eep357

malcolmtucker said:

The State of California trusts registered locksmiths located on a street corner with the ability to make keys for $50,000 or $100,000 vehicles. Most likely, California Legislators can do something similar with a phone valued around $400.

You don't get it. Nobody cares about the $400 phone and it's use/function as such. The data stored on a phone could be worth more than all the BMWs and Mercedes in California combined. There is literarily no limit to the potential value of information. Nor is there any threshold to the amount of personal, social and financial damage that can be caused to people, businesses and organizations by theft and/or release of such information. While the data on my own phone may be mostly worthless, the data belonging to a Sony executive, FBI director, or high profile political candidate could be priceless.

ebor said:

I am utterly against drones being allowed to fly except for a legitimate purpose, by people with a drone "driver's" license and requisite insurance, and most certainly not only for recreational purposes.  It is bewildering to see how this drone madness has been spiralling totally out of control recently.  Unless recreational drones are banned effectively (like in Tokyo, Japan), we definitely will see bad accidents (think drones flying into other aircraft) very shortly.  And just think about your neighbour sending his device to peek right at your pecker through the window when you take a shower.  Good luck with enforcing rules of such behaviour when these things are allowed to buzz about everywhere.   Those things need to go away, and quickly so.

Obviously all your knowledge on the subject comes from the media. A drone is useful for arial photography, that is, wide angle panoramic type of footage not possible by other means. It is the absolute worst possible platform imaginable to spy or "see ones pecker" if it were even possible. Compared to holding a zoomable camera in ones hand, a selfie stick over the fence or looking through a knot hole (things more likely to happen without you knowing because they can be done without you knowing), using a loud, oscillating, "comparatively" unstable platform while trying to control it's flight, somehow aim an ultra wide angle GoPro to where is captures anything smaller than a house, all while trying to remain incognito whilst using what sounds like a flying lawn mower that can be heard a block away with no mute button... I'd be more concerned with being abducted by aliens or the government quite frankly. Personally I have 7 of them. All registered if applicable. Some are indoor only and wouldn't survive a slight breeze, others are custom built DIY FPV racer and freestyle ones (flips, rolls, defy laws of physics) only a bit larger than your hand. I have no interest in arial photograph and find that to be quite boring personally. These use a small front mounted security type analog CCD camera and send analog video back to a set of VR style goggles. The image quality isn't very good due to need for low latency and light weight while using approved frequency bands, can't tell a small tree from a person at 75ft away, but both are things I would avoid. I never approach anyone while flying, but at the park, dog walkers and such come to me often out of curiosity and when I show them the setup and let them see what I see while flying, none are concerned over privacy and always think it is just about the coolest thing they have ever seen. No auto level or GPS or any of that, full acro only where flips and rolls at 2x per second are normal, but if you take you hands of the controls for even one second, you will crash (into some grass at a park, likely braking your propellers and hurting no one). Rarely, if ever, fly over 40ft off the ground so unless an airplane was already in the process of crash landing, we could never be in the same airspace.