Laser Strikes On Aircraft Becoming Epidemic 687
First time accepted submitter AlphaWolf_HK writes "Ars Technica has a story about a 52 year old man who was arrested and sentenced to three years in jail for shining a high powered green laser at a helicopter along with an interesting video showing how he was tracked down. The FBI says that laser strikes are becoming epidemic, saying that they expect to see reports of 3,700 of them this year."
Sysiphus (Score:5, Funny)
Make the bastard spend his years in line for the TSA.
Re: (Score:3)
There should also be massive penalties for massacring the English language. "Becoming endemic", not "becoming epidemic".
"Becoming pandemic" makes more sense for what the story is trying to convey.
Endemic implies a specific place pandemic implies everywhere.
Re: (Score:3)
It should at least be "becoming an epidemic", though as a noun it only refers to disease. Endemic is just wrong as it's the antonym to epidemic. Endemic would be more proper if people shined lasers at planes only in Detroit or something. Why can't they just use "widespread" or something like that?
Re:Sysiphus (Score:5, Interesting)
It should at least be "becoming an epidemic", though as a noun it only refers to disease. Endemic is just wrong as it's the antonym to epidemic. Endemic would be more proper if people shined lasers at planes only in Detroit or something. Why can't they just use "widespread" or something like that?
Well, if you want to go Full Orwell [tnr.com] on this, get rid of latin altogether and speak plainly, why not say 'dangerously common'?
(For those of you who have yet to read Orwell's Politics and the English Language, now's your chance. It can -it should- change the way you think and speak.)
Re: (Score:3)
I grammar geeked it and found that "epidemic" can indeed be used as an adjective. So it's correct, even if it sounds awkward.
Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
"sentenced to three years in jail for shining a high powered green laser at a helicopter "
Good. And since it's a federal crime, he gets to serve 85 percent of that.
I almost had someone arrested for shining a laser at my friggin' eyes across a bar. But since I knew the person and knew he wasn't "all there" I just confronted him.
But if it was anyone else, I would have pressed charges. Yes, it's assault.
There needs to be *at a minimum* public education on this issue, and if nobody is willing to do that, then handheld lasers need to be outright banned for unlicensed individuals. This opinion is unpopular for slashdot, but shit really has gotten out of hand.
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BMO
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
> I don't like the idea of a technological future where only our betters (the cops) can get cool technology.
I said "a ban for unlicensed individuals" just like you can't buy a kilowatt radio transmitter without a license from any reputable radio shop (there are plenty of assholes who will sell linears to CB owners, though, and they should be shut down).
You need to prove you're not an idiot before you can use technology that can do damage to people at a distance. And yes, people who can prove that they are not idiots *are* better than idiots, like this guy in the video.
Perhaps a graduated licensing scheme should be in order. Beyond a certain power, only businesses, scientists, and engineers should be allowed to have them after demonstrating a legitimate need.
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BMO
Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
The last thing this country needs is people actively suggesting ways to strip more freedoms away from the people.
No, that's the second-last thing this country needs. The last thing this country needs is a bunch of people walking around blind because dumbfucks like to play with pretty lights.
Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
The last thing this country needs is a bunch of people walking around blind because dumbfucks like to play with pretty lights.
I see the point you're making, but disagree with the proposed solution with every last fiber of my being. Stripping freedom from non-dumbfucks as a result of the actions of a few actual dumbfucks does not make the world a better or safer place. A dumbfuck without a laser pointer will go find other ways to showcase his dumbfuckery. Some may be less dangerous, some will certainly be more dangerous.
If you can figure out a way to eliminate dumbfucks, then, and only then, can you have a nice, safe world. Trying to outlaw each and every assorted manner in which they may display their idiocy is A) unfair to the majority who don't need to be told not to point lasers at people, and B) pointless, since the people who do this kind of crap will just dream up new ways to do the same kind of crap.
I willingly and happily accept the fact that living in a world that has dangers is part of the price of freedom, and safety without freedom is not a world worth living in.
Re: (Score:3)
So then there should be no laws ever?
What, sir, would fill the gap? Warlords? Do you fancy yourself as a warlord? Because that's what you'll have to be.
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BMO
Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
So then there should be no laws ever?
I said no such thing.
I wholeheartedly approve of this idiot doing prison time for shining a laser at a helicopter.
I cannot conceive of a reason why this incident should prevent sane, responsible people from purchasing, owning, and using a laser if they have a need and/or desire to do so.
It was the malicious action that was the problem here, not the object used to carry it out.
Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not just him though.
You are arguing that it's just this guy.
There are *thousands* of idiots doing this.
Down in Virginia Beach, people shine them from their hotel balconies at incoming jets.
