Drones: they’re like flying stalker robots.
Sure, anyone with a camera can snap photos of you and your family on the beach, but drones can do that over your supposedly private spaces, such as your back yard.
Just what, exactly, is a privacy-conscious person to do about unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) beating their nosy little rotors over an individual’s private airspace?
Well, there’s the upcoming Rapere drone, a sort of cannibal anti-drone drone that the manufacturer says will hover over a target drone and lower webbing to snare its rotor blades: a prospect that sounds satisfyingly crunchy.
And there’s always shooting them down, which gives you the satisfaction of potentially jumping up and down on them and cursing melodramatically.
But both of these could mean the drones fall and hurt somebody. On top of all that, it’s probably illegal. So don’t do it.
Do not despair, and do not begin training your attack falcon. There’s still one more hope for the drone-phobic.
It’s called the NoFlyZone: a service that lets users input their addresses with the aim of keeping the airspace above their homes drone-free.
NoFlyZone.org registers each address along with its GPS coordinates, which are then relayed to drone manufacturers to create a geofence around the home and render their products unable to fly over the property.
Now, all we need to do is to get the drone manufacturers on board.
The few drone makers who’ve signed on include HEXO+, the company behind the auto-tracking drone that amassed more than $1 million (£649,772) in Kickstarter funding last year; Ehang, makers of the recently unveiled Ghost Drone; DroneDeploy, a drone management platform; electric aviation company Yuneec; Horizon Hobby, PixiePath and RCFlyMaps.
That list leaves out major drone makers DJI and 3D Robotics: big omissions, given that, according to TechCrunch, DJI alone “probably accounts for the vast majority of drone sales in the United States.”
Even if the major drone makers do agree to go along with geofencing people’s homes at their request, it’s not clear that NoFlyZone has the right to protect personal airspace, which, at least in the US, is under the control of the Federal Aviation Administration.
What do you think, does NoFlyZone have a chance? And does it even matter whether quadcopters are banned over your airspace, given that satellites – the truly professional stalking toys – have much better imaging capabilities?
Please do let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
Image of drone courtesy of Shutterstock.
Paul Ducklin
Great. More “opt-out” that involves putting yourself on what you might very well call a “Streisand List.” Heck, if merely using Tor can cause people to look at you in a funny way, what will “going against the drones” be telling the world?
Also, betcha you’ll have to provide a bunch of PII to prove that you have the right to add your property to the list. Otherwise someone’s just going to add a list of entire metro areas to the list…because they can.
Magyver
Think I’m gonna have to take my chances with my trusty pellet gun Paul, very discretely of course.
Anonymous
I think the trained attack falcons have a better chance. At least with current battery technology, the things can’t stay up there indefinitely. Eventually it’s going to have to come down somewhere, and if the operator shows up to retrieve it, we just hire Guido to have a little chat with him.
Mark
And with the potential of Millions of addresses worldwide, where is the drone manufacturer supposed to store these addresses and gps co-ordinates?
The memory requirements would be impossible to meet also how would they protect the information from theft! What a stupid ill-conceived idea!
Crystal
I’m all for privacy. However NoFlyZone is taking it too far, in my opinion.
If someone wants to record a video of you or take a picture there are plenty of ways to do that without using a very obvious and noisy radio controlled copter/drone.
Not everyone is out to invade your privacy. Most of us just want a cool video and probably don’t even want strangers in them.
James Gustafson
I agree with Paul Ducklin! Microsoft said hey for security purposes let’s turn off all roles and features by default and enable what you need. Lets auto add no fly zones over every house and a six block area around all schools. If you purchase a drone then you will have to work at getting your own house off the no fly list. And all companies that make drones don’t have to worry about what address is blocked or what address is not. This will save programming time for them? This way the older generation who will never add them selves to the no fly zone because they don’t know what that is and will never know are protected by default. Imagine me telling my 63 year old mother who has never worked on a computer before to add her self t0 the no FLY ZONE for DRONES! What about our children walking to school? Drone from a local sex offender fly’s over with GPS enabled and takes video of my little 8 year old girl walking to school. Then funny but he shows up on the side walk the next school day. NOT EXCEPTABLE!!!!!!!!!! It is darn time we start creating Technology with the safety of the public in mind first! Not create and mitigate after the fact! I am a IT admin for many companies and know technology well. I LOVE technology!!! So sick and tired of the cat and mouse game with security and bugs and hacking!!!!!!!!!!! I wish people were good by default but those days are gone!! The days of making technology unsafe for our community and paying the consequences latter have to STOP!! Sing it with me! S T O P !!!!!
Mary Davey
I was thinking of the advantages to burglars of having real time surveilance of prospective properties, but I can see the advantage to paedophiles of being able to scout for targets without being seen.
Would the opt-out be as useless as the telephone preference opt-out? Only UK based and honest companies take any notice of that one, not the ones who cause the problems.
yuri
Anyone else thinking Tesla Coil?
Anonymous
How about planting a lot of trees? Fast-growing ones (and maybe bushes/shrubs, too)! We may have time before the drones are everywhere.
Regards,
Lisa Vaas
I entered my own address. In the satellite image, you couldn’t even see my house, what with the tree cover.
But FWIW, as I recall, this is the PII they requested: Name, address, email address.
Mark
God you people amaze me how many spy satellites are at this moment looking down on you? Hmm maybe we should get the worlds governments to upload a list of GPS co-ordinates to exclude your home!
