One Drone Thread to Rule them ALL

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Re: One Drone Thread to Rule them ALL

Postby JackRiddler » Wed Jul 14, 2010 4:45 pm

(Assimilating from another thread.)

Israeli Girls in First-Person Shooters, Killing Real People
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=28857

Another story testing the lower moral depths. (Sorry if 19 years of age now qualifies as a girl or boy to this coot.)

http://counterpunch.org/cook07132010.html

The Spot-and-Shoot Game
Remote-Controlled Killing


July 13, 2010

By JONATHAN COOK

Nazareth.

It is called Spot and Shoot. Operators sit in front of a TV monitor from which they can control the action with a PlayStation-style joystick.

The aim: to kill terrorists.

Played by: young women serving in the Israeli army.

Spot and Shoot, as it is called by the Israeli military, may look like a video game but the figures on the screen are real people -- Palestinians in Gaza -- who can be killed with the press of a button on the joystick.

The female soldiers, located far away in an operations room, are responsible for aiming and firing remote-controlled machine-guns mounted on watch-towers every few hundred metres along an electronic fence that surrounds Gaza.

The system is one of the latest “remote killing” devices developed by Israel’s Rafael armaments company, the former weapons research division of the Israeli army and now a separate governmental firm.

According to Giora Katz, Rafael’s vice-president, remote-controlled military hardware such as Spot and Shoot is the face of the future. He expects that within a decade at least a third of the machines used by the Israeli army to control land, air and sea will be unmanned.

The demand for such devices, the Israeli army admits, has been partly fuelled by a combination of declining recruitment levels and a population less ready to risk death in combat.

Oren Berebbi, head of its technology branch, recently told an American newspaper: “We’re trying to get to unmanned vehicles everywhere on the battlefield … We can do more and more missions without putting a soldier at risk.”

Rapid progress with the technology has raised alarm at the United Nations. Philip Alston, its special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, warned last month of the danger that a “PlayStation mentality to killing” could quickly emerge.

According to analysts, however, Israel is unlikely to turn its back on hardware that it has been at the forefront of developing – using the occupied Palestinian territories, and especially Gaza, as testing laboratories.

Remotely controlled weapons systems are in high demand from repressive regimes and the burgeoning homeland security industries around the globe.

“These systems are still in the early stages of development but there is a large and growing market for them,” said Shlomo Brom, a retired general and defence analyst at the Institute of National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University.

The Spot and Shoot system -- officially known as Sentry Tech -- has mostly attracted attention in Israel because it is operated by 19- and 20-year-old female soldiers, making it the Israeli army’s only weapons system operated exclusively by women.

Female soldiers are preferred to operate remote killing devices because of a shortage of male recruits to Israel’s combat units. Young women can carry out missions without breaking the social taboo of risking their lives, said Mr Brom.

The women are supposed to identify anyone suspicious approaching the fence around Gaza and, if authorised by an officer, execute them using their joysticks.

The Israeli army, which plans to introduce the technology along Israel’s other confrontation lines, refuses to say how many Palestinians have been killed by the remotely controlled machine-guns in Gaza. According to the Israeli media, however, it is believed to be several dozen.

The system was phased-in two years ago for surveillance, but operators were only able to open fire with it more recently. The army admitted using Sentry Tech in December to kill at least two Palestinians several hundred metres inside the fence.

The Haaretz newspaper, which was given rare access to a Sentry Tech control room, quoted one soldier, Bar Keren, 20, saying: “It’s very alluring to be the one to do this. But not everyone wants this job. It’s no simple matter to take up a joystick like that of a Sony PlayStation and kill, but ultimately it’s for defence.”

Audio sensors on the towers mean that the women hear the shot as it kills the target. No woman, Haaretz reported, had failed the task of shooting what the army calls an “incriminated” Palestinian.

The Israeli military, which enforces a so-called “buffer zone” -- an unmarked no-man’s land -- inside the fence that reaches as deep as 300 metres into the tiny enclave, has been widely criticised for opening fire on civilians entering the closed zone.