Because they think it's cool.
5 years ago, I held the same belief that you have. I thought the Australia laws were nuts. I no longer believe so.
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BMO
Re: (Score:3)
There are *thousands* of idiots doing this.
So where are the news reports of *thousands* of plane crashes?
The phrase "mountains out of molehills" comes to mind.
I'm not defending the act of shining a laser at an airplane. That is, and should be, illegal. Those who do it can, and should be, incarcerated.
What I'm saying is that it is a MASSIVE overreaction to start requiring college professors to get a government issued permit to use a laser pointer in their classroom.
Re: (Score:3)
Why didn't you say that in the first place instead of your 'Fuck you both,' response?
Oh hell, I don't know. Bad timing? Maybe I just happened to stumble across those comments when I wasn't quite in the best of moods.
I still don't think it was entirely inappropriate. The notion that government intervention and reduction of freedom is an appropriate response to anything and everything that's wrong with the world is FAR more offensive than a few 4 letter words tossed about on the Internet.
As for me being an asshole... Eh, not really, but I've been accused of it plenty. I don't let it both
Re:Good. (Score:4, Insightful)
I have terrible news for you. Someone could walk into a room where you are on any particular day and kill you with a constitutionally protected firearm.
This is a free country. A free society has dangers inherent in it. Deal with it.
Re:Good. (Score:4, Insightful)
Your freedom to swing your fist ends at my face. Your freedom shine a laser ends at my eyes. If you go farther than we as a society allow, then we as a society have the freedom to put you down. Welcome to the human race. Get along with others, or be removed from it.
Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Its already illegal to laser people in the face. His objection is pretty clearly to the idea that law abiding citizens should have fewer freedoms because we are for some bizarre reason unwilling to enforce the laws we have.
The solution to murder isnt to make going outside illegal, its to prosecute murder. The solution to pilots getting lasered isnt some ridiculous attempt to control every class 3 laser out there, its to prosecute people who insist on lasering pilots.
Re:Good. (Score:4, Informative)
agreed, this is my biggest complaint against the gun control idiots. They seem to think that if you ban every gun out there, suddenly people would stop getting killed. People were getting killed long before the invention of the firearm. There's murders all the time in Israel, they dont do it with guns, the strap an explosive vest on and blow themselves and everyone else to hell. You cant legislate crazy. If someone wants to commit mass murder declaring something illegal isnt going to stop them. Murder has been illegal since the founding of this country .. if passing a law was all it took to prevent deaths, we should never have a need to ban more specific weapons.. we covered it with the whole 'dont murder' law.
Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Your freedom to swing your fist ends at my face. Your freedom shine a laser ends at my eyes.
I agree with that 100%.
What I don't agree with is being forced to have my hands amputated just because having hands would allow me to punch you in the face if I ever felt provoked to do so.
And, yes, I would rather take the risk that you might someday punch me in the face than to have you undergo involuntary hand amputation, as well.
The law should deal with actions that people have taken. Not actions that they "could" take.
Re: (Score:3)
Your right to swing your fist ends when your fist contacts my nose. (Or, in today's "enlightened" society, when I am in fear that you might hit me...)
A reasonable laser pointer has a beam divergence of ~0.0015 radians, or a spot size of roughly 2.25 micro-radians. 6.28 radians in a circle, roughly 40 square radians in a circle, so a laser spot is about 18 million times brighter than a regular spherically emitting (Edison style) light bulb.
So, take a 3mW green laser and point it at someone's eye, you're hi
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
There needs to be *at a minimum* public education on this issue, and if nobody is willing to do that, then handheld lasers need to be outright banned for unlicensed individuals. This opinion is unpopular for slashdot, but shit really has gotten out of hand.
No, i'm not going to willingly give up my rights because someone else is a moron.
And i dont even want one... and id still fight against that.
Re: (Score:2)
I have had it forever, it was given to me by God.
Re: (Score:3)
Since when were you granted a right to own a laser?
I have had it forever, it was given to me by God.
By God, eh? You should probably have the signature authenticated, there are a lot of fakes out there.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you REALLY want to live in a world where what rights you have are decided by someone else? Granted by government? Taken away by government?
You already live in that world, and so does everyone else. You can claim all you want that your rights are granted by God or Nature, but see how much good it does you to petition God or Nature if and when they are taken away.
Under Lockean social contract theory, people relinquish some of their primeval rights to live more comfortably within a settled society. That more accurately describes how things work in most of the modern First World. "The Government" isn't supposed to be some alien being; it's supposed to be We, the People, acting collectively to provide the public goods set forth in the Preamble to the Constitution. If We the People decide that banning high-powered lasers without a license is necessary to "insure domestic Tranquility" then that is what is going to happen.
