Paris night drone mystery deepens

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-31619099

by cichli • 11 years ago

44 34 11 years ago

bbc.co.uk

DavidAdams• 11 years ago

Ugh, the drones "might be" flown by eco warriors or terrorists. Thanks for the silly speculation, BBC. They might also be flown by Raelians, the Russian Mafia, Simon Cowell, the ghost of Napoleon, Nigerian 419 scammers, Snookie, or Kim Kardashian's butt.

centizen2• 11 years ago

I hope it's just some hobbyists having fun, but this is totally irresponsible. Whether they are trying to make a statement or just play a prank, they are making everyone look bad and giving the media all the reasons they need to run with it.

carbocation• 11 years ago

The media and authorities' reactions do not make this action irresponsible.

Is it unlawful? Apparently, yes.

Is it immoral? That depends on the purpose, but it is not intrinsically so.

centizen2• 11 years ago

I think that repeatedly flying a UAV in contravention to well known law, over highly populated areas, at night is totally irresponsible. Both to the people below and the UAV community at large.

The media reaction has nothing to do with my decision.

TeMPOraL5• 11 years ago

Also if anything is seriously wrong (and often immoral) in such cases, it's usually the media reaction to things.

votingprawn2• 11 years ago

The media and authorities' reactions do not make this action irresponsible.

It is irresponsible because they are flying a dangerous vehicle in an area where if they lost control they could cause harm to members of the public. And they are doing so under conditions that make harder to maintain clear line of sight to the vehicle, increasing the chance of them losing control.

nodata• 11 years ago

How has it "deepened"? They didn't know, and now they still don't know.

d_theorist3• 11 years ago

It's not even a "mystery" to begin with. It's not difficult to understand what is happening.

It's like saying that a hot air balloon sighting is a mystery, just because we don't know who's flying it.

Hot air balloons are not mysteries, and neither are "drones".

jgrahamc• 11 years ago

Given that this is Paris then it's probably going to turn out to be performance art and the flight path of the drones is going to draw something.

throwawayaway• 11 years ago

this sort of positive discrimination is ruining generalisations for everyone.

TeMPOraL5• 11 years ago

Drones drones drones. What drones? Did someone flew a Predator, or was it just a Phantom bought from the "Accessories for GoPro cameras" shelf of the local RadioShack equivalent? There is an important difference between the two, and I don't really like how media and people in general conflate together the whole spectrum of UAVs and RC copters.

engendered4• 11 years ago

Radio controlled quadcopters, whether navigating automatically or not, fall under the definition of "drone". The terminology is fine, and the attempt at redefinition is a losing battle.

q3k• 11 years ago

The terminology is not fine when used in an article - this word can mean:

- a cheap Chinese $10 toy that goes out of range after 300m

- a racing quadrocopter built at a hackerspace to research autonomous operation, with a tracking GPS, hour-long battery life and first-person-view camera

- a professional, thousands-of-dollars, remotely controlled photo rig

- a military machine designed to kill human beings in a semi-autonomous manner

If I saw one of these near my house I wouldn't so much as blink. If I saw another I would be immediately relocating to another country.

d_theorist3• 11 years ago

Fine, but they don't specify.

The objection is against vagueness, not inaccuracy.

CamperBob2• 11 years ago

No, it's not even remotely "fine." Would you consider it "fine" if the media couldn't distinguish between an Airsoft gun and a bazooka? That's exactly what's happening when the term "drone" is applied to everything in the air that doesn't have a pilot on board.

radialbrain• 11 years ago

Exactly! It seems anything that can fly is a drone nowadays, from a remote controlled quad copter to a Predator.

joshuaheard• 11 years ago

Somebody is filming the Paris landmarks for a movie or art project.

htor• 11 years ago

The plot thickens... No. It doesn't.

sogen• 11 years ago

Like NIN's "mysterious" snuff video: http://consequenceofsound.net/2014/10/video-rewind-hard-copy...

ratsbane• 11 years ago

This illustrates something that might be a significant future problem for law enforcement, etc. - how to enforce anti-drone laws. Perhaps this will lead to an anti-drone technology industry with drone-tracking equipment and drone-capture drones. With radio-controlled devices, direction-finding equipment could work but with autonomous drones...?

MollyR• 11 years ago

There is an interesting south park episode about this. It ended up with police drones brutally destroying civilian drones. I think it was parody of violence occurring during protests. However it still made me wonder, whether drones will become avatars for people who don't want to leave home, and how much history simply repeats.

DMac87• 11 years ago

Is there a way to track & regulate these? e.g. if drone operators are breaking the law by flying too low, then do police have the means to cite violators? If so, I don't see what the issue is - they're not enforcing their own law very well. If not... well that's a whole other problem.

logfromblammo• 11 years ago

When writing offenses into the law that are malum prohibitum, it would be wise to expend a bit of effort in deciding whether such laws are practically enforceable.

Parisian authorities would probably have done better to mandate an amateur radio operator's license, identification requirements, and liability insurance.

When it's equally illegal for an otherwise innocent hobbyist and for a malevolent bogeyman, it becomes much harder to impute motives to the unseen operator.

Though in reality, the authorities are likely far more concerned about unauthorized, copyright-violating photographs ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower#Image_copyright_cl... ) than about terrorism.

Paris night drone mystery deepens

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