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Drug cartel assassinates its enemies with bomb-toting drones

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Re: Drug cartel assassinates its enemies with bomb-toting drones

#31
post #25

Man I knew it was just a matter of time for this to happen, to easy to do and to many intelligent people with no morals (or just desperate, threatened etc.). Anyway thinks like this make it more likely for unreasonable regulations, like even small drones being tracked when used or similar. But the bad joke is it's pointless as: - The "bad" people can always circumvent such measurements (it's illegal but you plan to d…

Could this become like other cheap, easy to manufacture societal disruptions like drugs - solution being: make them illegal.

Someone should write a book set in a science fiction dystopia where you have to apply for a specific permit to construct any device or write any software (lest you make a drone or a singularity AI), and where machine tools are carefully controlled and limited to regularly inspected industrial facilities.

Re: Drug cartel assassinates its enemies with bomb-toting drones

#32

Man I knew it was just a matter of time for this to happen, to easy to do and to many intelligent people with no morals (or just desperate, threatened etc.). Anyway thinks like this make it more likely for unreasonable regulations, like even small drones being tracked when used or similar. But the bad joke is it's pointless as: - The "bad" people can always circumvent such measurements (it's illegal but you plan to d…

Is it unreasonable for small drones to be tracked? It's way too easy to get footage of private property or through otherwise obscured windows with drones.

Regulation doesn't have to be unreasonable.

Re: Drug cartel assassinates its enemies with bomb-toting drones

#33
I remember someone flying one full of meth into the side of the Tijuana Costco.

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/border-baja-califo...

I always thought drones would bring down the violence in Mexico, since it would be easier to keep your distribution network under the radar.

If you don't have to recruit hundreds of people to actually drive the drugs across the border, and can fly it over the fence in the middle of the night, what would be the reason for anybody to be shooting anybody.

Whoever's turf you were operating in wouldn't even know you were operating on their turf because your whole operation could be just two white-collar-type guys keeping a really low-key presence. The rise of the narco-technocrats.

But, I guess it didn't go that way.

Re: Drug cartel assassinates its enemies with bomb-toting drones

#34

Interesting map, its crazy how often these groups fracture and splinter! Really wish one of these would go publicly traded and report revenue, leading to real price discovery of these operations and ability to manage risk. There are permissionless systems they can use now to list shares, and if they have a liquidity issue they just need to take over a dam and generate some electricity for themselves for their crypto…

During colonialism, you could buy stocks in companies erecting colonial empires, like the dutch east india company, or the british east india company. They had ships, troops, and actually did engage in trafficking if you can call that, by avoiding the silk road and its large dangers/taxes.

Re: Drug cartel assassinates its enemies with bomb-toting drones

#35
post #2

Short-range air defense (SHORAD) is going to be a huge growth area for defense contractors over the next several years.

I wonder if we can repurpose mm-wave 60GHz panel antennas and SDRs for cheap short-range radars. Then combine with a commercial infrared camera for multi-mode target acquisition. Put those on a mount with servos to control a PKM or M240 machinegun, and mount the whole setup on the roofs of buildings. Critical infrastructure anti-drone air defense guns at fairly low cost.

Re: Drug cartel assassinates its enemies with bomb-toting drones

#36
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine a hundred thousand of these things. Ugh. I don’t wanna know if that’s in our future.

Elon's talked about this on stage, where easily could have 1,000 to 100,000 of them with just a tiny amount of C4 - and then have them swarm at one or many targets using AI or other training/data.

Killbots is a scifi short based on this. Don't watch if you're squirmish though.

Re: Drug cartel assassinates its enemies with bomb-toting drones

#38
post #7

If this kind of thing keeps up it wouldn't be much of a stretch for drones to be banned from civilian ownership in many parts of the world.

The issue will be enforcement of these laws. How will you regulate the possession and distribution of IMUs and electric motors? Hell most of the parts you need to build a drone are available in a used cellphone and many of the rest can be 3d printed.

To underscore your point, here's an example of how easy it is to get god-tier military hardware in Mexico from one of the many people breaking bad across the border in the US.

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/arming...

This fella in Texas was selling .50-cals and miniguns straight to the Cartels for years. There are likely many, many more like him.

Mexican think tanks have spent years trying to figure out how the hell to stop the massive flow of weapons into Mexico from Texas and Arizona.

https://www.mexicoevalua.org/mexicoevalua/wp-content/uploads...

US think tanks too, notably David Shirk at USD has done a bunch of work on this.

https://catcher.sandiego.edu/items/peacestudies/way_of_the_g...

Re: Drug cartel assassinates its enemies with bomb-toting drones

#39
post #34

Interesting map, its crazy how often these groups fracture and splinter! Really wish one of these would go publicly traded and report revenue, leading to real price discovery of these operations and ability to manage risk. There are permissionless systems they can use now to list shares, and if they have a liquidity issue they just need to take over a dam and generate some electricity for themselves for their crypto…

During colonialism, you could buy stocks in companies erecting colonial empires, like the dutch east india company, or the british east india company. They had ships, troops, and actually did engage in trafficking if you can call that, by avoiding the silk road and its large dangers/taxes.

They also engaged in massive transcontinental drug trafficking, and in many cases were vertically integrated. They owned the land/fields, the people/slaves, the plantations, the drug crops/opium poppies, the processing chain, and also the sales, and the troops/armies were used to force people to take/buy drugs. If you refused to buy or take the drugs, they would burn your entire country down to ashes, and of course, enslave the people there to make more drugs.

Re: Drug cartel assassinates its enemies with bomb-toting drones

#40

I've been worrying about this for years. What's next is micro-chemical attacks. Drones that can cloud an individual or small group of people. They'll think it was just dust or something, the thing zips off into the sky, and the linings of their lungs starts dissolving and they die.

Russia attempted to kill a dissenter in England with a toxic agent and all of Europe went up in arms. Presidents and prime ministers put out condemnations. Public opinion sharply turned against Russia.

The backlash to what you're suggesting would be insane if it actually happened.

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