Re:Good. (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Higher powered lasers have been banned in Australia since way before the media reported incidents of shining lasers on aircraft appeared... any handheld self powered laser >1mW is prohibited.
I think that while the bans reduced availability of lasers high powered lasers to the general public the novelty factor for those that do have them makes many of those people more reckless.
Re: (Score:3)
> My advice is that we find a technological solution.
There is no technological solution for dumbasses.
Tell me, how does the laser know if the person handling it is stupid or not? How would you prevent it from being pointed at an aircraft or someone's eyes?
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BMO
Yes, this is a problem (Score:3)
They've had many instances [wvec.com] over the last few years.
Re:Yes, this is a problem (Score:5, Informative)
When that base was built 50 years ago, it was only farmland around it. Money corrupts, land gets sold, and the Navy has been bitching about it for years.
"high powered green laser"? (Score:2)
What was /he/ flying?? An Apache?
Green lasers are used, outside the lab, for day/night use in ballistic targeting systems. They're also powerful enough in some cases to cook the retina even at ranges of several miles.
anecdotal source: I use a Magfire green designator on an AGS PCR1 for ratting - the rats aren't bothered by the laser, they run a mile when they're hit with a red. They drop when they're hit with a lump of tinshot doing 700 feet per second.
Jackassery is a main ingredient in... (Score:2)
the sad stew which is destroying "The Grand Experiment", since it's the perfect justification for control freaks to pass more and more laws restricting freedom.
Re: (Score:2)
There's been a metric ass-load of effort trying to ban them. Thank the FSM for the 2nd Amendment!
Three years is not much (Score:5, Insightful)
For a country in constant fear of terrorists hijacking their planes you take it pretty lightly when someone actually tries to make airplanes fall. Three is a very light sentence, they should make an example of those that get caught.
CORRECTION (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
LIfe goes on just fine after being arrested and doing prison time, you just find out who your real friends are.
I guess that means your real friends aren't your employers, future (legal) employers, landlords, bankers, friends in the military, or anyone who works with children, since they'll all see your prison time on a background check and consider you a risk. Sure, you can live just fine with that job at the local car wash, but it's a lot more comfortable to be clear enough to hold a job as a bank teller.
Parental Guidance is a must. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Parental Guidance is a must. (Score:5, Insightful)
My young Stepson got one of these (powerful green laser) and I was pretty much blown away at the power of it... I did see when he was unpacking it lots of warnings so I spent some time with him when he first tested it out. So we get outside at night and what is the first thing he tries to do, yep point it a plane flying overhead... so cue the huge boring lecture from me about the danger of these things and how if he gets caught pointing his laser at planes, or cars or people's eyes he will be sent to a boys home... well I think he got the point. The main thing is that kids need to understand the danger of these things and there is a responsibility for parents to keep up with the times and actually understand that "new toy"...
Aren't there laws against letting kids play with these things? You say "powerful" but don't specify the power, but i'm guessing it's high powered enough that it could blind you. And by young i assume you mean under 12 (or you would have said teenage). Does anyone else see anything wrong with this picture? Kids that age are very likely to go from "hey wouldn't it be funny if..." to actually doing it without thinking it through, regardless of the number of "boring lectures" they've been submitted to. Especially when he's angling to impress a few mates. He doesn't need parental guidance, he needs parental supervision every time the thing comes out of its box. I'd be treating it with similar caution as a gun.
Re:Parental Guidance is a must. (Score:5, Informative)
There are two similar but slightly different classificaion systems, the old system (still used in the US) uses roman numerals for the classes while the new system uses arabic numerals. Basically class 1 is no risk of damage, class 2 is very little risk of damage. Class 3R (roughly equivilent to IIIA) is a bit more hazardous, class 3b worse still and class IV you don't even want to look at difuse reflections of it.
Most laser pointers are class II but some of the powerful ones are class 3B.
Note that if a laser beam is totally enclosed with interlocks to prevent accidental release the class of the laser system can be lower than the class of the laser contained within. This is the case with things like CD/DVD burners and laser printers. The laser is class 3B but the system as a whole is class 1.
People hate hearing this (Score:5, Insightful)
But there are really two kind of people. Those who aim a laser at an aircraft, and those who don't.
Those who do think that EVERYONE does it, that is their defence and they think EVERYONE else is also stupid enough not to realize their possible consequences of their actions. But this group, while small is not just near insane, they are also VERY VERY LOUD.
So in every discussion, they shout out about their actions and make the rest think that apparently it is normal after all to be an asshole. It isn't. Their favorite battle cry is "have you never been a teenager and did something stupid".
