A startup is putting military-style drones in high school ceilings. Ceiling-mounted. Charging. Waiting. And when something happens, a pilot in Austin, Texas, decides whether to deploy pepper gel on your kid's school. I'm not saying the problem isn't real. It absolutely is. But read that back.... in schools. We've taken a Ukrainian battlefield tactic against Russian soldiers and ported it to Deltona High School in Florida. The co-founder literally said the idea came from watching drone videos of the war in Ukraine. The chief pilot described it as "cheating in a video game after you die." These are children.
Here's what's not in the headline:
🔒 The drones use an encrypted connection — but the article notes they're potentially vulnerable to cyberattack. A compromised drone in a crowded hallway isn't a security tool; it's a weapon pointed in the wrong direction.
⚖️ Mithril reserves the right to act independently during an attack, without waiting for law enforcement. A private company operating remotely is making use-of-force decisions at a school.
💰 Florida and Georgia approved $500K+ each for this. A group of Texas parents raised $200K more. That's real money going to ceiling drones instead of mental health services, counselors, or de-escalation programs.
The ACLU said it plainly: when force becomes a zero-risk remote action, it gets overused. Axon tried a Taser drone for schools in 2022, and its own ethics board killed it. Mithril is picking up where that got dropped.
I teach cybersecurity. I've spent years in boardrooms helping organizations think through risk. And the risk calculus here isn't just about whether the drone works. It's about what we're normalizing when we turn schools into drone-monitored combat zones and call it progress.
"This is the future," said the sheriff's captain.
I hope not.
https://www.wsj.com/business/a-startup-is-supplying-drones-to-high-schools-a7800ade
#SchoolSafety #Cybersecurity #Leadership #security #privacy #cloud #infosec
