
Paris night drone mystery deepens - cichli
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-31619099
======
DavidAdams
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.

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

~~~
d_theorist
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".

------
TeMPOraL
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.

~~~
engendered
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
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.

~~~
engendered
And you really read this article and think "Oh, they might be talking about a
missile-equipped military drone"?

Of course you don't. This is pedantry nonsense that, while becoming common, is
really that someone wants to argue, in _utter_ futility, about the definition
of a word. For years HN was caught up naval gazing about the difference
between hacker and cracker. Now it is this drone garbage.

~~~
TeMPOraL
It is important, because it shines light on the seriousness and meaningfulness
of the issue. Of course I wasn't thinking about an armed Predator (I mentioned
it only to highlight the high end of the scope of things that people call
"drones"). But here are some questions I'd like the article to answer:

\- Was it a helicopter or a fixed-wing aircraft?

\- Was it something small or the kind of fixed-wing that companies use to do
terrain imaging (think 3x4 meters, $10k+/piece)?

\- Was it a cheap radio-controlled toy or something capable of flying BVR or
autonomously?

\- If fixed wing, was it a proppeler plane or a jet?

A lot depends on those answers. If that was just a random dude who bought a
Phantom off eBay, then it's not really worth even writing about. On the other
hand, it that was a model jet, it has very serious safety implications related
to both speed and the noise its engines generate. Furthermore, if that was
just an RC heli then again it's probably nothing, while if it was a long-
flight-duration BVR/autonomous vehicle, it could be anything from a shady
company doing something illegal to criminals scoping places for a strike.

Reading this article, I can't really be sure if that "mysterious drone" was
any of the above, or if someone just strapped few LEDs to a pidgeon.

As for lumping everything under the name "drone" \- for the last few years
when you saw a news article with the word "drone" in it, it was usually
followed by either a causalty count or remarks about police power abuse.
People are scared of this term. Also, it feels sort of weird to call a cheap
toy-quadcopter "a drone", much in the same way as calling a tank "a car".

~~~
engendered
You know it wasn't fixed wing. You know it wasn't a helicopter. These are both
absurd misdirections to try to justify the nonsensical demands for
specificity.

 _Reading this article, I can 't really be sure if that "mysterious drone" was
any of the above, or if someone just strapped few LEDs to a pidgeon._

99.9% of readers read the article and knew it was quadcoptors. The 0.1% knew
it was quadcopters, but want to engage in a ridiculous bit of nonsense on HN,
playing to the crowd.

 _much in the same way as calling a tank "a car"_

Hardly, and that analogy is absurd. More like if a bomb went off in a cafe you
would be declaring that "IS IT A NUCLEAR BOMB? WAS IT A PLASTIC BOMB? A TNT
BOMB? A BLACK POWDER BOMB? A REPURPOSED ARTILLERY SHELL WARHEAD? A...."

It's just noise. Noisy bullshit that is ruining HN.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _You know it wasn 't fixed wing. You know it wasn't a helicopter. These are
> both absurd misdirections to try to justify the nonsensical demands for
> specificity._

I really don't know. It's nowhere in the article - neither stated nor implied.

> _99.9% of readers read the article and knew it was quadcoptors._

[citation needed]

> _The 0.1% knew it was quadcopters, but want to engage in a ridiculous bit of
> nonsense on HN, playing to the crowd._

Excuse me for trying to get a coherent picture out of that article. Also, you
realize that contemporary journalism is mostly misleading mixed with blatant
lies? I'd be wary of accepting as a fact whatever is not stated but what
you're led to implicitly belive.

> _" IS IT A NUCLEAR BOMB? WAS IT A PLASTIC BOMB? A TNT BOMB? A BLACK POWDER
> BOMB? A REPURPOSED ARTILLERY SHELL WARHEAD? A...."_

Nope. Try a headline "a mysterious explosion occured, no one got hurt" and me
asking whether it was a gas explosion, a conventional explosive, or just some
random kid who discovered that mixing potassium nitrate with sugar leads to
fun things happening.

------
logfromblammo
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...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower#Image_copyright_claims)
) than about terrorism.

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

------
jgrahamc
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
this sort of positive discrimination is ruining generalisations for everyone.

------
sogen
Like NIN's "mysterious" snuff video:
[http://consequenceofsound.net/2014/10/video-rewind-hard-
copy...](http://consequenceofsound.net/2014/10/video-rewind-hard-copy-reports-
on-trent-reznors-death/)

------
ratsbane
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
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
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.

------
centizen
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
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.

~~~
centizen
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.

~~~
morcheeba
This isn't a highly populated area. There is little chance that if this drone
fell at any time it would hit someone or land in a street. A highly populated
area is a soccer stadium during a match.

And what's wrong with night time? That's when the streets are least populated.

You could make many of these bogus arguments about a variety of new
technologies ... maybe cars should only be driven during the day? Or film noir
rejected because people have an expectation of privacy at night?

~~~
votingprawn
> This isn't a highly populated area. There is little chance that if this
> drone fell at any time it would hit someone or land in a street.

Only if you consider the only failure mode to be a descent straight down.
These 'consumer' multirotors do have a nasty habit of buggering off in random
directions when they feel like it:
[https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dji+flyaway](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dji+flyaway)

> And what's wrong with night time?

Maintaining line of sight with the vehicle becomes very difficult when its
dark. In some jurisdictions the law actually makes no reference to it being
daytime or night-time, only that you able to maintain direct unaided line of
sight with the vehicle.

When you're in control of what is essentially a 1-2kg flying blender, it is
your responsibility to err on the side of caution. Just like when you operate
any other device which could significantly harm another.

> You could make many of these bogus arguments about a variety of new
> technologies ... maybe cars should only be driven during the day?

You'll probably find laws and rules already exist to protect the public from
other new technologies. Take cars for example:

\- You must be qualified by a government body to use them. \- The car must be
certified as safe to use on the road, and routinely checked. \- You may only
use them in specific segregated areas. \- You must be able to maintain control
over the car at all times. \- At night your car must be well lit and must
provide you with enough light to see what you are doing. \- If you do
something stupid/dangerous with your car you are punished.

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