Honest answer for the majority: "No I haven't".
Proof? If all of us REALLY did it, the world would be a hell hole. Take something as simple as speeding, if it was really something all of us did all the time, then there would be a LOT more traffic tickets. It is a small percentage that speeds all the time that accounts for the number of traffic tickets. You can drive on the highway yourself and see that the majority are following the speed limit.
Same with tying cans to cats. NOBODY does this, except a few sociopaths who then shout out about it making the world think this is normal behavior. It isn't.
It even has more serious consequences, part of women's lib wanted women to have the same sexual freedom men had. But did men, the majority of men really have that much sexual freedom? If men could sleep around, they needed women to do that with, so logically, the rates are the same on both sides. Yet there is a generation where you had some women jealous of men's freedom to have multiple partners while for most men, this simply ain't the case at all.
Check for yourself, have you ever increased the number of female sexual partners in conversation?
Right, because we believe the "media" story of the few to be the norm. If a hollywood star has a thousand girls, then so must everyone else. Nope, sorry.
We got to stop treating the freaks of our society as normal. Shining a laser at an aircraft is not normal. It ain't fun, it ain't harmless, it ain't something any normal person has any reason or desire to do.
Que the loud sociopaths protesting that they are normal after all: GO!
Epidemic? (Score:4, Insightful)
There are approximately 76000 aircraft departures in the US every day. 76000*365= 27,740,000. 3,700/27,740,000= .00013. So 0.013% of flights have reported a laser strike and no aircraft have been downed. It would seem that the FAA need to look at the definition of epidemic.
Easy Distraction (Score:2)
Idiots and lasers = bad combo (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember the time when I bought a HeNe Gas laser back in the 80's to make a spectacular laser show with, for the neighbors. I had no intentions on shining lights on airplanes or innocent people at all.
And I use lasers all the time in my electronics lab for experimentation.
Unfortunately, lasers have become so cheap, and super powerful laser-pointers (which has no real world use whatsoever) has become available to the street-kids, so we'll undoubtedly see these lasers become illegal for anyone to possess and own. Including innocent experimenters at home, thanks to the idiots in the streets who just find it fun to point 200mw lasers at anyone.
5mw is enough for anyone who wants to "play" with a laser pointer, it'll reach several hundred meters, enough to bedazzle the laymen out in the streets, and makes no difference from any 200mw+ laser whatsoever visibly, and furthermore...it won't blind anyone, not destroy pilots sights or policemen etc.
In fact...not even a 200mw laser will blind ANY pilot, as it is a physical impossibility to hold a 200mw laser beam of any significant distance steady by a human hand, it will shake - it will sway, it will swing...and the atmosphere will pollute and defocus the beam itself so it won't harm anyone.
Sad...just sad.
Have you seen this Frenchman? (Score:5, Funny)
Rumours that the "attack" was actually part of a concert were dismissed by US Federal Music Expert, Sam Confederate IV, who said "I know both types of music, and that there noise in the video ain't country *or* western."
However, attempts at having the suspect- known only as "Jimmy Shelljar"- deported from France to the United States have run into problems. A legal document, addressed to "Our bestest friend, Nicolas "L'Americaine" Sarkozy, The French White House, Paris, France" was returned marked "no longer at this address". In addition, scribbled underneath was a cartoon of a "cheese-eating surrender monkey" making an obscene gesture and the message, "Fuck you, arrogant Yankee scum! Signed President François "La Socialiste" Hollande".
Investigators believe that the suspect is motivated by frustration at not having released a worthwhile album in over ten years. More news as we get it.
Short Term Laser Epidemics (Score:5, Interesting)
Is this the next phase of the stupid laser-pointer-in-the-movie-theater gag that was "becoming epidemic" in the late 90's? Why do some people become idiots when they get a laser in their hands?
I was always impressed how that died off without any serious crackdown. People just squawked about it until it was common social knowledge that nobody though you were cool and everyone thought you were a dick.
Hopefully this dies off too.
The bar is lowered (Score:5, Insightful)
You gotta really be a douchebag to point a laser at an aircraft. It's like dropping bricks off a highway overpass.
What the fuck is wrong with people? It's not like these are delinquent kids doing this laser thing. We're talking full-grown people.
It's a good thing my experience with the people in my life is nothing like the picture of humanity I see reflected by the media every day. Honey BooBoo Chile and The Apprentice and all that. If I really believed people were as messed up as the commercial media portrays, I might get depressed.
I wonder about motives. (Score:4, Insightful)
I happen to live in an area where pilots regularly violate laws on altitude. IIRC, the law is 1000 feet above ground level in populated areas. My area is definitely *residential* as I am surround with at least 1000 other houses, though they are not close together as in a typical suburb, but clearly it falls under the regulations.
