And the idea that shooting a gun brings down some hailstorm of official response is myth. Fire a gun in most places and ... nothing will happen. Folks will rush to the scene of any murder, but will only find the sniper's location after hours or days of investigation. It won't be like the NCIS show where the investigator glances around and says 'must have come from that rooftop; its the only secure sniper post in a half-mile!' You can shoot from nearly anywhere with line-of-sight, from the partly-open door of a parked delivery van, without much risk of discovery.
If you had a drone with a weapon, I would think you'd want to fire on someone using some variation of Tracking Point style hardware [1], except partially self aimed. Basically see the target, paint the target, drone uses internal sensors to detect a brief instant of random stability and fires the weapon
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/08/gun-linux-on-the-rang...
Again, doing a crime and getting away with a crime are two enormously different things. The truth is that the majority of humanity can commit terrible crimes with utter ease. There is absolutely no question about that.
Most of us don't, however, because of morality and our nature. The rest don't because they don't want to spend the rest of their life in jail, and for major crimes the probability of getting caught is enormously high. Things that reduce that probability (and a device that means you don't have to be on or even near the site, and can extract 100% of evidence with a very high degree of success, does that) open up opportunities for people to do such crimes.
As a parallel, someone mentioned bitcoins, and bitcoins absolutely opened up the world of casual extortion, because suddenly you don't have to go to a mailbox or meet in a park.
I'm not a detective, but I suspect having the large, complex piece of electronic equipment that was used as the weapon would be a godsend compared to the evidence available in a normal murder or assassination investigation.
I'm not sure I agree with this at all. Drones allow you to access viewpoints that are otherwise impossible using telescopes at a fraction of the overall cost.
Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLB66lge6oA&list=UUZfBMqj1pN...
Perhaps, but you've still got to pay the guy holding the rifle. A drone could self-terminate. Most parts can be 3D-printed & assembled in a clean tent, untraceable. The most expensive part is possibly the infrared camera ($1~2k).
Well, say I set up a drone for remote control over the internet, then rent it out to people that are located half around the globe. I act as a cut out, and whomever is spying will (may[1]) be hard to track.
[1] If I'm getting paid, there's the issue of anonymous transactions, and as for control, latency might be too high to use Tor -- but the main point is that drones already facilitate something new, if not revolutionary new.
For example, instructing a drone to assassinate is potentially closer to hiring a hitman, than murdering someone firsthand with a shotgun. Closer in the sense that the puportrator feels a sense of detachment.
A hunting rifle at a few hundred meters is going to be a heck of a lot cheaper, more reliable, easier to use, and more difficult to trace than some drone with a mounted weapon.
Aside from the difficulty of a few hundred meter shot in urban settings, shooting a weapon from a location announces where you are, exactly when you are there. Aside from the immediate and overwhelming response likely, the human traces would be enormous and unavailable. A drone, in contrast, comes from some unknown place off in some unknown direction, can with ease get anywhere near the target (on a nearby roof for instance), and then when the task is complete it can go low and fast and get back to a drop-off. For arson and peeping, the same premise holds -- a drone can go to exactly where is needed, do what is necessary, and get away with, currently, essentially zero risk of capture.
Will we eventually have drone registrations and tracking systems, comprehensive urban radio tracking and announcement, police overrides, etc? Yeah, probably, which was what I was getting at -- events will inevitably happen, and regulations will adjust.
Could a professional band of assassins pull off an assassination with a drone? Certainly. Would it be far easier to just use a rifle? I'd say absolutely.
For peeping in windows, a drone is extremely impractical. A telescope will yield much better results. The only thing a drone can better do is look down at your roof, or over your fence if your fence is higher than nearby buildings.
For assassination, traditional tools are clearly more practical in nearly every case. A hunting rifle at a few hundred meters is going to be a heck of a lot cheaper, more reliable, easier to use, and more difficult to trace than some drone with a mounted weapon.
I don't really know how arsonists generally do their thing, but I can't imagine that dropping something flammable is more practical than just driving by and throwing it.
I'm sure there are very specific cases where sophisticated drone usage could be useful for committing these crimes, but I don't think it's a major concern, and not even one of the biggest concerns of drones.