Dear Readers:
It is time for an adult discussion about whether American kids should be allowed to walk into their local Walmart and buy a toy drone; with which to terrorize their neighbors.
Actually, that’s not the discussion, but I do have this piece by reporter Andrei Rezchikov. The title is:
Drone Operators May Be Required to Register
This topic actually follows (loosely), or segues from yesterday’s topic, which was government regulation of gambling. In this case, there is a proposal for the government to regulate ownership and use of drones, just as with other types of weapons, such as guns.
In the course of reading this piece, I discovered that Russian law does actually, already, regulate drones. The question is to what degree of harshness.
Rezchikov: The discovery, in Moscow, of a Ukrainian civilian drone, of a type which the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) has been using for military purposes, disclosed a new problem [facing our society]. Currently in Russia there are many people who have access to the technology needed to build drones. [yalensis: Like in shop class in Middle School?] And an unpiloted drone, as the conflict in Ukraine has shown, well, this is an object of dual use. There are also quite a lot of people who [served in the military and] have experience operating drones. The question is, should the government tighten control over access to this technology; and should it compile a registry of drone operators?
Returning to Rezchikov’s lead, which he definitely did not drop: Just this past week, police and security officers discovered, in an ordinary office building in Moscow, a Ukrainian drone called “Baba Yaga“, whose name is an homage to the eponymous Russian fairy-tale witch. The witch lives in a hut in the woods, said hut propped up on giant chicken legs which can walk around, making this a mobile home. Sometimes the witch eats bad little children, and sometimes she helps the hero on his quest. I shouldn’t say “Russian”, though, this character is universally Slavic. For example, the Czech version, named Ježibaba, is featured in the opera Rusalka, by Czech composer Antonín Dvořák. Ježibaba prepares a potion to enable the mermaid heroine to grow a pair [of legs] and become human; but, in typical witch fashion, encases her good deed with many deleterious conditions and clauses.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, Russian police hastened to reassure everyone that the drone they had discovered, was not being used for any terrorist purposes and did not present any danger to the public. Just to be on the safe side, they detained the owner and gave him a good grilling down at the police station. The man insisted that the only reason he had the drone in the first place, was to try to figure out how it worked. The investigation is still undergoing, and the man might face charges.
The Baba Yaga model of drone is a six- or eight-propellered agricultural drone, modified by the Ukrainian army, for military use. Its computer uses a pseudo-random algorithm for adjusting the operating frequency. It also contains algorithms for behavior in case of loss of connection. The Ukrainians usually stuff this drone full of explosives, mostly 120mm grenades and other ammo.
Prior to this, Russian specialists had already obtained a trophy Baba Yaga for study, so they didn’t really need for this civilian man to reverse engineer it; but he was doing it maybe just for fun. Or maybe not, that’s what the investigators are still trying to determine.
From the juridical point of view, there actually is already existing legislation which regulates the possession of amateur and hobbyist drones. According to the Aviation Codex of the Russian Federation, airborne drones, whether produced in Russia or imported from abroad, must go through a verification process and be deemed safe for use.
Russia also has an existing system for registering these devices. Any owner of a drone weighing more than 30 kg must register the device with the Federal Air Transport Agency. The owner of any drone weighing more than 150 grams must register himself on a list of drone-owners. In addition, he must receive a certificate for safe operation of his drone, as per the specifications of the manufacturer. In Russian regions bordering Ukraine, there is currently a complete ban on operating any unmanned aerial devices. President Putin signed this ban in October 2022, and these restrictions will continue to apply until the code-level of danger has gone down a notch.
Despite these existing regulations, Denis Fedutinov, a specialist in aerial drones, believes that the recent situation with the Baba Yaga in Moscow, has shed a light on certain deficiencies and loopholes regarding control of access to these technologies, and to military devices in general.
[to be continued]
Awful Avalanche 
I raced 1/8 scale RC cars in the ’70s and ’80s. Three horsepower seven pound little monsters made by Dutch, Italian and American specialist manufacturers. Not cheap with CNC machined parts, carbon fibre structure. That was before big manufacturers like Tamiya starting producing plastic and pot metal crud from 1990 onwards, mostly dirt cars, not miniature Can Am cars that went real fast, like 60 mph and had trick all-wheel drive systems from ’84 on. Mine had a custom Torsen rear differential that cost $$$.
