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Internet shopping makes buying things easier, but has also led to the rise of a new kind of thief: the porch pirate.
網絡讓購物變得更加容易，但也導致了一種新型偷竊的興起：包裹竊賊。
Porch pirates scour door steps for deliveries that have been made when a householder was out, and nab them.
包裹竊賊會在住戶外出時，在門口的臺階上搜尋投送的快遞，然后把快遞劫走。
Sometimes, they will stalk delivery vans to do so.
有時他們會跟蹤送貨車進行偷竊。
Residents of New York City, for example, lose an astonishing 90,000 parcels every day to porch pirates,
例如，根據《紐約時報》的報道，紐約市的居民每天因包裹竊賊
according to a report in the New York Times
而丟失多達9萬個包裹。
Porch piracy is a problem that may be solved by the spread of parcel-delivering drones.
無人送貨機的普及或許可以解決包裹竊賊的問題。
Because each drone delivery involves a separate journey, rather than having to be fitted into a round,
因為每一架無人機都直送一家貨物，而不是來回運送多家，
it will be easier for courier and customer to agree on when a drone should arrive than on the arrival time of a van.
所以快遞員和客戶更容易就送貨時間達成一致，而不是貨車何時到達。
However Nirupam Roy and Nakul Garg, a pair of engineers at the University of Maryland,
但是，馬里蘭大學的兩位工程師Nirupam Roy和Nakul Garg
worry that drone deliveries are open to a different sort of piracy—hijacking. A drone in flight is easily upset.
擔心無人送貨機可能會遭遇另一種類型的盜竊——空中劫持。飛行中的無人機很容易受干擾。
A well-aimed stone, baseball or similar missile is enough to bring it down, permitting its payload to be purloined.
一枚瞄準好的石頭、棒球或類似的投擲就足以將其擊落，使其運送貨物被竊取。
Nor need such stone-throwers have pecuniary motives.
這些扔石頭的人也不需要有金錢動機。
Vandalism, or irritation with the very presence of drones, might also provoke pot shots.
破壞公物或對無人機的存在感到不滿，都可能會引發槍擊事件。
High-flying drones, like those employed by the police for surveillance, will normally be out of range of such activity.
高空飛行的無人機，比如那些被警方用于監視的無人機，通常會超出這種活動的范圍。
But parcel drones will have to fly low, at least for part of their journeys.
但是運送包裹的無人機必須低空飛行，至少在運送過程中需要這樣。
To counter this risk the pair therefore propose to build a lightweight,
為了應對該風險，兩人提議建造一個輕量級的
low-power self-defence mechanism which lets a drone sense a missile fast enough to get out of its way.
低功率自衛機制，讓無人機能夠迅速感應投擲以躲避開來。
That is nowhere near as easy as it might sound. Drones are lean machines, provided with only enough battery strength,
這遠沒有聽起來那么容易。無人機是一種精簡的機器，只有提供足夠的電池強度、
computing power and payload-carrying capacity to do the job they are designed for.
計算能力和有效載荷，它們才能完成自己的工作。
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