I've been through this before: 1000 people are going to respond and say that I am wrong: it cannot be that these pilots choose to violate the law, but you have never been in a position to try and complain about these things, and I can assure you that unless you can afford a lawyer and a private investigator, there is nothing you can do about the pilots how regularly intrude on your space. I have called the FAA and every law enforcement body that I fall under and all I ever get, at best, is sent to someone's voicemail.
Nobody cares at all about the slim minority of people who are regularly intruded upon by these assholes. The helicopters fly sometimes within 100 feet my house, barely skimming the treetops, and from inside the house everything is shaking. These are the biggest, richest assholes of them all - they are flying to their second home or third or 50th home and could give a shit about being inconvenience to spend the time to ascend and then descend. The next ones are the pilots is small planes. These guys don't vibrate the house, but they are VERY loud and the pitch of the engine and extremely annoying.
In some areas it is even worse with the problem of helicopters, and what I wonder is if these residents who are lasering these pilots do it out of anger for not being able to do anything else about the violations. I do empathize with their position, but violence is not the solution for me. I'd be willing to bet that as more people learn about this cheap method of encouraging pilots to fly elsewhere, the more of the asshole pilots will get lasered. I'm saying it's right, but frankly, they should be flying at higher altitudes.
facts? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow. Dramatic video of catching a perpetrator. And interesting representation of what a laser hit looks like in a helicopter. It's so easy to become captivated by a video even if it has no relevance.
How many tragedies have resulted from these thousands of incidents?
If I can just learn if there were 5 or 50 or 500 fatalities resulting from laser strikes, then I will be better able to weigh the significance of the problem. I'm pretty sure that is what elected officials will be asking.
Each year a certain number of people die from drowning in their bathtub. A few die from shark attacks. Some, including celebrities, die from erotic asphyxiation (hah! I speled that rite on the frist tri!). Legislators have to decide where is the most effective place to put their limited funds and protect people from a dangerous world.
Video is NOT the arrest of the guy in this story! (Score:4, Insightful)
Am I the only one who noticed that video is timestamped April 2010 while the arrest this story is talking about happened in 2007? Sheesh.
Re:Find a technical solution, not a legal "solutio (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually I think a few of these cases getting out and being better known -would- prevent many cases. Face it, this didn't start proliferating as a problem on it's own. People saw the news where a few of these cases happened and though "oh that's funny, I could do that too, no one can catch me". Cases skyrocketed over the last couple of years since the news got posted.
That same approach can be made to curtail the problem. It just requires an equal amount of energy being put into it.
The only problem I see with this particular article was that it was very clear just how much of a dumbshit the guy with the laser was. If he had been inside a building or car going from place to place to change where he used the laser from he probably wouldn't have been caught. Likewise had he discarded the laser the second he saw a police car coming, while out of site of the helicopter, chances are fair they wouldn't have found the evidence either.
What "technical solution" do you see to visible light being shown through a window? And how could you make it commercially viable to every aircraft in the sky? Brainstorm it. If you find something, great, but that's a pretty damned huge problem.
Re:Find a technical solution, not a legal "solutio (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Laser pointers are unpolarised; how would a polarising filter help to stop them?
Re:Find a technical solution, not a legal "solutio (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Find a technical solution, not a legal "solutio (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
10+ a day, every day.
On a bad day, I'm sitting inside one of those airplanes when a pilot gets blinded during takeoff or landing. No one's died yet, we believe, but when you take out a 777 going thru a flock of birds at takeoff/landing, or with a nice tailwind blowing it sideways, you're not in for fun.
We agree: lasers don't need to be banned. I own numerous ones, not counting the ones in my CD/DVD drives. For me, they're low-power, used for leveling, pointing, and testing angles of incidence. Should I find
technical solution already available -- goggles (Score:5, Interesting)
You can already get green-laser safety goggles for medial purposes which have a notch filter right around 532nm but a colour-balanced view outside that frequency. At http://brinellgreenlaser.blogspot.ca/ [blogspot.ca] they specifically mention using them for pilot protection.
Seems to me the pilots could just wear these on takeoff/landing and they'd be fine.
Re:technical solution already available -- goggles (Score:5, Insightful)
Why make them wear goggles? Apply the film to the windshield.
Re:technical solution already available -- goggles (Score:5, Funny)
Why do that?
I would love it to see the pilots come on board wearing huge fucking goggles, perhaps with leather caps as well. Give a thumbs up to the passengers before the flight.