The point is, we had a club of over a dozen members, met once a week from late April till October and built a custom asphalt track with 18 cormers and a long straight that let the two-speed transmissions get into stride. Some of us travelled each year to the US Nationals as a vacation. Hello Indianapolis, hello Boston, etc.
We controlled the cars with radio. We did not at first know that you needed a Canadian federal licence to operate the radios. Even take a test! The RC airplane types were happy to declare us all illegal, because their members all had licences as radio operators. So we RC car people all buckled down and got our licences. Got a card. We also got liability insurance, a cheap add-on to that of the actual car/motorcycle racetrack on whose property we had built our little track, obviously with their permission.
Nowadays little Johnnie the family brat gets a drone for Xmas, and has no idea what any kind of license is, driving licence, liquor licence, hunting licence, fishing licence. Nobody enforces the existing law on radio operation licensing.
Make all operators licensed and make them pass the written test on rules. If little Johnnie is too young or stupid and cannot pass the test, too damn bad. Tough, kid. Go play a video game.
People accept little personal responsibility in modern societies, including Russia, apparently. There are rules for civilized behaviour, some written, some understood. Operating only by licence a drone controlled by radio should be a rule. Any dolt can crash one into someone’s face. Then, a “Sorr-ee!” just don’t cut the mustard. Who pays the medical costs?
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That sounds like a fantastic hobby and enjoyable club to belong to. It makes sense that RC devices should require a test, certification, and license. Such regulations are not bad, they weed out the dolts and incompetents who might hurt somebody.
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In the EU drones are heavily regulated. This is not surprising as there are probably more drone regulators in the EU than there are drone operators. You need to register, have a certificate as well as third party insurance (e.g. EUR 1M) to fly anything that’s not intended as a toy for kids < 14 yo. In some countries you also have to pay a yearly fee, typically around $20, to fly a drone. This effectively limits drone activity (and people’s interest in technology).
A few years ago I bought a DIY drone kit with all the stuff of a top notch commercial drone (GPS, telemetry, flight controller, Raspberry onboard computer, etc) but for a tenth of the price. I’ve barely flown it physically but it’s a fascinating world. You can “fly” it virtually with a simulator and in theory it’s just to turn on the drone engines and it will do exactly what you see on the screen. So you can diddle around with robotics, AI, drone swarms, war scenarios etc. All the code is open source, so it’s paradise for those of us who don’t have opportunities to do real engineering work. And the pleasure of dropping a virtual dog turd into your neighbor’s whisky glass on a nice summer day cannot be overstated. That’s hi-tech voodoo.
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“…it’s paradise for those of us who don’t have opportunities to do real engineering work”.
From that I take it…you trained as an engineer but…things didn’t work out? It’s a common story here in the US. At the aerospace-company I did a couple fast paced projects on last year they hired a newly minted engineer.
While some of his fellow hires were worse than worthless…spent their whole effing day staring at their effing phones, he excelled. One of the best engineering grads I’ve seen over the years.
He came from a rural area, his father ran a machine shop where he worked his way through school. He understood fabrication.
My car was usually the first in the lot, when he found out he made sure he was the first one there and we joked about who was supposed to turn out the lights. He was dedicated to his profession.
While his fellow hires got CAD and FEA training he missed his due to Covid-19 exposure and they never rescheduled him because…well, he learned it on his own and he was far faster/better than those with training. And I say that because I was suddenly put on hot project the guy inherited my work which was, to be kind, in a state of flux due to contrary customer demands. The other new hires had been offered the work but, were unable to figure the models out so, he got the job. I told him to come over to my desk anytime he needed help. He never did, when I finally went over to his desk to check-up on his progress, he had fixed all my short cuts and had substantially improved the design and had completed all the undone stress notes. I could not have demanded better work!
Last week he was unceremoniously laid-off. The company that bought our rocket engine had a policy of cruelty when it came to lay offs. No notice AT ALL just told to grab their stuff and walked out shortly after arriving on a mid-week day. Effing assholes.
He got laid because he was the last hired, didn’t get the training and completed his projects in a timely manner while his fellow hires “needed months to finish their work”.
This kind of bullshit, the way American Engineers are treated pisses me off !
