What am I missing?

[East]

PLEASE someone point out to me what I am missing......

because......

DRONES...F*CKING Jeff Bezos and AMAZON...

..what is to stop a terrorist cell from getting a drone and delivering nuclear bombs..or anthrax...or other types of mayhem?

Please tell me what I am missing....I know I have overlooked something...I just need to know what it is....

[bluerealm]

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos had a big surprise for correspondent Charlie Rose this week. After their 60 Minutes interview, Bezos walked Rose into a mystery room at the Amazon offices and revealed a secret R&D project: "Octocopter" drones that will fly packages directly to your doorstep in 30 minutes.

It's an audacious plan that Bezos says requires more safety testing and FAA approvals, but he estimates that delivery-by-drone, called Amazon "Prime Air," will be available to customers in as soon as 4-5 years.

When Charlie Rose walked in and saw the Prime Air drones sitting on a tabletop for the show-and-tell, he exclaimed "Oh, my God!" It was a genuine reaction-- Rose and the 60 Minutes team weren't in on the secret beforehand. The story had been in the works for months before the Amazon representatives started hinting that a new project might be revealed to 60 Minutes.


it was nice meeting. Ok, I'm ready to die.

[Bhp91126]

Does that fall under amendment one or two? :biggrin:

Don't know anything about it. That unpleasant thought has come to me as well.

But all that unpleasant stuff can be delivered by car as well, or small plane, or ship, or....

So, the trick is to keep the nuclear stuff under lock and key and monitor the raw arterial to make bombs, Anthrax etc.

Basically nothing changed.

[Bowyn Aerrow]

The only thing keeping it out of the hands of terrorist cells is cost. Amazon is a huge company that appears to be able to afford this sort of thing.

But, does a terrorist group actually need a big drone when there are kits that allow people to turn their dead cat into flying helicopters?


Cats away! Artist turns his dead pet into flying helicopter after it is killed by a car



Sooo...

There are model planes, model rockets, model helicopters, helium filled balloons and all sorts of other things that can be used. Remember Balloon Boy? I've seen larger, fully powered 'toy' blimps that can deliver a lethal package of anthrax or other lethal dust.

I suspect government understands that there are already sufficient number of methods to deliver stuff, why panic the public with concerns of just one more useful tool?

[JackTX]

Geez, who are all of these Amazon customers that are spending so much there that they can afford goddamn drones?? Show yourselves!

*vanish*

[East]

Good tries...but still I can't see anything I am missing. These are very specifically targeted to arrive at very specific places. How can anyone stop these things from delivering very specific packages to very specific people?

Is the technology "top secret"?

[meridannight]

i think that's a little overblown. there's nothing wrong with regular delivery. i actually see that drone delivery will complicate things, rather than make them simpler.

not only do you need to figure out the aerodynamics and flight mechanics of your particular aerial vehicle, which, if you want it to deliver packages with a range of weight on them is a serious task in itself. you also need to think about aerial navigation. i assume they will be controlled by a computer program rather than an actual person, so they'll need to map every goddamn tree and lamp post on the whole map of USA. is he fucking serious? and how will he monitor other drones' flight paths? how high are they gonna be flying? it's unimaginable that those things would be flown anywhere near the airports or other areas critical to manned aircraft flight paths.

and how will the drone actually deliver the package to the recipient? do you have to leave your window open for it, or will it just drop the thing off on your front lawn (if you have one) for anyone to grab? you'd have to actually be home, to receive the package. how is this simpler?

i think that guy is just following some utopian obsession of his he might have been dreaming of as a kid. sounds like something along those lines. i'm yet to be convinced this will be a workable/efficient solution at all.

[meridannight]

..what is to stop a terrorist cell from getting a drone and delivering nuclear bombs..or anthrax...or other types of mayhem?

Please tell me what I am missing....I know I have overlooked something...I just need to know what it is....

OK, i will try to address your concern about the terrorists using these things, although you have to understand this is mostly a theoretical speculation.

take the consumer-grade drones i was just talking about on one thread of mine. those are yet mostly unpractical for such purposes. you cannot put a weight on them and still successfully fly them in the air. they will become unstable and crash. they're designed to function within a certain VERY limited range of weight and balance (including shape of the hull). so bombs are out, although you could deliver anthrax to your neighbor with them. but due to their limited range, you are gonna put yourself in danger of being exposed to the same anthrax. see, how that would not work? (well, at least on a person who is not suicidal).

the nuclear concern is unjustified at the moment. you have to keep in mind that the drones are small light aircraft and nuclear weapons often weigh in the 500+ kg range. drones capable of carrying such weight ARE restricted in most countries. if you try to acquire such technology you will get flagged. although, you can make smaller payloads, but a terrorist planning to blow up something big won't have much use of that, and for attacking on a smaller scale there is other technology out there that makes more sense to use than nuclear weapons.

it's a whole range of factors that play into it. mostly, military-grade drones are not available, or at least they are highly guarded and secured, and a lot of them are still in the development phase. and the consumer-grade drones are mostly unpractical for such usage.

i don't know what kind of drones amazon.com plans to use, but i doubt they will get a green light to fly drones capable of delivering large weights. they will be highly restricted in that department.

[Rareboy]

Nothing will stop people from using technology to commit acts of terror. We already know this.

But this isn't about Bezos or Amazon.

Good lord. Our neighbours have a drone they use to patrol their property so at this point anyone can get one.

But there isn't much difference delivering explosives in a motor vehicle and delivering them by air.

I picture an age of little wars...where we all start shooting down drones that fly over our space.

[meridannight]

But there isn't much difference delivering explosives in a motor vehicle and delivering them by air.

actually, the difference is pretty much the physics of flight. it is MUCH easier to deliver explosives by car than to fly them anywhere.

if you want to do it by air, and assuming you do not have access to military-grade drones, you'll have to design your own aircraft that could handle the weight and volume of the explosives you plan to use. that means having to go through extensive testing period to get the desired hull and flight.

or you could go the other way around, and match the explosives to a particular drone that you have. but that is not as simple as it appears at first glance. for now, explosives still take up certain amount of space and they weigh a certain amount themselves. none of the consumer-grade drones available to the general public have been designed with concerns for such modifications to the shape and weight of the aircraft in mind. which in other words means, you can buy the drone but whether it'll actually fly your stuff for the duration and destination you want it, is another big question mark. to make sure it flies, again, you have to test the drone, taking up precious time. and if the drone doesn't prove to be successful you'll need to move on to another hull. and so forth.

with all that time you have to put into it to assure your explosives can even be carried up into the air let alone stay there for a certain period of time, you could just steal a car and get them there with much improved certainty.

but of course, stupidity doesn't exclude anything. and people unfamiliar with the basics of flight could try just about anything.

i think the drone technology is highly promising. it has its uses, and i am all for keeping it accessible for the general public. but i can also see how stupidity and careless usage can cause harm with these things even unintentionally. so, there is that. maybe drone pilots should get licensed and go through a basic training program including aviation security and basic aerodynamics and other aspects of flight, in order to use these things.