In separate incidents in April, a 21-year-old Palestinian demonstrator was shot dead and a Maltese solidarity activist wounded when they took part in protests to plant a Palestinian flag in the buffer zone. The Maltese woman, Bianca Zammit, was videoing as she was hit.

It is unclear whether Spot and Shoot has been used against such demonstrations.

The Israeli army claims Sentry Tech is “revolutionary”. And that will make its marketing potential all the greater as other armies seek out innovations in “remote killing” technology.

Rafael is reported to be developing a version of Sentry Tech that will fire long-range guided missiles.

Another piece of hardware recently developed for the Israeli army is the Guardium, an armoured robot-car that can patrol territory at up to 80km per hour, navigate through cities, launch “ambushes” and shoot at targets. It now patrols the Israeli borders with Gaza and Lebanon.

Its Israeli developers, G-Nius, have called it the world’s first “robot soldier”. It looks like a first-generation version of the imaginary “robot-armour” worn by soldiers in the popular recent sci-fi movie Avatar.

Rafael has produced the first unmanned naval patrol boat, the “Protector”, which has been sold to Singapore’s navy and is being heavily marketing in the US. A Rafael official, Patrick Bar-Avi, told the Israeli business daily Globes: “Navies worldwide are only now beginning to examine the possible uses of such vehicles, and the possibilities are endless.”

But Israel is most known for its role in developing “unmanned aerial vehicles” – or drones, as they have come to be known. Originally intended for spying, and first used by Israel over south Lebanon in the early 1980s, today they are increasingly being used for extrajudicial executions from thousands of feet in the sky.

In February Israel officially unveiled the 14 metre-long Heron TP drone, the largest ever. Capable of flying from Israel to Iran and carrying more than a ton of weapons, the Heron was tested by Israel in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead in winter 2008, when some 1,400 Palestinians were killed.

More than 40 countries now operate drones, many of them made in Israel, although so far only the Israeli and US armies have deployed them as remote-controlled killing machines. Israeli drones are being widely used in Afghanistan.

Smaller drones have been sold to the German, Australian, Spanish, French, Russian, Indian and Canadian armies. Brazil is expected to use the drone to provide security for the 2014 World Cup championship, and the Panamanian and Salvadoran governments want them too, ostensibly to run counter-drug operations.

Despite its diplomatic crisis with Ankara, Israel was reported last month to have completed a deal selling a fleet of 10 Herons to the Turkish army for $185 million.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is http://www.jkcook.net.

A version of this article originally appeared in The National (http://www.thenational.ae), published in Abu Dhabi.
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Re: One Drone Thread to Rule them ALL

Postby elfismiles » Tue Aug 17, 2010 9:34 am

On the heels of the Google Wifi Sniffing Controversey.

And their website is www.Rabbit-Hole.org ?!?

Image


Dutch Troublemakers Turn Surplus Army Target Drone Into Autonomous Wi-Fi Sniffer
By Rebecca Boyle Posted 08.16.2010 at 1:16 pm


WASP Wi-Fi Hunter The friendly-looking homemade WASP drone can find Wi-Fi hotspots. Hak5 via sUASNews
Tired of driving around, laptop open on the passenger seat, searching for a wi-fi hotspot? The WASP, a flying wi-fi sniffer, can make the task easier.

It's an Arduino-powered aerial drone modeled, perhaps appropriately, after a Russian Cold War MiG jet. WASP stands for "Wi-fi Aerial Surveillance Platform." The folks at Rabbit Hole have detailed instructions on their Web site.

The plane is a surplus U.S. Army target drone, and is much bigger than your average RC aircraft. Controllers fly it for takeoff and landing, but when it's in the air, it automatically follows GPS coordinates the hacker team has plotted using Google Earth.

It has a wi-fi card in the nose that points downward, affording a 60-degree cone arc of coverage. At roughly 400 feet of altitude, it provides 1,000 square feet of coverage, according to one of the developers, Rich -- whose last name isn't given in this video from Hak5.

It also has a 3G cellphone and a cheap camera on board, allowing controllers to change the plane's direction if they see something interesting.

