Hobbyists Selling Tesla Coil Kits To Fund Drone Flight Over North Korea 175
An anonymous reader writes Imagine for a moment having at your fingertips the ability to send a small robotic messenger — a minion if you will — virtually anywhere in the world and back. Sure, you've seen those fun little drone toys at the mall and perhaps you have had a friend that likes to tinker around with model airplanes, but what you are about to see unfold here is genuinely an unprecedented work of good 'ol fashioned American ingenuity. Apparently a group of hackers has started a kickstarter to build and fly a small drone over North Korea and back and is selling mini tesla coils to do this. "All of the money from this project will be used to extend the distance our drone can fly, so the more backers we have, the farther it will be able to go," they say.
Super idea! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Super idea! (Score:5, Funny)
Nothing helps ease tension in a hotbed area run by a bunch of crazies with cannons aimed at Seoul like tiny drones. Good on ya, you bunch of smarties!
Even better, if you spend enough on the Kickstarter you can get your name on the drone that will crash land in N Korea after running out of batteries and be broadcast on State TV as a trophy of the regime.
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yeah, at some point antagonizing the NK's veers into the ground of foreign policy, which is the exclusive province of the federal govt. This won't happen.
Re:Super idea! (Score:4, Insightful)
Except they work for us not the other way around;
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In the sense a mafia don works for the businesses he protects, yeah the government works for you.
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yes they work for us, but in the contract between the federal govt and the citizens it says that foreign policy is done by the federal government.
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Excactly, and so as he doesn't represent said government, he can't possibly be engaging in foreign policy no matter what he does or says personally.
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Exactly. Just like if you were to form your own personal army in the US and use it to invade Mexico, since you totally don't represent the US, you'd allowed to do that. Also, no one would ever think that the US government has any responsibility, nor any legal right to stop you from engaging in a private act of war.
Oh wait....
Invading the sovereign airspace of another country that clearly does not want you is in no way legal, and could be interpreted as an act of espionage at the very least. It doesn't ma
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Actually, American citizens used to make a habit of sending their private armies to invade Mexico and other countries. Example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W... [wikipedia.org]
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But he is an american, the only thing illegal is to be charged with a crime by a prosecutor. He doesn't even need to do anything for that, shit, he could be killled for "resisting arrest" without even a reason for the original arrest, just that he "resisted" (having skin tension for the bullet to break probably enough resistance too)
So does it really matter when we aren't even a nation of laws arguing what the law may or may not be? I mean its fun to pretend we have a justice system and laws but, lets be ho
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foreign policy, which is the exclusive province of the federal govt. This won't happen.
So you are saying that Seth Rogen works for the federal govt?
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Nothing helps ease tension in a hotbed area run by a bunch of crazies with cannons aimed at Seoul like tiny drones. Good on ya, you bunch of smarties!
Yea, the government of NK gets pretty upset over some people in the south launching balloons with notes and money into their airspace, I'm thinking a "private" drone flying though their airspace might not be very welcome. Who knows what nutty reaction this might invoke from them... It might be a good time to tap the brakes on such private provocations... I'd sure hate to see the Korean war part II play out in my lifetime, complete with another installment of MASH to run nearly a decade on broadcast TV, Lor
Re:Super idea! (Score:5, Insightful)
Who knows what nutty reaction this might invoke from them... It might be a good time to tap the brakes on such private provocations...
Anyone who has raised children can tell you that you don't prevent tantrums by caving in to them.
I also disagree that their reactions are "nutty". I believe that they are very well thought out and effective. If they acted normally, they would be expected to treat their people humanely, and be "fair" in negotiations. But by behaving like psychotic kooks, they have conditioned the world to accept any demands that are even halfway sane. The Kim dynasty in NK has been in power for 70 years. That is longer than almost any other current dynasty (excluding those like the Windsors that wield no power), longer even than the Castro dynasty in Cuba. While the Castro dynasty looks shaky, and unlikely to survive the Castro brothers, the Kim dynasty appears to be as secure as ever.
Re:Super idea! (Score:4, Informative)
Who knows what nutty reaction this might invoke from them... It might be a good time to tap the brakes on such private provocations...
Anyone who has raised children can tell you that you don't prevent tantrums by caving in to them.
I have kids and I agree, you don't cave into an ongoing tantrum. However, that does NOT mean you don't go around avoiding situations that cause the tantrums.
