Drug cartel assassinates its enemies with bomb-toting drones • Hacker News Board

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

#131

Post by soared » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 2:47 AM UTC

DethNinja wrote: post #113

As humanity gets access to higher and higher technology, more and more smaller scale, non-governmental actors will get access to weapons that can cause asymmetrical damage. We will definitely get to a point where a single determined person can destroy an entire city. I strongly believe this is basically the great filter faced by all intelligent species in the universe. Only way to overcome this great filter is by ado…

An interesting example (or maybe counterexample) is thinking about how your first paragraph is relevant at any point in history. Compared to sticks, a bow causes asymmetrical damage.

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

#132

Post by Pfhreak » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 2:47 AM UTC

stjohnswarts wrote: post #108

grugagag wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If their main source of income is cut off they will have to immediately downsize or it would all eat into the boss’s accumulated wealth. Reestablishing the cartel on kidnapping and other violent crime is not as lucrative as selling sniffy gold. If they start kidnapping in America is a different thing all together but doing it in Mexico would not yield enough money to keep the current operations - unless they kidnap e…

Or they get into the "protection" and kidnapping racket even more than they are currently. Sure their size would probably decrease but the amount of violence would skyrocket. At least for several years. The basically control whole swathes of that. They wouldn't give that up without a fight.

Is that what happened at the end of prohibition? (Genuine question, I'm not well informed in this area.)

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

#133

Post by dron3r » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 2:48 AM UTC

Yc4win wrote: post #97

anitil wrote: post #85

I actually work in the drone detection/jamming field. My only surprise is that this sort of thing doesn't happen more often. We already see drones used for drug smuggling and privacy violations, as well as the use of drones to carry IED payloads. Drones are an amazing tool but as with any tool, they can be used in nefarious ways.

Has there been any progress with coming up with a system that can _reliably_ jam them?

You can jam signals they rely on, like GPS and cellular, but there are already drones that are capable of flying on vision alone, so no.

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

#134

Post by danielheath » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 2:50 AM UTC

stjohnswarts wrote: post #108

grugagag wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If their main source of income is cut off they will have to immediately downsize or it would all eat into the boss’s accumulated wealth. Reestablishing the cartel on kidnapping and other violent crime is not as lucrative as selling sniffy gold. If they start kidnapping in America is a different thing all together but doing it in Mexico would not yield enough money to keep the current operations - unless they kidnap e…

Or they get into the "protection" and kidnapping racket even more than they are currently. Sure their size would probably decrease but the amount of violence would skyrocket. At least for several years. The basically control whole swathes of that. They wouldn't give that up without a fight.

Is there a way out that involves the cartels not going down fighting? Could a government sue for peace?

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

#135

Post by mark-r » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 2:52 AM UTC

JackFr wrote: post #123

As I read the article, there was not actually a single confirmed death by explosive armed drone. I suspect that ultimately it’s likely impractical To kill people by drone as compared, on a cost basis, to other more pedestrian means of killing people. Drones may be cheap, but drones that can lift more than 2 kilos aren’t. The logistics of getting a drone near enough to the intended target to kill them are going to be…

Technology progresses. What's hard today may be easy tomorrow.

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

#136

Post by rurp » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 2:53 AM UTC

soared wrote: post #131

DethNinja wrote: post #113

As humanity gets access to higher and higher technology, more and more smaller scale, non-governmental actors will get access to weapons that can cause asymmetrical damage. We will definitely get to a point where a single determined person can destroy an entire city. I strongly believe this is basically the great filter faced by all intelligent species in the universe. Only way to overcome this great filter is by ado…

An interesting example (or maybe counterexample) is thinking about how your first paragraph is relevant at any point in history. Compared to sticks, a bow causes asymmetrical damage.

I think this is part of what makes it so scary. The current changes are nothing new, it's just that we're approaching the point where these threats can be existential. Once that happens, unless something really massive has changed in human society, it's probably game over.

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

#137

Post by kumarvvr » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 2:57 AM UTC

The next worst case scenario is autonomous drones, that do not require radio or gps inputs. Navigation can be done with crude inertial navigation systems and advancing AI can identify and fly to targets with increasing accuracy. Causing general chaos or exploding in crowds will not require AI though.

The only counter measure against those will then be an EMP system, Blinding lights to disable cameras, etc.

The next evolution for public speakers or gatherings would probably be completely online.

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

#138

Post by vmception » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 2:57 AM UTC

smabie wrote: post #117

vmception wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only issue for an illegal operation would be paying dividends, where they need to get their illicit cash to the shareholders. This is solved by obtaining cryptocurrency and issuing that to shareholders whose record of ownership is tied to a cryptographic tradable share such as using the erc20 standard or erc1404 standard (for programmers that haven't really had an opportunity to see whats going on, these are just…

The laundering of money using compute and electricity is a very interesting idea that I hadn't thought of before. It's certainly within the cartels power (as quasi-state entities) to obtain cheap/free electricity and start mining. Given the billions and billions in cash just sitting in warehouses, Cartels would presumably be very interested in any way, even with a 50 or more percent haircut, to turn this dirty money…

How much cash are we really talking about?

Miners earn in aggregate

$3.8 billion in ether @ $430 and an average of 3 Ether per block

$3.9 billion in bitcoin @ $11,500 and an average of 6.5 bitcoin per block

(Transaction fees are a significant portion of block revenue now due to the heavy activity on these networks, with Ethereum blocks often having more fees earned than the block reward)

So there is about $8 billion worth of cryptocurrency earned by miners each year, at current exchange rates and activity levels. Cartel just should not exceed 50% of that. Market can tolerate much more and they would be in fierce competition with other miners.

We live in a world where people want the exchange rates to double or increase by an order of magnitude, which means that 8 billion figure becomes 80 billion, it should be clear that we are on the cusp of a market becoming highly attractive to larger incumbent organizations.

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

#139

Post by vmception » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 3:01 AM UTC

jdc wrote: post #47

barkingcat wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

Could you name a couple of countries they burned down because nobody would buy or take drugs?

Hong Kong is a geopolitical football because the Mayor of Hong Kong tried to stop a foreign corporation from getting their citizens addicted to drugs.

In accordance with British commercial law, the foreign corporation returned with the British Navy and took it over. And then kept pushing the drugs successfully.

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

#140

Post by sudosysgen » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 3:01 AM UTC

kumarvvr wrote: post #137

The next worst case scenario is autonomous drones, that do not require radio or gps inputs. Navigation can be done with crude inertial navigation systems and advancing AI can identify and fly to targets with increasing accuracy. Causing general chaos or exploding in crowds will not require AI though. The only counter measure against those will then be an EMP system, Blinding lights to disable cameras, etc. The next e…

SLAM is already functional for drone navigation, more or less. As for blinding lights, that can be fixed by using many different sensors and wavelengths, as well as high-quality optics and imaging sensors with high flare resistance and high dynamic range.

As for EMPs, a drone that isn't remote controlled could feasibly be put in a Faraday cage. I'd make a prototype, but I don't really want to contribute to future assassinations.

There just aren't any good countermeasures, I'm afraid. I'd imagine fully online works well but even that is seriously limited.