As the project's Web site says, the drone could "offer cyber-offensive and defensive capabilities, and visual/electronic surveillance over distance cheaply and with little risk."

It could be used for penetration testing of wireless networks, for instance. Other than that, the developers aren't clear about what they hope to do with their plane. But as sUASNews puts it, getting the attention of aviation authorities will probably be one of the first outcomes.

http://www.suasnews.com/2010/08/587/wi- ... form-wasp/

http://www.popsci.com/diy/article/2010- ... -questions



And this image from their website:

Image
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Re: One Drone Thread to Rule them ALL

Postby Pele'sDaughter » Tue Sep 28, 2010 10:44 am

September 27, 2010 9:52 PM PDT
CIA allegedly bought flawed software for attacks

The CIA allegedly purchased flawed targeting software for drone missile attacks on suspected terrorists--software it knew was faulty, and that could misdirect attacks by as much as 39 feet--according to a report in The Register based on claims made in a lawsuit.

The suit, filed by a Massachusetts-based company called Intelligent Integration Systems (IISI), involves another Massachusetts company, Netezza, The Register said in its report today. Netezza, a data warehousing company IBM has made a bid to buy, allegedly got a $1.18 million purchase order from the CIA last year to provide data warehouse appliances for use in drones, according to The Register. When combined with IISI's "Geospatial" software, the devices can be used to track movement of cell phones and pinpoint peoples' exact locations in real time, The Register said.

However, the IISI software does not run on the latest version of the Netezza appliance, which the CIA was purchasing, and when IISI said it couldn't port its software to Netezza's next-generation device fast enough for the CIA, Netezza allegedly met the CIA's demands on its own, with an "illegally and hastily reverse-engineered" version of IISI's code, The Register said. Despite knowing of flaws in the hacked software, the CIA acquired it, the news site reported the lawsuit as saying.

"My reaction was one of stun, amazement that they want to kill people with my software that doesn't work," IISI Chief Technology Officer Richard Zimmerman is quoted as saying in a deposition. The Register said Zimmerman was responding to an alleged comment by the CIA that it would accept untested IISI code in chunks.

Netezza initially sued IISI, claiming breach of contract over IISI's refusal to port its software to the Netezza appliance. But that case was dismissed. Now IISI has filed a lawsuit with the reverse-engineering claim and is seeking an injunction to ban Netezza and the CIA from using the software.

IISI and the CIA, which both declined to comment for The Register report, were not reachable late today.

Asked for comment, Netezza provided CNET with an e-mail statement from CEO Jim Baum that said Netezza used open-source software and specifications in the public domain to independently develop its own software for its latest data warehouse product.

"We believe that the claims made against Netezza by IISI are without merit, and we intend to vigorously defend ourselves against those claims in court," the statement said. "We did not rely on IISI's trade secrets or confidential information in developing our own geospatial product."

The company declined to confirm that the CIA was the client in question in the case. "Netezza has a classified federal client that purchased a fully tested and generally available geospatial software package independently developed by Netezza. This client has not shared any information with us about its use of this product, and we are unable to comment on its use," the Netezza statement said.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20017 ... z10pfxfsQ9
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Re: One Drone Thread to Rule them ALL

Postby elfismiles » Tue Sep 28, 2010 10:55 am

U.S. Flooded Out Millions in Pakistan to Protect Drone Base
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=29436

As we go on trial today for peace witness, join us in prayer – National Catholic Reporter
http://ncronline.org/blogs/road-peace/u ... -us-prayer

Drones on trial, and a judge listens
http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/dr ... ge-listens
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Re: One Drone Thread to Rule them ALL

Postby elfismiles » Tue Sep 28, 2010 11:03 am


Drones Target Terror Plot
CIA Strikes Intensify in Pakistan Amid Heightened Threats in Europe


By SIOBHAN GORMAN
WASHINGTON—In an effort to foil a suspected terrorist plot against European targets, the Central Intelligence Agency has ramped up missile strikes against militants in Pakistan's tribal regions, current and former officials say.

