Flock Is Quietly Selling Powerful Drones That Scan License Plates From the Sky
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63 replies
Bold move in a nation that treats firearms target practice as a sport.
First thing I thought of was "TARGET PRACTICE!"
Can we use jammers against them perhaps?
No. Its highly illegal to jam frequencies. If you find one legal to jam the drone can change frequency.
At this point, does it matter if its illegal? Lets rather ask is it safe? is it easy to avoid getting caught? is it low risk for damage?
A lot of americans already have them. I'm unfamiliar with them, but they've all got names like dezziteegoo and smiffunwessun.
Fun as it may be to shoot them out of the sky, that's not super feasible in urban or suburban areas. Don't want to risk the possibility of the bullet hitting someone on the way down and the neighbors probably wouldn't appreciate the gunshots
I have a 12G one.
lovely😍😍
Converting a little microwave oven to a homemade jammer gun never hurt anyone (it has).
That's your prime example of a community becoming safer? The cops droning a mf because he lit a cigarette and some Karen panicked? You're the CEO of the fucking company with like the worst PR and you say this shit.
"We know cops are racist so we've lessened their load by making our drones racist too."
"Why are they not clapping"
How does that even change the situation to make things safer? Are they gonna crash the drone into a suspect to diffuse a situation? Unless Flock is advertising domestic drone strikes, then the only feasible deliverables are more spying and more profiling.
I read it as the drones protecting the civilians from the trigger-happy cops rushing in first.
In other news, falconry has become unexpectedly popular.
Are they going to follow FAA rules then or just do whatever they want and kill people every now and then when they crash/fall out of the sky?
No, they'll do whatever they want and kill people deliberately, frequently, whenever they say something which disagrees with the dictatorship state definition of truth. Give it a decade
Oh boy. Ain't gonna take that long.
Isn't there an fcc rule about drones needing to be in the line of sight of the operator
Yes. They are also not allowed to be over people (including traffic) unless it's just to pass over to move to another area with no people (not allowed to continuously pass over people) unless they are below a certain, very low, weight. I think only one drone fits that category last I checked.
I have my commercial drone license but quit the job that required it so I am a little rusty on the rules
Well when they crash the company needs to replace the whole drone, so they are probably going to try to avoid that when possible.
That said, they should have to obey faa regs, but while the laws for private use are pretty clear, the commercial use regulations are layered and sort of in flux. Major operators are always pushing to have laws adjusted, and because leadership in the US is generally overly supportive of big business, those changes often go into place.
In other words, there ARE laws, but you know, it's the US, so they can probably change them.
I think this will depend less on the FAA and more on local jurisdiction. the FAA doesn't really have that much restrictions in place for low altitude drones (< 400 ft) they require it to be registered due to commercial but, the 2026 modifications for usage removed a lot of the safety barriers and controls that were in place for them. Now it's basically as long as its registered and the lights are bright enough to be seen, it's allowed unless there's a local law forbidding it.
How long can these even stay airborn? This is a REALLY stupid idea.
I mean, that's one of the easier problems to solve. Basically make them a Roomba that has a set flight plan where it returns to its charging station at the end, and have enough that they can swap out and still keep coverage.
And depending on how it's made, powerless gliding is an option. They already use gliders in some places for speed limit enforcement.
Maybe 40 minutes.
Frankly, what a bunch of fucking creeps. Does no one else find it weird that they’re hellbent on spying on people? If it weren’t for the government we’d probably lock up these fucking psychos.
They will go down kicking and screaming. A company like flock has tons of investor capital. That results in a board putting tons of pressure on executive leadership. They will never go "oops nevermind this was a bad idea". It's just a other front in the class war against the billionaire Epstein class.
Next week having closed courtains will be illegal. What's going on in there? Probably something suspicious! Why is your bathroom window frosted?!
I have no doubt this is thiel's work. He needs the data for his surveillance machine.
No, it's not weird.
No, it really fucking is tho.
They're just copying Chinese ideas, don't they ?
Once this becomes the norm next podcast is "What if we put small tasers on the drones? Our communities become much safer!". And then handguns etc...
And when they get hacked, people will be able to do mass shootings from the comfort of their own homes. That's what I call progress!
Crowbar stocks is on the rise.
So, target practice.
I forgot that there was a sport meant to help train you for shooting drones out of the sky
Everyone told you shooting skeet was a useless hobby.
It should be legal to destroy corpo property.
one thing I learned is that everything is legal as long as you don't get caught.
According to my laws, this is not forbidden.
It is if you ask me.
I've been waiting for this for a long time. Drones are cheap. Automating their flight is a super solved problem. At some point every cop car will have a drone on demand that can pop out and follow. They'll launch some slow movers with big blades and just have them patrol. 30-40 minute flights.
Skeet shooting: city edition
The maximum viable elevation that you can hit a target at with a shotgun is ~40m, or ~55m with a very tight choke. Drones can comfortably operate much higher than that. I guess it might work from the roof of a skyscraper though.
time to deploy our own counter-drone drones
This is already a thing
The drone on the thumbnail looks like the german flag!
It's so distinct that it must be intentional.
I mean, if it hovers, a laser to a camera is a known thing...
Genuine question...I've only ever thought that was some kind of movie magic we all accepted as reality. Could you blind a camera with any kind of laser pointer? Like, Dollar store shit would work? or it needs to be a special frequency or something?
Not 100% sure if laser wattage matters. I'm sure if not a higher wattage just does it faster. A YT search for laser pointer camera probably would give you an idea.
After Looking at those vids myself it does seem wattage is a factor, and steadiness of the pointer does too.
Be very careful to adequately protect your eyes when using lasers. Different laser wavelengths need different eye protection
No body gonna be driving when the markets crash.
A handful in the sky is still a lot less useful than the thousands on the ground. We need them off the streets and then we can deal with the drones.
While I agree that the street-level cameras should urgently be taken care of, don't underestimate what a stationary aerial drone can do over a couple of hours.
Listen to Radiolab's Eye in the Sky episode. Think of the possibilities that have opened up because of drone tech in the 10 years since it first aired (and the 20 years since the tech was used in Iraq). It's truly frightening what these drones will be able to accomplish once they are in place.
I don't think sending a couple drones to canvas a city grid from the sky would count as less useful. In fact, it'd be a lot faster than strapping a camera to a truck/car. Really depends how they are used. But worst case scenario, both drones and fixed cameras work in conjunction, which they obviously would.
sounds expensive
These guys really don't get the message eh?
wonder how hard it is to hit those...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_VNnkB-i54
Depending on the drone, might be harder than I initially thought
Probably pretty easy with a shotgun