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‘Do not pet’: A robotic dog named “Spot” made by Boston Dynamics is the latest tool in the arsenal of the US Secret Service
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- Title
- On patrol at Mar-a-Lago, robotic dogs have their moment
- Word count
- 745 words
As little as I like the president-elect, at $75k a pop they make a lot of sense. They can take a lot of pressure off of the humans in the Secret Service, and robots on pre-programmed routes are exactly what any near-future dystopian thriller needs in the lead up to the grand denouement.
I'm much more horrified by their use by law enforcement than by the Secret Service, tbqh.
I remember when Boston Dynamics would put out cute videos of their robots (including Spot) dancing, and people would get downvoted for pointing out that these would inevitably be used to enact violence. The more cops have access to these, the sooner we'll get one killing an unarmed civilian, I suppose.
Serious question - how do we fight these things?
Most of the options here require loony toons gimmicks of balloons on drones or someone getting within close proximity of the thing with some kind of cover. Ideally, a device can be taken down at range with something rather innocuous that anyone can get.
As someone who has accidentally fried a few laptop cameras during undergrad optics research, just get a high power laser off of ebay/amazon/aliexpress and pepper the sides till you take out some of the 5 or so cameras it uses to build a 360-degree composite view of its surroundings.
Just be sure to wear proper protective eyewear!
Spots in particular also have well-defined blindspots, thanks Boston Dynamics!
If anyone does want to play with lasers please please listen to this point above. Also bear in mind that paradoxically a cheaper laser is likely to put out more power than rated at wavelengths it potentially shouldn't making it significantly more dangerous. You should ideally treat lasers kinda like firearms and even when switched off or wearing protective gear don't look down the barrel of them and never remove safety devices or filters they come preinstalled with unless you know what you're doing.
I know this might sound overkill but you can quite easily make microscars on your retina with a laser that you won't notice until they build up and fuck your eyesight and you can't fix this. Once it's done it's done.
As this short shows with a camera sensor https://www.youtube.com/shorts/tel6x0VlH4M the same can happen to your eyes.
Pull the battery out by grabbing the handle on the bottom and pulling forward. If you're behind it, you can press the lockout button next to the power button.
https://i.postimg.cc/sxKysnQP/image.png
Who knows how long those features will be easily accessible on military and law enforcement models, though...
As a citizen? The same way you fight a tank, or a drone: you don't.
If you were in a member of the army? They're not all that great as a instrument of war. They're super expensive, clunky, and fragile. Drones are much better at this, comparatively.
Blanket
No, no, blankets only help with hiding yourself! :-D
Oh, you meant throwing a blanket on the killer robot dog....yeah, um, sure, yep, ok, that ought to do it...until the next model comes out with additional articulating arms specifically designed to counter blanket types of countermeasures...in other words: counter-countermeasures! ;-)
Nets are a little less commonplace than blankets, but even humans struggle with them. Robots find them so impossible to deal with they're typically banned from bot combat tournaments by my understanding.
Makes sense about banning nets from robot competitions...but funny side thought: the moment i read your comment about nets, i immediately wondered that in the far future - like when the world devolves into Mad Max style dystopia - homes won;t only have shotguns hanging in strategic places to fend off human marauders, but we'll all additionally have a trident and nets - like in Roman gladiator days - in order to fend off robotic assailants! Ok, clearly, i've seen too much dystopian TV/movies, and need to start reading books that contain calmer material. :-)
Spray paint / paint balloons to the cameras used for vision would keep it from getting a good picture of you while you get up close to disable it.
The following answer is for entertainment purposes only:
A .50 BMG anti-materiel rifle. Possibly with AP or incendiary rounds.
Don't worry; I found your answer extremely entertaining.
A fishing net would tangle up in its limbs
Expanding foam. It comes in cans that are easy to carry and if you use it between the joints, it will stop movement. If you're able to get it into a small crack and into the internals, you might even damage it enough to stop it from receiving signal.
This is all just hypothetical though. I've never used expanding foam, so it may not work fast enough or be strong enough to physically stop one of these things.