The strikes, launched from unmanned drone aircraft, represent a rare use of the CIA's drone campaign to preempt a possible attack on the West.

The terror plot, which officials have been tracking for weeks, is believed to target multiple countries, including the U.K., France, and Germany, these officials said.

The exact nature of the plot or plots couldn't be learned immediately, and counterterrorism officials in the U.S., Pakistan and Europe are continuing to investigate. There have, however, been multiple terror warnings in recent days in France, Germany and the U.K.

"There are some pretty notable threat streams," said one U.S. military official, who added that the significance of these threats is still being discussed among counterterrorism officials but that threats of this height are unusual.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano plans to discuss the current European terrorism intelligence with her European counterparts at a U.N. aviation security meeting this week in Montreal. "We are in constant contact with our colleagues abroad," she told a Senate panel last week. "We are all seeing increased activity by a more diverse set of groups and a more diverse set of threats. That activity, much of which is Islamist in nature, is directed at the West generally."

The CIA has launched at least 20 drone strikes so far this month in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, a lawless region neighboring Afghanistan. That is the highest monthly total in the past six years, according to a tally by the New America Foundation think tank. The previous monthly high was 12 strikes in January, following the December suicide attack that killed seven CIA agents on an agency base in eastern Afghanistan.

The latest known drone strike occurred Monday, hitting a house in Northwestern Pakistan. Four people were killed in that attack, the Associated Press reported.

Separately, Pakistan on Monday protested NATO helicopter strikes that killed more than 70 militants, saying the attacks breached its air space. NATO said it attacked in self defense. Unlike the CIA drone strikes, manned attacks are rare in the region.

Not all of the drone strikes in the latest wave are connected to the suspected European plot. But many have targeted militants who are part of the Haqqani network, a militant group connected to al Qaeda. The group controls a key region abutting Afghanistan, where U.S. defense and intelligence officials believe Osama bin Laden could be hiding.

Since al Qaeda has been under pressure from the drone campaign and other counterterrorism operations, it has come to rely increasingly on affiliates in the region as well as in countries like Yemen and Somalia. The failed Christmas Day attack on a Detroit-bound Northwest flight, for example, was hatched in Yemen, authorities believe.

Last week, France stepped up its level of vigilance over what was thought could be an imminent al Qaeda threat. Authorities said that they had uncovered a suicide bombing plot to attack the Paris subway linked to al Qaeda's North African affiliate. They said the threat might be connected to France's recent vote to ban the wearing of burqas, the head-to-toe garb worn by the most conservative Muslim women.

Earlier this month, the Eiffel Tower was evacuated due to a bomb scare, but that was determined to be a false alarm.

In recent weeks, intelligence officials in the U.K. have issued warnings that the al Qaeda threat remains high.

While it couldn't be learned who is believed to be behind the plot against European targets, the targeting of the Haqqani network suggests it could be involved.

"There have been some actionable targets, including Haqqani targets, that have presented themselves," said one U.S. military official.

If the Haqqani network were involved in a European terror plot, it would be the first known instance where it sought to launch attacks outside of South Asia, said Bruce Hoffman, a professor at Georgetown University who has written extensively on terrorism. The Haqqani group's involvement would be particularly worrisome, he said, because "you're talking about one of the more skilled and competent groups spreading its wings." The Haqqani network is also believed to have been involved in the December attack on the CIA base.

A U.S. official declined to speak about the strikes this month or a connection to the suspected European plot. The official vowed to continue to keep the pressure on al Qaeda and affiliated militant groups in Pakistan.

"Our operational tempo has been up for a while now, we have good information driving it, and—given the stakes involved—we hope to keep the pressure on as long as we can," the official said. "The mix of threats isn't new. Sometimes it's groups like the Haqqanis, and sometimes it's al Qaeda or the Afghan or Pakistani Taliban."

U.S. officials believe that conducting attacks in an area where militants are present can disrupt planned attacks, even if they do not hit the precise cells plotting the attack.

In advance of the Afghan elections, the military increased both targeted special operations attacks against Taliban leaders, and increased more general operations in areas considered insurgent strongholds, in hopes of making it more difficult for militants to attack polling centers on the day of the election.