Re:technical solution already available -- goggles (Score:5, Funny)
Compromise: Huge fucking goggles on the windshield.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Find a technical solution, not a legal "solutio (Score:5, Interesting)
Reflective coating on the outside of an aircraft. Essentially this is the solution to directed energy weapons: durable mirrors.
That's about a million times easier to say than do, and do well, of course but that's basically the only technical solution.
When light hits a surface some combination of 3 things happens: Reflection, refraction, absorption. Refraction (where it goes through the material) isn't any good since that's the thing we're trying to avoid, and 'redirecting' light from the outside and inside just means you can't see anything looking out. So it's a matter of cranking up the other two. If you had a material that was optically dense in one direction but not another (that would absorb the energy, preferably without catching fire) that would be ideal, but off the top of my head, and admittedly, it's been a while since I was in an optics lab, I can't think of an easy way to accomplish that, or you reflect the energy away.
Materials can have different optical properties at 90 degrees to each other - it looks one way front on and another side on, but that doesn't really help any if you want to see out. And there are are things like 'one way mirrors' but they rely on a difference in luminosity between the two sides, not, afaik, some particularly unidirectional property.
The other option is enclose the cockpit and do everything with cameras.
So ya, a technical solution is not all that feasible. The problem with the law 'making an example' of some people is just that: it's unfairly treating some people for 'public benefit'. It's like a 600 000 dollar fine for sharing a CD on a P2P network, or at least it might come across like that. Now if you can prove that an aircraft can suffer catastrophic failure due to a laser then you charge anyone doing it with attempted murder and see what happens from there, but I think the argument that it's an awareness problem first and foremost is probably true.
Re: (Score:3)
You're talking about finding who did it. I'm talking about protecting the aircraft so it doesn't matter if someone shines a laser on you.
Shooting lasers back at people is a monumentally stupid idea. You'll blind someone innocent. And yes, reflecting the beam away from the aircraft without scattering the beam could blind someone as well, which is part of what makes is undesirable.
Re: (Score:2)
Find a technical solution, not a legal "solution"
Drone strike?
Re:Find a technical solution, not a legal "solutio (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
What? Move homes because some assholes like to aim lasers at aircraft? I've got a better solution, treat it as attempted murder. Instead of punishing the innocent make the guilty suffer for a change. I think this guy should serve15-20 years of hard time in a cell with a 300 pound roomate named "Bubba." Anyone who doesn't know that aiming lasers at aircraft can kill doesn't need to be running around loose anyway. I think the problem isn't that they don't understand but that this stuff isn't treated lik
Re: (Score:3)
This is why we can't have nice things.
In all seriousness, jackasses doing things like this are why we end up banning things that responsible people should be able to have. Take your pick whether that's laser pointers, alcohol or other intoxicants, guns, or whatever else.
The thing this moron didn't get is not the legal risk to himself, it's the risk to the life and limb of the pilot of the craft and anybody he crashes on. If he's the sort of selfish prick who values his own amusement over the safety of the
Re: (Score:2)
You want a technical solution that shields the pilots/airborne vehicle from lasers? That would be technically impossible. So there you go, other than legal, what other solutions do you have?
A military solution, obviously.
If someone pulls a gun or a knife on you then you are (more-or-less) allowed to respond to the threat with deadly force in self defence. If someone shines a laser in your eyes while you are operating a vehicle (more dangerous when done to a car) then the threat is similar and so the same response should be allowed.
Failing that, perhaps a pair of Super Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses?
Re:Find a technical solution, not a legal "solutio (Score:5, Insightful)
You could certainly make it a combination of technical and legal. For example you make it illegal to manufacture or import a laser of any but a handful of wavelengths. Then install filters for those wavelengths over the cockpit windows. Yes it won't stop everything. But the vast majority of lasers are commercially purchased. If you can't purchase one that will get into a cockpit, problem solved.
For the ass-hats who insist on building their own and proceed to point it at airplanes and cars, well we can start with two to four charges of assault and go on to three hundred cases of attempted first degree murder. Followed up by a couple hundred civil lawsuits. Not only can they spend the rest of their lives in jail, but they will be bankrupted as well. If they happened to be married -- until their spouse gets a divorce -- joint property for the win. Go ahead and make the wife and kids homeless.
There is no rational reason why a civil society should have to put up with this kind of shit.
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Any attempt to interfere with an aircraft is an attempt to shoot it down by disabling the crew.
That's terrorism and merits execution.
Re:Find a technical solution, not a legal "solutio (Score:5, Insightful)
"Go ahead and make the wife and kids homeless."
That fact that democracy lets people like you have power over me is fucking terrifying.
