Paris night drone mystery deepens

Ugh, the drones "might be" flown by eco warriors or terrorists. Thanks for the silly speculation, BBC. They might also be flown by Raelians, the Russian Mafia, Simon Cowell, the ghost of Napoleon, Nigerian 419 scammers, Snookie, or Kim Kardashian's butt.

How has it "deepened"? They didn't know, and now they still don't know.

Drones drones drones. What drones? Did someone flew a Predator, or was it just a Phantom bought from the "Accessories for GoPro cameras" shelf of the local RadioShack equivalent? There is an important difference between the two, and I don't really like how media and people in general conflate together the whole spectrum of UAVs and RC copters.

When writing offenses into the law that are malum prohibitum, it would be wise to expend a bit of effort in deciding whether such laws are practically enforceable.<p>Parisian authorities would probably have done better to mandate an amateur radio operator&#x27;s license, identification requirements, and liability insurance.<p>When it&#x27;s equally illegal for an otherwise innocent hobbyist and for a malevolent bogeyman, it becomes much harder to impute motives to the unseen operator.<p>Though in reality, the authorities are likely far more concerned about unauthorized, copyright-violating photographs ( <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower#Image_copyright_claims" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Eiffel_Tower#Image_copyright_cl...</a> ) than about terrorism.

Somebody is filming the Paris landmarks for a movie or art project.

Given that this is Paris then it&#x27;s probably going to turn out to be performance art and the flight path of the drones is going to draw something.

Like NIN&#x27;s &quot;mysterious&quot; snuff video: <a href="http://consequenceofsound.net/2014/10/video-rewind-hard-copy-reports-on-trent-reznors-death/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;consequenceofsound.net&#x2F;2014&#x2F;10&#x2F;video-rewind-hard-copy...</a>

This illustrates something that might be a significant future problem for law enforcement, etc. - how to enforce anti-drone laws. Perhaps this will lead to an anti-drone technology industry with drone-tracking equipment and drone-capture drones. With radio-controlled devices, direction-finding equipment could work but with autonomous drones...?

Is there a way to track &amp; regulate these? e.g. if drone operators are breaking the law by flying too low, then do police have the means to cite violators? If so, I don&#x27;t see what the issue is - they&#x27;re not enforcing their own law very well. If not... well that&#x27;s a whole other problem.

I hope it&#x27;s just some hobbyists having fun, but this is totally irresponsible. Whether they are trying to make a statement or just play a prank, they are making everyone look bad and giving the media all the reasons they need to run with it.

The plot thickens... No. It doesn&#x27;t.