For example, if your kid throws a snit in the cereal isle of the store because they want the latest 90% sugar offering in the bright box at their eye level, and you don't need cereal today, you don't go down the isle. Or if the tantrums happen when they are tired, you make sure they get enough sleep and go to the store when they are well rested. Not that you walk on eggshells, but you don't go looking for trouble if you can avoid it.
No need to poke NK with a private drone flight, so why provoke the tantrum?
Actually, the issue with NK is more about the Kim dynasty and preserving the forces that keep Kim in power. Their external activities are just designed to enforce the dominance of the Kim in power and how they can spin the events to benefit Kim's grip on power. So, as long as the reaction can be couched in "Kim outsmarts the world" or "NK has the dominate military" they will react. So if they shoot the thing down, it will be billed as a glorious triumph of Kim's efforts to protect NK from the evil USA...
Much of the "nuttiness" of NK's foreign policy revolves around the stuff going on INSIDE the country and less about actually dealing with foreign nations. It's about the Kim's staying in power and keeping up appearances to the internal audience and not really about constructively engaging with other countries. The problem with all this is that it's hard for people who are OUTSIDE the country to understand because we don't see the internal propaganda machine, or understand how the average NK citizen sees things.
Actually, this really should scare everybody, but not for the obvious reasons. Once the Kim's loose their grip the resulting internal struggle will be extremely quick and bloody, and we will be lucky if the collateral damage is confined to just China and South Korea. It will be hard to keep the conflict under control, especially if NK really does have a nuclear device or two, because you can bet Kim won't be reluctant to use them to try and stay in power.
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In this case the warning is, there is a very high likelihood that they will send an artillery shell back in the direction the drone came from, pretty much guaranteed and then bluff it out with nukes. Do not play with other people's lives, it is seriously not nice. North Korea is run by psychopaths, totally out of control psychopaths versus our own somewhat constrained political and corporate psychopaths. Change will come only via the elimination of those psychopaths, want fast change, than just put your ow
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Would you prefer a bunch of coffee crisp?
What could possibly go wrong??? (Score:2, Funny)
This aught to be fun to watch...
Sony, next Kickstarter (Score:3)
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Nah, this is really a proposal to fund the North Korean Airforce.
Risks and Challenges (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting that "Starting a War" does not appear in that section.
Re:Risks and Challenges (Score:5, Funny)
That's just a perk of the $1000 reward level:
"Get all of the previous rewards and we will give you the opportunity to choose a payload to put in the drone as well (as long as the weight and size fit the constraints)!"
Just cough up $1000, and ask they drop off a copy of "The Interview" in Pyongyang. That will likely start a war.
Not because it was disrespectful towards Kim Jong Un, but because it was such a godawful terrible movie.
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Seth Rogan,
truly a modern day Helen of Troy.
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Is anyone here old enough to remember who Matthias Rust is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M... [wikipedia.org]
The wacky German young hobby pilot flew a Cessna from Finland to Russia in the late 80's . . . and landed it in Red Square. Of course, without any permission from Russia. Way back then, folks also thought that the stunt might have started a new, fresh and funky, World War.
Well, the Russian military noticed the airplane, but figured that one little Cessna would not be the way that the decadent West would choose t
sounds like a hoax (Score:4, Informative)
From FKP
We do understand that the legality of sending a drone on an intercontinental flight may be dubious. We will work with authorities to try to make our flight happen.
Good luck with that.
All of the money from this project will be used to extend the distance our drone can fly, so the more backers we have, the farther it will be able to go!
Ok, now I know it's a hoax/scam.
Seriously, what is this doing on Slashdot? It's not even April 1st, yet
Re:sounds like a hoax (Score:5, Insightful)
11 backers
666 dollars
All backers at the $55 or more threshold
All the shitty projects this dipshit started before: https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/654955049/created [kickstarter.com]
Sounds legit
Seriously, how does rubbish like this make it to the front page? At least with other Kickstarter things that have made it here, there was some legitimacy and momentum already behind the project. However, this is pure shit.
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Legally it is not a problem for most of the flight. Send it off from a ship in international waters and be sure to fly only over international waters. The legal problems start when you reach North Korean waters, of course.
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All of the money from this project will be used to extend the distance our drone can fly, so the more backers we have, the farther it will be able to go!
Ok, now I know it's a hoax/scam.
It's not a hoax, it's a hot air drone. Basically they're going to be burning all the money they got underneath the drone. If the pile is high enough and the wind is in the right direction, clearly it'll reach Pyongyang.
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It's just the result of a drunken mad libs game.
