Rebel drones
Hacktivist collective Telecomix has designed a drone to assist Syrian rebels:
The drone must be able to collect and disseminate information, while evading a sniper ambush. Adhering to these specification was an imperative therefore, as KheOps explained. "The person should take the least risk possible. It must be able to be piloted manually, by sight, via a camera."
The camera is equipped with a transmitter, allowing images to be broadcast live within a theoretical radius of several kilometres. The small working group has inspired many projects under development in recent months, in the same spirit of sousveillance, such as the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators’ Occucopter. Construction is not a question of reinventing the wheel, as the hacktivists explain. “We stuck the bits and pieces of the drone’s brain together with duct tape,” said Okhin, a skinny fast-talking agent. “The controller, for example, already exists, and it’s then a matter of patching it based on our experience.”
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The most important step is to provide clear documentation, so that the drone can be easily reproduced. That fact also has another, more unfortunate consequence, of which they are extremely conscious: the drone could also be used for repressive purposes.