While targeting militants involved in planning an attack is the most effective way to disrupt a plot, stepped up operations forces other militants to communicate less and act more carefully, making it more difficult for them to carry out plans.

"The strikes are a product of precise intelligence and precise weapons," the official said. "We've been hitting targets that pose a threat to our troops in Afghanistan and terrorists plotting attacks in South Asia and beyond."

The drone campaign has come under increasing legal pressure in recent months, with civil-liberties and human-rights groups filing suit to press for more transparency about the campaign.

—Julian E. Barnes contributed to this article.
Write to Siobhan Gorman at siobhan.gorman@wsj.com




http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 06756.html

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Re: One Drone Thread to Rule them ALL

Postby elfismiles » Tue Sep 28, 2010 3:19 pm


Robotic swarm over Switzerland

Image
http://blog.makezine.com/assets_c/2010/ ... 56712.html


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfYs5C8D4uk

Subscriber RocketGuy tipped us off to this EPFL School of Engineering project involving a fleet of swarming flying robots. Using an ant-inspired swarming algorithm running on a Linux SBC, this network of swarming micro air vehicles is purportedly the largest of its kind. [Thanks, RocketGuy!]

Posted by Adam Flaherty | Sep 27, 2010 04:00 AM

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/0 ... rland.html
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Re: One Drone Thread to Rule them ALL

Postby Simulist » Wed Dec 29, 2010 2:20 pm

From today's edition of The Guardian:

US Drone Attacks Are No Laughing Matter, Mr. Obama
The president's backing of indiscriminate slaughter in Pakistan can only encourage new waves of militancy

by Mehdi Hasan

Speaking at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner in May, Barack Obama spotted teen pop band the Jonas Brothers in the audience. "Sasha and Malia are huge fans, but, boys, don't get any ideas," deadpanned the president, referring to his daughters. "Two words for you: predator drones. You will never see it coming." The crowd laughed, Obama smiled, the dinner continued. Few questioned the wisdom of making such a tasteless joke; of the US commander-in-chief showing such casual disregard for the countless lives lost abroad through US drone attacks.

From the moment he stepped foot inside the White House, Obama set about expanding and escalating a covert CIA programme of "targeted killings" inside Pakistan, using Predator and Reaper drones armed with Hellfire missiles (who comes up with these names?) that had been started by the Bush administration in 2004. On 23 January 2009, just three days after being sworn in, Obama ordered his first set of air strikes inside Pakistan; one is said to have killed four Arab fighters linked to al-Qaida but the other hit the house of a pro-government tribal leader, killing him and four members of his family, including a five-year-old child. Obama's own daughter, Sasha, was seven at the time.

But America's Nobel-peace-prize-winning president did not look back. During his first nine months in office he authorised as many aerial attacks in Pakistan as George W Bush did in his final three years in the job. And this year has seen an unprecedented number of air strikes. Forget Mark Zuckerberg or the iPhone 4 – 2010 was the year of the drone. According to the New America Foundation thinktank in Washington DC, the number of US drone strikes in Pakistan more than doubled in 2010, to 115. That is an astonishing rate of around one bombing every three days inside a country with which the US is not at war.

And the carnage continues. On Monday, CIA drones fired six missiles at two vehicles in a "Taliban stronghold" in north Waziristan, on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan, killing 18 "militants". Or so said "Pakistani intelligence officials", speaking under condition of anonymity to the Associated Press. Today another round of drone strikes is thought to have killed at least 15 "militants" in the same area.

These attacks by unmanned aircraft may have succeeded in eliminating hundreds of dangerous militants, but the truth is that they also kill innocent civilians indiscriminately and in large numbers. According to the New America Foundation, one in four of those killed by drones since 2004 has been an innocent. The Brookings Institute, however, has calculated a much higher civilian-to-militant ratio of 10:1. Meanwhile, figures compiled by the Pakistani authorities suggest US strikes killed 701 people between January 2006 and April 2009, of which 14 were al-Qaida militants and 687 were civilians. That produces a hit rate of just 2% – or 50 civilians dead for every militant killed.