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There's also the difference between punishing someone directly and "punishing" them by imposing a penalty on someone else that happens to have a negative effect on them. If a parent with young children does something truly terrible and goes to jail, society is not punishing the children that have to go without a parent even though the children sadly suffer (probably them most) as a consequence. If that was the breadwinner of the family, they will suffer even more acutely.
In the case of joint property, spous
Re:Find a technical solution, not a legal "solutio (Score:5, Interesting)
By that standard, no one who commits a crime should ever be punished because it would also hurt the criminal's family.
Sorry, but the collateral effect on the family is a way to encourage women not to marry and have children with douchebags.
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You could certainly make it a combination of technical and legal.
Yes, ban them for everyone. Just like the TSA, it's for your own good! Everyone must be punished because of the actions of certain people!
well we can start with two to four charges of assault and go on to three hundred cases of attempted first degree murder.
Yes, that's great. We have to appear Tough On Crime. That always works.
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Impossible? Almost all of the cases in question have involved handheld 532nm green lasers from a substantial distance, so all you really need to do is mix up a coating to apply to the windows that contains the same dye that laser safety goggles use. The filtering wouldn't have to be particularly strong to effectively eliminate the green light, resulting in a slight orangeish tint to
Re:Find a technical solution, not a legal "solutio (Score:5, Interesting)
Not all are green lasers. You only have to go wicked lasers to find lasers of all sorts of frequencies. One of your sibling posters suggested, combing these filters with legislation to only sell lasers at specific frequencies. That would eliminate most of these complains (unless the pesky chinese start selling these lasers directly from china, aliexpress anyone?). But I am not a fan govt interference and I would rather they spend time educating people/children and making the punishments well known, than legislating laser frequencies.
And you are assuming, it is easy to build such filters. It is not that easily to build analog filters that block a very narrow range of frequencies. It would very very difficult to build and would still result in loss of light in other frequencies. If you are talking about blocking multiple frequencies, you might as well forget about this idea.
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"mix up a coating to apply to the windows that contains the same dye that laser safety goggles use."
All goggles for 532 nm that I've seen block everything in the range 300--550 nm, which makes them look orange. Most goggles are based on dyes, and those don't come in 10 nm bandwidths.
It would be cheaper to place a few cube corner retroreflectors in the cockpit, to give send the beam back to the guy who's holding the laser.
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The light is already diffuse once it reaches the aircraft (one video claimed up to a foot diameter), so only a small amount of the original light would be reflected. That would further diffuse before getting back to the original target, which wouldnt be terribly effective.
Re:Find a technical solution, not a legal "solutio (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, I thought of one. Get rid of the window. Replace it with an array of video cameras and a big viewing screen. Put different color filters on each of the cameras and have a computer system that will turn off one of the cameras if it gets excessive amounts of light.
I didn't say it was an affordable solution.
Re:Find a technical solution, not a legal "solutio (Score:5, Insightful)
What could possibly go wrong? The cost/weight of high def video cameras and display screens isn't so bad, but the potential for failure is going to spook most pilots. They know that wires don't short out and make their windows go black...
On the other hand, a lot of aircraft could benefit from a low angle looking camera/screen so the pilot can see the runway clearly on approach.
Re:Find a technical solution, not a legal "solutio (Score:5, Insightful)
Flip-up panels. If something goes wrong, you reach over, flip it up out of the way, and you have your windows back.
Re:Find a technical solution, not a legal "solutio (Score:4, Interesting)
How about a technology similar to transitions lenses where a powerful light will cause immediate tinting of the window around the beam (not the entire window, just the area where the beam is shining through). It may still cause a temporary problem, but it would prevent extended problems.
Re:Find a technical solution, not a legal "solutio (Score:4, Interesting)
I have a welding helmet with a LCD shutter [airgas.com], as soon as the the photo-voltaic cell detects a bright light, the lcd goes black; cost less that $50.00 at Harbor Freight; lots of people like pilots spend more than that on sunglasses. Sure you couldn't go completely off the shelf with it, the helmet is about shade 3 even when off, which is pretty dark at night, and I'm not sure what would happen trying to look at an LCD display in a cockpit while wearing LCD's on your eyes, but it's very plausible.
Re:Find a technical solution, not a legal "solutio (Score:5, Funny)
Excellent: We'll equip the pilots with Peril-Sensitive Sunglasses!
Re:Find a technical solution, not a legal "solutio (Score:4, Informative)
But the orientation of the polarization is unknown. It could be adjusted by the pilot but wouldn't prevent an initial surprise effect. It is practically useless.
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Perhaps the solution is to restrict the sale and use of lasers, even though that would mean that bluray burners and other optical media, as well as home theatre projectors and a few other legitimate uses would have to be shitcanned -- or at least redesigned so extracting the laser from the assembly would be difficult or impossible without destroying the laser in the process.