OK, let's sell [noun] kits to fund a [noun] flight over [noun]
Re:Intercontinental flight?? (Score:5, Informative)
You mean they're going to send it from the US, not South Korea?
From TFA:
In other words, we want a drone to be able to fly from coastal California all the way to Pyongyang. This is a feat that would make even Kim Jong Un jealous.
Uh, yeah, that would probably make the US air force jealous if you're going to make it a round trip without refueling. I have no idea how far the big ones go but cross-pacific round trips without refueling generally involve spacecraft.
If all you wanted was some pictures of NK, it would make far more sense to launch the thing from South Korea.
Re:Intercontinental flight?? (Score:4, Informative)
Uh, yeah, that would probably make the US air force jealous if you're going to make it a round trip without refueling.
The Global Hawk [wikipedia.org] has a range of 8700 miles, and NK is only 5600 miles from CA. Being able to do this as a round-trip, no refueling, with a budget of a lot less than $10k[1], and before the end of 2015 is going to take some major amounts of magical unicorn shit, so I don't think that the USAF is going to be jealous anytime soon.
My take is that this is pretty much a scam wrapped in an appeal to magical thinking.
[1] KS project is for $10K. From that they need to build, package and ship the Tesla Coils. And I just saw that you don't actually get a Tesla Coil unless you pony up at least $55.
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it makes no sense. if the goal is to fly over NK, why do they want to launch from CA? And if the goal is trans-pacific, why do they want to cross NK as well? The whole thing is bizaare. That being said, I suppose if you release a weather balloon into the atmosphere and it blows across the pacific that's technically a drone, because once you released it the thing traveled to the destination under its own control.
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Sounds like it is a bunch of people who want to get free gear to play with drones, and they're trying to cash in on the whole NK thing.
If they just said that they want to play around with high-endurance drones they wouldn't get people throwing money at them, unless they asked the US Air Force (and their procurement process is a bit more rigorous than kickstarter).
Flyback coils (Score:2)
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You can make a tesla coil out of an old CRT TV- the older the better. Once your grandmother dies, rip her TV apart and pull out the flyback transformer.
1. Both my Grandmothers have been dead for 20 years you insensitive clod!
2. I have owned CRT TVs myself.
Now get off my lawn, or I'll throw an LP at you, Frisbee style.
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huge capacitors (Score:3)
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Well, this is a solved problem [wikipedia.org], but for $10k? Voyager used that much just for gas! Of course, Voyager carried two people...
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Well, this is a solved problem [wikipedia.org], but for $10k? Voyager used that much just for gas! Of course, Voyager carried two people...
Well, it is a solved problem in the sense of NASA-like experimental projects using top-of-the-line materials, engineers, budgets, timelines, etc.
Kickstarter tends to be more about "hey, if we just use these commodity parts I can make a great $200 product." If I wanted to build a moon lander it wouldn't be the first time that it had ever been done, but it wouldn't exactly be a small project either.
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I have no doubt that, with sufficient funds, these guys could build a mini-Voyager with GPS navigation and set it loose. It would cost a fraction of the original Voyager, since the aerodynamic design work has already been done and it does not need to hold men. That would also allow them to beef it up a bit - it was very delicate and had to be steered around weather.
That said, $10k is a pipe dream. $200k might be possible with lots of unpaid labor and tons of time - but $10k? Pure fantasy.
Not a good idea (Score:2)
The North Koreans aren't really a fun loving bunch. Starting World War III for kicks isn't really the best idea. Maybe if you shot puppies across the DMZ using an air cannon would be a better idea.
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What does he deserve?
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You tell me:
http://www.thestar.com/news/wo... [thestar.com]
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Well his father and his grandfather are largely to blame for that. For all we know he may be trying to fix the system. ;-)
I'm no fan of these idiots but the only reason China keeps propping them up is so they have a bargaining chip with the West.
Re:Not a good idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Well his father and his grandfather are largely to blame for that. For all we know he may be trying to fix the system. ;-)
I'm no fan of these idiots but the only reason China keeps propping them up is so they have a bargaining chip with the West.
And a fairly large buffer between South Korea and them...
Actually, I think China props them up to avoid the flood of refugees that would flow north if a war did start up again. They are embarrassed with NK and are stuck with the two bit tin pot dictator they helped get into power and stuck with having to defend NK, at least some, to keep their buffer with the south. But as in all things like this, the reasons are complex and hard to accurately explain in a few sentences.
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Actually that time has already passed.
China has more than enough capabilities to handle the flood of NK refugees.