The majority of Pakistanis are against the use of drones in the tribal areas on the Afghan border. Their own government, however, despite public opposition to the bombings, has in private expressed support for America's drones. "I don't care if they do it as long as they get the right people," Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani is quoted as saying, in a 2008 cable released by WikiLeaks. "We'll protest in the National Assembly and then ignore it."

This is not a left/right issue; criticisms of the drone strikes have come from figures as diverse as Sir Brian Burridge, the UK's former air chief marshal in Iraq, who has described the aerial slaughter inflicted from afar by unmanned, remote-controlled aircraft as a "virtueless war"; and Andrew Kilcullen, a counterinsurgency expert and former adviser to General David Petraeus, who says that each innocent victim of a drone strike "represents an alienated family, a new revenge feud, and more recruits for a militant movement that has grown exponentially as drone strikes have increased".

Kilcullen is spot on. The cold-blooded killing of Pakistani civilians in a push-button, PlayStation-style drone war is not just immoral and perhaps illegal, it is futile and self-defeating from a security point of view. Take Faisal Shahzad, the so-called Times Square bomber. One of the first things the Pakistani-born US citizen said upon his arrest was: "How would you feel if people attacked the United States? You are attacking a sovereign Pakistan." Asked by the judge at his trial as to how he could justify planting a bomb near innocent women and children, Shahzad responded by saying that US drone strikes "don't see children, they don't see anybody. They kill women, children, they kill everybody."

But the innocent victims of America's secret drone war have become "unpeople", in the words of the historian Mark Curtis – those whose lives are seen as expendable in the pursuit of the west's foreign policy goals. Killed via remote control, they remain unseen and unremembered. Forgive me, Mr President, for not seeing the funny side.
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Re: One Drone Thread to Rule them ALL

Postby Nordic » Wed Dec 29, 2010 3:06 pm

Well this is a hell of a thread that somehow I managed to completely miss!

I'm bookmarking this one, and I don't do that with many threads here.

This should be required reading for everybody. Amazing stuff. Absolutely sickening, but amazing, in that nobody seems to want to put together this kind of information except here.
"He who wounds the ecosphere literally wounds God" -- Philip K. Dick
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Re: One Drone Thread to Rule them ALL

Postby Simulist » Wed Dec 29, 2010 3:19 pm

Nordic wrote:This should be required reading for everybody. Amazing stuff. Absolutely sickening, but amazing, in that nobody seems to want to put together this kind of information except here.

Yes. This board remains an amazing forum — and unique.

(And its value is the reason it has been so heavily trolled, in my opinion.)
"The most strongly enforced of all known taboos is the taboo against knowing who or what you really are behind the mask of your apparently separate, independent, and isolated ego."
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Re: One Drone Thread to Rule them ALL

Postby Nordic » Wed Dec 29, 2010 4:03 pm

Simulist wrote:
Nordic wrote:This should be required reading for everybody. Amazing stuff. Absolutely sickening, but amazing, in that nobody seems to want to put together this kind of information except here.

Yes. This board remains an amazing forum — and unique.

(And its value is the reason it has been so heavily trolled, in my opinion.)



Really? I don't see a lot of trolling here. I mean, compared to other sites, which get hit hard and regularly. We get a little bit, but it seems comparatively minor.
"He who wounds the ecosphere literally wounds God" -- Philip K. Dick
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Re: One Drone Thread to Rule them ALL

Postby Joe Hillshoist » Wed Dec 29, 2010 10:08 pm

Nordic wrote:
Simulist wrote:
Nordic wrote:This should be required reading for everybody. Amazing stuff. Absolutely sickening, but amazing, in that nobody seems to want to put together this kind of information except here.

Yes. This board remains an amazing forum — and unique.

(And its value is the reason it has been so heavily trolled, in my opinion.)



Really? I don't see a lot of trolling here. I mean, compared to other sites, which get hit hard and regularly. We get a little bit, but it seems comparatively minor.



You would say that you big fluffy troll. :lovehearts:

I agree it should be required reading.