Contrast that with Calhoun, the CEO that oversaw the destruction of the Boeing brand in the past decade. The glib talking loser got a full year’s notice of his termination and a 36 million dollar payout. Why would any American Citizen do all the extra work to get a science degree only to be treated worse than a day laborer?
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I’m a physicist turned software engineer. So I write low level algorithms for everything from the geosciences to financial stuff. It’s just that I don’t consider programming “real engineering”. But that’s where the job opportunities are and I don’t complain. I’ve been fortunate to have had a lot of interesting work and it has paid the bills. Becoming self-employed also saved me from the idiocy of internal company politics.
Most small successful companies here get bought up by bigger companies, typically American or Chinese. So you can work your butt off for several years and suddenly the company is taken over and liquidated. You may receive a few months worth of salary from stock options you’ve received but it’s kinda unsatisfactory to see your work disappearing overseas while the bosses, including the financial nitwits, cash in fortunes.
I must say it’s hard to advice young people to take an engineering education. On the other hand things are doomed to change. The West’s financial trickery cannot last.
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At some point the wheel of fortune is bound to turn again, and the world will find itself eager for qualified engineers.
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In the US, felons are not allowed to own firearms. That law is crystal clear and every law enforcement entity tries to prevent that from occurring or exact a large penalty when they find a violator. Ditto for almost all illicit drugs. And yet, criminals can still get guns and addicts can still get drugs almost everywhere all the time. In other words, yes, governments will try very hard to limit these activities, but the reality is that it just deters the stupid deviants and only the smart ones get away with it. And social evolution drives the deviants into becoming ever smarter as time goes on.
Honest citizens have no problem abiding by laws. Sociopaths ignore them. The solution to this problem is to have fewer sociopaths in your society. One of the key features of unbridled illegal immigration into the US and EU is that the sending countries often use this escape hatch as a means of ridding themselves of their homegrown sociopaths. Those chickens will come home to roost someday, and an illegal is not going to concern themselves with a law requiring drone registration.
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I live on a hillside with a guesthouse right above. A couple of years back I was on my way to the top of the hill to chop some firewood from a pine-tree we’d downed a while earlier when I heard an extremely annoying buzzing sound. Advancing towards it I found that a millennial couple had brought their pet drone with them to the guesthouse and waddled through the gate (which is supposed to be locked, but the guesthouse owners like to pretend that the magnificent view from my property is actually theirs) and proceeded to take their electromechanical companion for an outing. I politely suggested that they take their effing irritation machine elsewhere, and they did so with dispatch and alacrity.
Afterwards it occurred to me that the woodsman’s axe in my hands might have had something to do with it, even though it had virtually no blood at all on it.
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Ah, drones, drones, drones… This post touches upon a lot of issues that are raised by flying death robots. I’m sure your coming installments (I’m writing this offline after Dronestravaganza Day 1) will flesh the topic out more.
How often do you, or your readers, see drones with your own eyes? I live above one of the most central transportation nodes of my town. It’s a scenic spot and the city park beside the river provides some open space where drones won’t risk running into highrises. I sometimes see drones hovering near my balcony. They’re often ~50 meters away, vertically or horizontally (they whir around a bit). Not every night — they only come out after the helicopters stop flying off the landing pad behind my building. There’s only one drone at a time, easily spotted because of their blinking lights. I think it’s hobbyists, not Teh Authoritahs. Once or twice when I’ve been riding my bicycle along the river at dusk, I’ve seen a person holding a control gizmo there. He looked civilian.
It’s creepy enough when I’m sitting on the balcony and they’re flying around, because I’m sure they’re videoing. Nobody flies a drone just so they can look up at it from the ground, eh? They want to see things on their monitor from the “god’s eye” viewpoint. I’m not personally paranoid about the eye-in-the-sky. I have clothes on and I’m not doing anything illegal. Even if the camera was turned toward me, I’d be a boring subject to watch because I’m generally sitting on a deck chair listening to music on my headphones. Who’d want to look at a mostly stationary twat when there’s a throbbing vista of people, roads, trains, trams and boats moving below?