China's new leaders are not afraid of having a unified Korea, led by the south, right next to the border. They have no problem having U.S. military stationed next to it. Heck, they even invite U.S. aircraft carriers to occasionally park at ports in Shanghai and Hong Kong and encourage U.S. service members to spend their US dollars there (prostitutes or otherwise).
As long as you are here for busin
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If Kim Jong-Un starts a war with the only world superpower and their allies over unarmed, unmanned aircraft launched by civilian hobbyists, he'll get what he deserves.
No doubt, but the significant worry isn't about Kim Jong-Un so much as about all the other people he'd likely take with him. The population of Seoul, for example, would probably not appreciate getting shelled and/or nuked.
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Do you realise at all that people die in wars?
Like, people who are not Kim Jong-Un?
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Maybe if you shot puppies across the DMZ using an air cannon would be a better idea.
Yeah, they'd love a free meal or two.
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Maybe if you shot puppies across the DMZ using an air cannon would be a better idea.
would they be imperialist dogs? or maybe that lost puppy from the super bowl commercial.
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Exactly. The last one has brought the USA out of the Great Depression and into prosperity all the way into the millennium.
And in other news... (Score:5, Informative)
You can buy "poke the bear with a stick" kits on Ebay, medical and political fallout insurance not included...
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Excuse me good sir, how much for the 10,000 km bear-poking stick?
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Excuse me good sir, how much for the 10,000 km bear-poking stick?
Ah yes, you must be interested in our Ukraine package!
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More like "poke the geopolitical equivalent of Justin Beiber with a stick." At best, the government will be like "knock it off, we've got this."
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Kit contents:
One (1) bear-poking stick. Yew laminate with polyurethane coating.
One (1) pair running shoes. New Balance model 990v3.
Please specify shoe size in the ordering drop down menu.
Great idea! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not leave anything that could start a major diplomatic incident (at best) to the hands of amateurs!
what could possibly go wrong...
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It is simply the new reality we are living in. If NK starts killing people over it, it is only a testament to how out of touch with reality their regime is. . .
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The poor souls being killed will be the ones who have lost touch with reality.
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Should we limit our actions on the threat or assumption that some third party might do something nasty to another third party?
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. . . or how some people will try anything including poking a sleeping bear with a stick just to get 15 min of fame . . .
Yes. . . you do remember that thing they call the "Internet." Technology is just making the real world more like that. . . You can wish people were different all you want, but, for better or worse, it is what it is. You cannot change human nature. . . best to accept and move on.
NK already kills people all the time for just being human. I think that is a problem with the NK regime, not human nature.
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the intent is good
but the proposal fails a cost/ benefit analysis, that's all
all that will happen is north korea gets free drone technology, like iran:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I... [wikipedia.org]
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Why not leave anything that could start a major diplomatic incident (at best) to the hands of amateurs!
Hey, we tried leaving the North Korea issue to Darth Albright [billmcgonigle.com] and we got from that a long-range-missile-armed North Korea with a nuclear program and artificial grapefruits.
Get Bezos to fund the drones and start delivering diaper wipes and we might actually do some good for these people.
Looks crappy (Score:2)
Film the death camps (Score:2)
Some low-altitude footage of the death camps would be a good thing to do...so far there's only satellite imagery and witness reports to go on.
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Those aren't Death camps. Those are re-education facilities where the happy workers can become more productive and can work out some of their own personal problems. The PRK set those up as an experiment in mental health care and it's worked so well that they decided to continue it. ;-)
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Some low-altitude footage of the death camps would be a good thing to do...so far there's only satellite imagery and witness reports to go on.
If the evidence we have doesn't do the trick, I doubt that having low level, low quality armature drone footage will help anything.
What MIGHT help is a bit more public awareness and some new reporting on the subject but whatcha gona do beyond making up some hair brained publicity stunt?
Images (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Fox 1 (Score:2)
Great Move (Score:2)
Let's see (Score:2)
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As someone else here pointed out, Guam is even closer to NK than the Aleutians (and, probably, much easier to get to).
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As someone else here pointed out, Guam is even closer to NK than the Aleutians (and, probably, much easier to get to).
True, but it's still 3400 miles from Guam (and 2800 from Adak in the Aleutians) one way and they plan a round trip...
Way to bury the lede (Score:5, Funny)
Power be damned, they invented a drone that flies on money!
Re:Way to bury the lede (Score:4, Funny)
Everyone knows if you have money you can buy power.
Scarface (Score:2)
Yes but once you get the power...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00... [imdb.com]
I see what these geeks are thinking about now...