Most responsible quadcopter fliers dont fly over peoples homes its all down to proper education, so when mummy and daddy go out and buy spoilt little johnny a quadcopter they fail to inform him of the rules or indeed are ignorant to the rules set out by the CAA in each country!
There are strict rules and if they are in breach of them rules report them!
Ohhh I care for my privacy! oh look lets go and buy one of those voice activated TV’s Ive been told its a really good picture!
DGT80
Why is the conversation about the technology and not about the criminalizing the people who misuse/abuse it?
LindaB
In the UK it is already illegal to fly drones below a stated level over populated areas such as cities, towns and villages. Further, there are a number of areas such as public buildings, airports, military establishments, etc where it is an offence to fly drones at any height.
Our Civil Aviation Authority have publicised a number of guidance points for those wishing to use drones and these contain warnings about banned locations and the potentially severe penalties for ignoring the rules.
John
I live in the country. I can shoot off a shotgun in my back yard and no one would care. Shotgun+Fire pit=What drone?
4caster
What’s new? We don’t own the airspace above our homes, nor the mining rights beneath them. We don’t even own our houses and gardens unconditionally, because we have to get planning permission for change of use, altering the structures or extending them. If we own land in the countryside, someone else may own the fishing and shooting rights. So what’s the difference between a drone overflying, or a balloon, glider or a light aeroplane or helicopter?
Paul Ducklin
Manoeuverability and flying height are two obvious differences…
And in most places, you’d need to opt in for permission to land a helicopter of your own even on your own property, wouldn’t you? Not to opt out from someone else landing theirs whenever they felt like it?
Mike
Regarding DJI all their UAV aircraft are equipped with software by default that disables them from flying in prohibited airspace, in particular around airports. If I were in a restricted area then the aircraft would simply not take off. This software covers all airfields world wide. John, what sort of self serving vigilanty are you? Blow it out of the sky, no legally you can’t discharge a firearm with intent to cause damage or destroy property even if fired from your ” own back yard” and yes, the police would most certainly care. Additionally if you had your “fire pit” ready this would be deemed a premeditated event. Firearm, premeditation=jail!!!! There are also privacy infringement laws in this country (UK) which govern how unmanned surveillance aircraft can be used. Just look at the website of the BMFA the major coordinator of model aircraft flying and the CAA to get the facts.
Most sensible flyers also carry public liability insurance, in my case up to £25 million through the BMFA. Sadly it is the renegade, irresponsible element of UAV owners that let down those of us who take our hobby seriously and embrace the responsibility that it includes. Please don’t tar us all with the same brush!
xander
Simple solution, instead of reducing our flight space or disabling them, just force drone users to publish their video records to an official website and track down or even remotely disable anyone taking pics of 8yr olds.
You could say that offenders might delete the videos they take but simple software exists to have a hidden backup that is also sent to the government.
tartanrose
I too agree with Paul Ducklin…..yet another thing to have to opt out of. I would like to make mention of the comment re the older generation.
Please don’t be so ready to write off your 63 year old Mothers ability to learn something new. When I was 63 I hadn’t used a computer either. Now many years later I have retired myself, got an XP then retired that, now using an iPad.
Around four years ago I discovered Naked Security which has been invaluable to me. I have learnt so much and am on a mission to continue learning and to try to keep myself as safe as possible online.
With regard to drones overhead………a few months ago here in Melbourne someone discovered a photo of themselves sunbathing Naked (No Security!) in their own backyard. They observed the photo on the billboard of the neighbouring house. It had been taken by a drone…..The image was quickly covered up!
Please accept my ongoing thanks to all those at Naked Security.
Will Barnes
It seems like the “Googlemobile” and the smug little hoods casing the neighborhood are a bigger problem. Lots of homes in Anchorage are protected by Herr Glock and if a quadcopter got out of hand the arguments would be over who would take credit for bringing it down.
That said, these UAVs are a real hazard to manned aircraft, since they often fly on automatic. I’ve talked to several pilots who have had close encounters with UAVs and it is pretty hard to track them to their operators. Since we are all driving new cars that track us wherever we go, a good solution would be to require the drone manufactures to track their drones, to mark them with registration numbers and require them to have an encoded transponder that can be interrogated by ground radar.
Big Maq
There will be a day when “drones” will be the size of flys and just as quiet. A precedent needs to be set now on how this will be managed.
Free market solutions are preferably the best way to go about this.
Noflyzone might be only one of an arsenal of tools to use for protection.
Paul
Who would enforce this? All drone operators need to do is not update their software and that would stop any new additions to the opt-out system. Next thing would be to hack into their drone and remove all the existing geo-fencing. This system might stop your diligent, law abiding, software updating drone owners, and even the lazy ones who just accept the defaults, but will do nothing to stop the reckless, the sneaky or the downright criminal element who want to fly their drone wherever they want – and these are the ones we need to stop.
jimvs
Everything man made that flies by intention has a licensed operator and registered equipment, (excepting of course gov’t “owned” equipment and agents, and a very small number of specialty/experimental units). All equipment has to meet specific standards and specifications; all operators must be trained to specific standards. Their use is monitored (usually in the USA) by the FAA and local agencies. Failure to follow laws and specific federal, state and local agency rules and regulations results in penalties up to and including loss of license, seizure of equipment, fines, and incarceration.
Assuming that most people are OK with that, what’s wrong with applying the same logic and procedures to drone owners and operators?
Jeff panetti
Why are people so scared of drones? There just RC toys . The camera that comes with drones can’t even make out people unless you’re close to them , most times operators fly high over houses so camera will only get the top of your house . So stop being worried about drones.