There are a few of those here.
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Re: One Drone Thread to Rule them ALL

Postby Jeff » Sun Jan 02, 2011 10:12 pm

They sure can name 'em...

With Air Force's new drone, 'we can see everything'

By Ellen Nakashima and Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, January 2, 2011; 12:09 AM

In ancient times, Gorgon was a mythical Greek creature whose unblinking eyes turned to stone those who beheld them. In modern times, Gorgon may be one of the military's most valuable new tools.

This winter, the Air Force is set to deploy to Afghanistan what it says is a revolutionary airborne surveillance system called Gorgon Stare, which will be able to transmit live video images of physical movement across an entire town.

The system, made up of nine video cameras mounted on a remotely piloted aircraft, can transmit live images to soldiers on the ground or to analysts tracking enemy movements. It can send up to 65 different images to different users; by contrast, Air Force drones today shoot video from a single camera over a "soda straw" area the size of a building or two.

With the new tool, analysts will no longer have to guess where to point the camera, said Maj. Gen. James O. Poss, the Air Force's assistant deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. "Gorgon Stare will be looking at a whole city, so there will be no way for the adversary to know what we're looking at, and we can see everything."

...

The Air Force is exponentially increasing surveillance across Afghanistan. The monthly number of unmanned and manned aircraft surveillance sorties has more than doubled since last January, and quadrupled since the beginning of 2009.

Indeed, officials say, they cannot keep pace with the demand.

"I have yet to go a week in my job here without having a request for more Air Force surveillance out there," Poss said.

But adding Gorgon Stare will also generate oceans of more data to process.

"Today an analyst sits there and stares at Death TV for hours on end, trying to find the single target or see something move," Gen. James E. Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a conference in New Orleans in November. "It's just a waste of manpower."

...


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 02690.html


Good idea: give analysts everything to look at, and they won't be wasting so much manpower pinpointing single targets.
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Re: One Drone Thread to Rule them ALL

Postby Joe Hillshoist » Sun Jan 02, 2011 10:29 pm

Thats wild. The Gorgon Stare.

That thing about the data to process ... look to AI programs to fill the gap. The obvious next step I spose. In the journey from drone to droid.
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Re: One Drone Thread to Rule them ALL

Postby Nordic » Mon Jan 03, 2011 4:35 am

http://news.antiwar.com/2011/01/02/repo ... ince-2006/

Report: CIA Drones Killed Over 2,000, Mostly Civilians in Pakistan Since 2006


Three Quarters of Deaths in Two Years Since President Obama Took Office

by Jason Ditz, January 02, 2011

A new report from the Conflict Monitoring Centre (CMC) has reported that 2,043 Pakistanis have been slain in CIA drone strikes in the past 5 years, with the vast majority of them innocent civilians.

The report notes that the attacks target Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas where “people usually carry guns and ammunition as a tradition. US drones will identify anyone carrying a gun as a militant and subsequently he will be killed.” Pakistan’s government, which has only a nominal presence in the region, traditionally brands anyone killed by the US a “suspect.”

And while 2,043 is a lot of people to kill in the past five years, over 75% of them were actually killed in the past two years since President Obama took office. 2009 saw over 700 people killed in the CIA drone strikes, and the report shows 929 more killed in 2010.

Drone strikes were a comparative rarity when President Bush was in office, but have been dramatically and repeatedly escalated by President Obama, usually in retaliation for attacks by militant groups. This has led CMC to term the program an “assassination campaign turning out to be a revenge campaign.”

The enormous number of civilian deaths goes largely ignored by officials, who insist, on those rare occasions when they will even cop to the programs at all, that they are “very accurate.” The identities of the victims is rarely apparent at the time of the attacks, of course, and it seems there is very little interest in following up with them after the fact, except on the occasions when NGOs point out how many of the victims are just random tribesmen.


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Re: One Drone Thread to Rule them ALL

Postby elfismiles » Tue Jan 04, 2011 3:32 pm

Freakin great, I'm sure police departments will soon have there own versions of GORGON STARE coupled to this tech...

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/science/02see.html
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