Everything you said was right except this. You're not going to prevent people from getting their hands on lasers. That's a fool's game. But if you take away the green laser pointers from Random A. Yokel that's good enough to prevent the vast majority of abuses. Is it sad that such a thing is necessary? Yes. Is such a thing necessary? I believe the answer to that is also yes, but I'm open to other suggestions that actually nominally "solve" the problem.
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Even for fun - you use your hand gun in a shooting range, it goes bang, it makes holes and it's unlikely the "reflections" will hurt anyone standing at the safe areas. Whereas using those powerful handheld lasers aren't going to be as fun, and the reflections can still blind people far away.
Re:Sorry, but a legal solution is what the govt wa (Score:5, Insightful)
Lasers are not the problem. The appropriate solution is to label the crime what it is -- attempted murder against the number of people onboard. Have fun with your back to back life sentences for trying to kill 300 people, jackass.
Re:Sorry, but a legal solution is what the govt wa (Score:5, Insightful)
Nice strawman. Murder or attempted murder requires mens rea. Most people who do this are not trying to kill anyone. They're just being idiots.
Reckless endangerment, sure. Attempted murder? Good luck getting that to stick. You'd be laughed out of court.
Re:Sorry, but a legal solution is what the govt wa (Score:5, Insightful)
If someone is an idiot and thinks it would be funny to shoot a gun into a crowd it's still attempted murder.
Re:Sorry, but a legal solution is what the govt wa (Score:5, Insightful)
Like dropping bricks off a freeway overpass.
I bet there are at least 20 years worth of "reckless endangerment" and "interfering with air traffic" and other crimes. Is there such a thing as "attempted manslaughter"?
"Just being an idiot" is not an excuse for putting peoples' lives at risk. Dude needs to look at losing one or two decades. It has to be enough time to deter.
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Yes, and they just send more cleaners round to pick it up. Also at major train stations in London, but in fact the general effect has been less garbage since people know about it and take the garbage with them or dispose of it outside the station.
But actually, GP is wrong: this was not a reaction to 7/7 but dates back to the early 1990s after the IRA bombed London multiple times, including the Underground and train stations. Some of those bombs were indeed hidden in bins. At the time the IRA was detonating
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Now however having a 1000mw laser when you are lost in the bush would definitely help people find you, however I think that these lasers need to be banned like fireworks as the general population is too stupid to respect their dangers.
Are they more or less dangerous than a 1W laser?
Re:I wonder how often this happens by accident (Score:5, Insightful)
This wasn't by accident. It didn't "briely pass over an aircraft."
If you actually watched the video, the laser was pointed directly at the helicopter over a series of minutes. Accidental pointing would have been unlikely for such a period of time, since you need to track the helicopter for that long.
>Have we slid so far down the slippery slope that something like this will become punishable?
Your argument is unreasonable and legitimizes the pointing of lasers at people who have lives in their hands.
>There's some really stupid shit that can get them in big trouble.
And you can't deliberately point a weapon at whim at a person and not get in big trouble.
Mens rea was demonstrated in the video. He got done and fairly so.
--
BMO
What now? (Score:5, Informative)
Good lord.
First of all, the odds that a kid would shine a laser into the sky and accidentally hit an aircraft are... well, stupendously low. The laser point is incredibly tiny, and the sky is incredibly large. And the slightest movement of the hand holding the laser has huge implications at the distance where an aircraft would intersect it. If it's not trained and held on the target, it would never be noticed.
So, "no" to whatever point you're making.
Re:What now? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually there are some links in TFA where they mention that after 500 feet, the light will have spread to a six foot radius. Further, when it hits the plexi glass of the cockpit, it scatters which illuminates the entire cockpit with a rather blinding light.
Re:What now? (Score:5, Insightful)
the light will have spread to a six foot radius.
The ability of lasers to do interesting things is based on the concentration of the beam. Spread a watt or two over a six foot radius and it is not very strong. It is something less than a shop light with twin four foot T8's shining on a white door. Not enough to blind.
it scatters which illuminates the entire cockpit with a rather blinding light.
It may split the beam into a few beams, each of which are powerful enough to blind, assuming the beam has not already spread to a harmless radius, but it cannot "illuminate the entire cockpit with a rather blinding light." You still have to hit the pupil with a healthy percentage of the original beam.
Colorful stories from overzealous policemen aside, the physics simply do not support the claim of filling the cockpit with blinding light. Pointing lasers at airplanes is dangerous and is a crime for good reason, but lasers are not magical death beams.
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