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US, European Cities Turn to “Talking Drones” From China to Enforce Social Distancing
US, European Cities Turn to “Talking Drones” From China to Enforce Social Distancing
“STOP gathering, disperse and go home.”
(TMU) — As an increasing amount of cities and states across the world clamp down on citizen movement due to the coronavirus, officials have been deploying drones in a bid to scare some sense into social distancing scofflaws.
The trend has seen dozens of law enforcement agencies and municipalities flock to one drone manufacturer based in China to help enforce quarantine rules while cutting costs on traditional public safety services.
One of the latest cities to enlist drones into its arsenal is Daytona Beach, Florida, which now has eight of the flying tools, including two loaned by Shenzhen, China-based drone manufacturer DJI Technology.
Over the past week, the Daytona Beach Police Department has flown upwards of 30 missions to enforce the statewide stay-at-home order in the city’s beachfront parks and on hiking trails. For police management, the use of drones is a common-sense solution to the problem of dissuading law-breakers while maintaining a safe distance amid the ongoing pandemic.
Sgt. Tim Ehrenkaufer, the head of DBPD’s Unmanned Aviation Systems Unit, told WKMG:
“We’re reducing the officer having to go out there, walk into the park property, walking into a crowd of people, share those germs back and forth just to deliver a message that, ‘The park’s closed. Don’t be in here.’”
The drone also has a FLIR thermal camera that can read people’s body temperatures, allowing police to single out those potentially infected by CoViD-19—a tool that Ehrenkaufer says will help officers know from a glance what precautions should be taken.
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Hacking Team and Boeing Subsidiuary Envisioned Drones Deploying Spyware
Hacking Team and Boeing Subsidiuary Envisioned Drones Deploying Spyware
There are lots of ways that government spies can attack your computer, but a U.S. drone company is scheming to offer them one more. Boeing subsidiary Insitu would like to be able to deliver spyware via drone.
The plan is described in internal emails from the Italian company Hacking Team, which makes off-the-shelf software that can remotely infect a suspect’s computer or smartphone, accessing files and recording calls, chats, emails and more. A hacker attacked the Milan-based firm earlier this month and released hundreds of gigabytes of company information online.
Among the emails is a recap of a meeting in June of this year, which gives a “roadmap” of projects that Hacking Team’s engineers have underway.
On the list: Develop a way to infect computers via drone. One engineer is assigned the task of developing a “mini” infection device, which could be “ruggedized” and “transportable by drone (!)” the write-up notes enthusiastically in Italian.
The request appears to have originated with a query from the Washington-based Insitu, which makes a range of unmanned systems, including the small ScanEagle surveillance drone, which has long been used by the militaries of the U.S. and other countries. Insitu also markets its drones for law enforcement.
An Insitu engineer wrote to Hacking Team this April: “We see potential in integrating your Wi-Fi hacking capability into an airborne system and would be interested in starting a conversation with one of your engineers to go over, in more depth, the payload capabilities including the detailed size, weight, and power specs of your Galileo System.” (Galileo is the name of the most recent version of Hacking Team’s spyware, known as Remote Control System.)
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