "Europe"?

Africa is a place, and the countries there are more similar to each other than to other countries, so combining them is natural.

jxf2• 12 years ago

the countries there are more similar to each other than to other countries, so combining them is natural.

That seems like a very inaccurate generalization. If you think, say, Egypt is "similar to" Madagascar, Malawi, or Mozambique, that's difficult to agree with.

They're in rough geographic proximity, if that's what you meant. But downtown Manhattan and Ecuador are also the same distance apart and they're pretty different.

dragonwriter• 12 years ago

Africa is a place, and the countries there are more similar to each other than to other countries

In what sense (other than "being located in Africa") are North African countries like Egypt or Algeria more like, say, any countries in central or southern Africa than they are like countries in the Middle East?

oakaz• 12 years ago

Fuck that and fuck you assholes who are excited about this torture weapon, it's gonna be used against people! The first order was probably for a mining company in Amazon, to torture the locals who defend their land against fucking mining companies. And soon, it's gonna be used everywhere in the world against people protesting for rights.

Lots of people lost their lives, lots of people lost their eyes by pepper gas bullets this year, including this 15 years old kid: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Berkin_Elvan

See this documentary: http://www.worldpressphoto.org/multimedia-gallery/2014/witne...

greenyoda• 12 years ago

Unfortunately, I can imagine militarized police departments all over the U.S. getting excited about these kinds of anti-crowd weapons.

dmix• 12 years ago

A few drones plus an 'armored riot-control vehicle': https://inkasarmored.com/armored-riot-control-vehicle/ with a built in water canon and those evil protestors won't stand a chance.

jonmrodriguez• 12 years ago

WTF. Blinding lasers aren't even allowed in combat during war, they're considered inhumane and banned under international law.

CapitalistCartr• 12 years ago

The problem with the tools we are currently seeing created is this:

Nigeria (for example) doesn't derive its power from the people; but from its oil, currently being pumped by Western oil companies. The populace are simply an expense. The source of their money comes from Exxon and Shell; their military might from foreign weapons manufacturers. I know a number of people who work for said manufacturers.

namlem• 12 years ago

While I'm absolutely against using this kind of technology on peaceful civilians, I think it would be interesting to see autonomous non-lethal or less-than-lethal weapons deployed against actual terrorists. Not only would it virtually eliminate the risk of collateral damage, it would also allow us to capture and interrogate them.

African firm is selling pepper-spray bullet firing drones

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