blog/data/2013-11-21-drones.txt

   1 Title: All drones should be radio marked with what they do and who they belong to
   2 Tags: english, surveillance, robot, sikkerhet
   3 Date: 2013-11-21 15:40
   4
   5 <p>Drones, flying robots, are getting more and more popular.  The most
   6 know ones are the killer drones used by some government to murder
   7 people they do not like without giving them the chance of a fair
   8 trial, but the technology have many good uses too, from mapping and
   9 forest maintenance to photography and search and rescue.  I am sure it
  10 is just a question of time before "bad drones" are in the hands of
  11 private enterprises and not only state criminals but petty criminals
  12 too.  The drone technology is very useful and very dangerous.  To have
  13 some control over the use of drones, I agree with Daniel Suarez in his
  14 TED talk
  15 "<a href="https://archive.org/details/DanielSuarez_2013G">The kill
  16 decision shouldn't belong to a robot</a>", where he suggested this
  17 little gem to keep the good while limiting the bad use of drones:</p>
  18
  19 <blockquote>
  20
  21 <p>Each robot and drone should have a cryptographically signed
  22 I.D. burned in at the factory that can be used to track its movement
  23 through public spaces. We have license plates on cars, tail numbers on
  24 aircraft. This is no different. And every citizen should be able to
  25 download an app that shows the population of drones and autonomous
  26 vehicles moving through public spaces around them, both right now and
  27 historically. And civic leaders should deploy sensors and civic drones
  28 to detect rogue drones, and instead of sending killer drones of their
  29 own up to shoot them down, they should notify humans to their
  30 presence. And in certain very high-security areas, perhaps civic
  31 drones would snare them and drag them off to a bomb disposal facility.</p>
  32
  33 <p>But notice, this is more an immune system than a weapons system. It
  34 would allow us to avail ourselves of the use of autonomous vehicles
  35 and drones while still preserving our open, civil society.</p>
  36
  37 </blockquote>
  38
  39 <p>The key is that <em>every citizen</em> should be able to read the
  40 radio beacons sent from the drones in the area, to be able to check
  41 both the government and others use of drones.  For such control to be
  42 effective, everyone must be able to do it.  What should such beacon
  43 contain?  At least formal owner, purpose, contact information and GPS
  44 location.  Probably also the origin and target position of the current
  45 flight.  And perhaps some registration number to be able to look up
  46 the drone in a central database tracking their movement.  Robots
  47 should not have privacy.  It is people who need privacy.</p>