Why not launch from South Korea? (Score:2)
Why are they overcomplicating their project by trying to build a drone that can cross the Pacific ocean and back? Not that I'm confident that they'd even be able to build one that can even go a few hundred miles, but round trip from the west coast to the Korean Peninsula is gonna be 12 freakin' thousand miles, minimum.
Yeah, good luck with that.
Violating airspace is all the rage (Score:2)
It doesn't seem prudent to be figuring out ways to violate another country's airspace unless wants to actually be at war with them. I wouldn't want to comment on the merits of war with North Korea per se, but at least from the perspective of maintaining peace and a normal international order, nations generally expect to have their borders respected, and they take responsibility to control their citizens enough to make sure they don't violate the borders of their neighbours.
Lunatic gets a Kickstart. (Score:2)
OK, this was fun.
But Kickstarter needs better quality control than this.
What's next? Basement Cold Fusion? Brew Your Own Cure for Cancer?
Trevor Nestor Creatorr [kickstarter.com]
It has "scam" written all over it! (Score:5, Insightful)
Beyond the obvious problems with the concept (the cost of goods sold for the coils themselves, the extreme improbability of a kerosene-powered drone built by college students being able to make intercontinental flights, the fact that there's no way in hell the FAA or the State Department would permit such a flight, etc.), there's several big red flags on this that scream "scam:"
This KS is an excellent example of a KS from which you want to stay far, far away. Most of the time, the KS community is pretty wise to these sorts of things, but I suppose the combination of "North Korea," "tesla coils," and submissions to Slashdot will lure people in. Don't be a sucker.
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This KS is an excellent example of a KS from which you want to stay far, far away. Most of the time, the KS community is pretty wise to these sorts of things, but I suppose the combination of "North Korea," "tesla coils," and submissions to Slashdot will lure people in. Don't be a sucker.
Noted!
better idea (Score:2)
Hmm? Consider the wider picture. (Score:2)
Putting aside for a moment that this KS is probably a scam, what are the ramifications of an act such as this.
In the current climate, what would he US call it if citizens of another nation started drone flights of unknown purpose over US soil. I would suggest the T word would be used and as soon as the launch point is identified all extra-judicial efforts will be made to ensure the perpetrators are removed from the gene-pool.
Would a state like "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" consider doing less if i
The Spirit of Butts' Farm (Score:5, Informative)
Just to put this silliness into perspective, the current distance and duration records for a model aircraft are held by The Spirit of Butts' Farm [slashdot.org], built by legendary modeller Maynard Hill [nytimes.com]. The model took 38 hours, 52 minutes, 19 seconds to fly the 1,881.6 mi (3,028.1 km) from Cape Spear, near St. John's, Newfoundland, to Mannin Beach, near Clifden, Ireland.
This was their fifth attempt [modelaircraft.org] to complete the trip. The longer trip across the Pacific, against the wind one way (the proposal is a round trip!), would seem to be far outside the meager budget of the Kickstarter guys.
Definitely a HOAX (Score:3)
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Oh,I see (Score:2)
I thought they were selling a suspension mod for an electric car, tesla coils, silly me.
Payload? (Score:2)
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Why do you think the FAA is so nervous about drones?
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Why not? I could. I would be working for free, but it could be done.
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That wouldn't make it across the Pacific, simply because when the sun goes down your motor stops turning. You'd need solar panels enough to not only power it during the day, but with enough excess to charge batteries for the night, which makes the drone much heavier, which means bigger structures made with fancier materials and more energy use.
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Design? Oh sure... $10,000 is plenty to get a capable design on paper and print up some blueprints.
Build, develop software and test? Not going to happen... The engine(s) alone would burn half that....
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Newfoundland to Ireland. 9th Aug 2003
http://www.barnardmicrosystems... [barnardmicrosystems.com]
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If they had the skills to build an intercontinental UAV they would have realised that it will need solar power, overnight energy storage and high altitude flight capability. That's going to take it a long way over the limits for a model aircraft so they'll need FAA approval before their first test flights. Their target $10k might get them through that process but I wouldn't bet on it.
What limits for a model aircraft are those? The only "guideline" the FAA places on hobby aircraft is that they stay under 400 feet and within visual site. If you launched this thing from a beach or boat you probably could get it out of US airspace meeting those qualifications, and then of course you can do whatever the heck you want with it.
The FAA guidelines aren't even legally binding, as much as the FAA has been protesting otherwise. As far as I'm aware, in the only court case to be decided so far the
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They've already done that... [usatoday.com]