Look out for the Spies in the Skies

Using an Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) to covertly survey a target sounds like something out of a Tom Clancy novel or a hi-tech military operation in the middle east, but in reality decent quality UAVs costing less than £300 are available to anyone.

Military UAV

The AR drone Parrot is one such model made for the "home market". This quadricopter UAV can be easily controlled from your Smartphone, and is highly stable in flight outdoors. This stability clearly is a key factor in the design to meet the craft's main purpose, recording video via an on board HD camera, which not only records clear footage but can even send a live stream it to your phone.

This UAV could be yours for less than £300!

UAVs such as these will be a cool toy to many people, but there will be others that will purchase these spies in the skies for more sinister purposes, and not just for spying on the neighbours. These UAVs aren't as easy to spot as you might, newer models are bound to be even more covert, and even when spotted few will realise they have quality video cameras on board watching them.  They do make a good recognise tool for would be thieves targeting business premisses, and I wouldn't put it past the odd social engineer and professional hacker to use such a tool to help build information about potential targets as well.

Not easy to spot as you might think