Your brief mentions of the semi-random changes in the control signal frequency made me think about the science behind dronery. There are SO many levels of cat-and-mouse games involved with these things. In wartime settings, that is. The ones I see are like the Wright Brothers Flyer — simple machines whose owners fly them for the sake of flying them. There’s nobody trying to hack them to fall out of the sky or hijack the controls so they fly, with spinning propellers, onto the open deck of a passing sightseer boat. I presume the drones I see operate by communicating on a single radio frequency. Wouldn’t it be a hoot if a pranking Ukronazi came to Oz — or the U.S.! — with an electronic warfare device in his luggage and played pirate with drones. Hilarity ensues…
Drone fliers will have to learn so many technical and mathematical skills with these things, too. All kindsa stuff about the electromagnetic spectrum, meteorological factors such as wind speed, flight characteristics, the mechanical intricacy of the machines… How will that happen in a population that’s getting stupider by the generation? Where learning facts is seen as faggy? (Did you ever watch the movie “Idiocracy”? It was a satire, but I consider it to be crucial for understanding the future we’re headed into. If you saw it, do you remember the parts where the main character, who was just a bloke of average intelligence in our contemporary era, was ridiculed by the cretins of 500-years-from-now Amerika because he could speak using words of more than two syllables? “You talk like a fag!”)
Russia seems to accept the fact that there should be regulations on these things. So does Oz, as far as I know. But how will that concept fly (pun intended) in Amerika, where there’s a political/philosophical underpinning of “We don’t need no stinkin‘ laws! They’re an infringement on our freedom!¡!1!¡!” If people can carry a gun anywhere, why shouldn’t they be allowed to fly a drone anywhere?
That’s counter-balanced with Amerika’s other tendency, worship of authority. The copsucking citizens of the U.S. just LOVE to make things illegal (except for walking into McDildo’s carrying a pistol in your hand) so that people can be punished. I reckon that after the first five or 10 terrorist attacks using flying hand grenades to kill people at sporting events in open-air stadiums (the explosions will only kill a handful; the REAL death toll will come when hundreds are crushed in the stampedes to get away) there will be moves to ban them. That will be another log for the Culture War fire — a freedom vs. fear thing. I predict that by 2034, nobody will be going to football games or music concerts in venues where you can see the sky. Not when the whiny buzz of death might be heard at any moment..
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A few random thoughts on your comment:
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Pardon me for thinking you might be anything less than totally hep to what’s shakin’! I do that a lot with people because they frequently don’t know what I’m talking about.
I’ve whinged on your blog before about how when my daughter and her long-time boyfriend were down here at the end of 2022, neither of them had any idea who Alexsander Solzhenitsyn was or what the term “gulag archipelago” meant. (Yeah, I know you have a different interpretation of those than I do, but at least we both understand enough about them to have a debate.) And there was the friend who I see at Gaza rallies who didn’t know what a kibbutz was or about the Masada mass suicide. When I talk about the Samson Option to people, I often have to explain who the Biblical character of Samson was.
So I over-explain things. If I’m trying to make a point, and that point depends on knowing something else, I’d be wasting my time if the underlying terms of reference weren’t understood.
“Idiocracy” came out in when, 2006? I’m pretty cynical and switched-on, especially about things that bash ignoramus Americans. Yet I never heard of the movie until 2015, when my kid screened it for me when I was visiting their house in the U.S. I don’t even recall seeing references to it online before then. Maybe people in political chatter were name-checking it and I missed them, but a name like “Idiocracy” is hard to forget.
The people I talk to most Downundahere are older and bougie. (Younger people tell me “get lost you old fart.”) A lot of my cohort does NOT know about “Idiocracy.” I try to pass on information as much as I can — I’m always talking up “Best In Hell” for instance — but I never know who actually watches what I spruik. Anyway, my apologies for assuming you’re only as tuned-in as an average Oldstralian!
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Oh, no need to apologize, Bukko, you don’t need to assume anything about what I know, or don’t know. There are vast gaps in my “education”, as other commenters have found. My mom once called me a “walking encyclopedia”, but I find that many pages have been torn out! Especially when it comes to popular culture, sometimes the more recent it is, the worse I am. For example, a colleague at work was shocked when I had to admit I had no clue who Taylor Swift was. Well, now I know who she is, but a few months ago I didn’t. Moral of the story: Don’t assume anything, just continue with your usual method of ‘splainin’ stuff…
🙂
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