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

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

#151

Post by generalizations » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 3:21 AM UTC

rurp wrote: post #136

soared wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And that argument is exhibit A for why Mars colonization is so important. It gives us a second chance to figure out how to live with existential threats.

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

#152

Post by Waterluvian » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 3:23 AM UTC

generalizations wrote: post #149

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…

> a single determined person can destroy an entire city That's already true, and has been for a while, if you count medical doctors with a reasonable degree of connectedness.

What exactly do you mean by that? Is there some famous story I’m not aware of?

...I can’t help but sense some crazy coming my way.

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

#153

Post by Waterluvian » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 3:27 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…

Consider the possibility that people generally don’t want to destroy. They want to control. Asymmetric power might just force adjustments in control.

What does it look like if almost anyone can destroy concentrated populations? Maybe a police state. Maybe everyone spreads out. And then what does that do to power? Etc.

I don’t think the end result is necessarily that someone pushes the button and we all die out.

I think The Expanse revealed an interesting iteration of this concept: the ability to capture and hurl asteroids at your enemy.

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

#154

Post by ev1 » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 3:28 AM UTC

meowface wrote: post #107

stephentmcm wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absolutely not going to be the case. Assuming both the US and Mexico simultaneous legalized all drugs, what happens to all the illegal jobs the cartels currently have? Their people, money and weapons don't vanish and what we see when cartels take a hit income is violence increases and the cartels look to other methods of making income using they're existing tools. Protection rackets and kidnappings are alread…

It definitely would not magically get rid of cartels overnight, but it'd cut off a huge source of money for them. If they start multiplying the number of violence-related revenue streams (kidnapping, protection rackets/extortion, murder-for-hire, arms snuggling), their image among people who were neutral towards them may decline, and maybe they'll start to be seen as much closer to nothing but pure terrorist/paramili…

I'm curious about one thing: I keep hearing weird stories about small police forces and ultra-militarised police forces in the US for example, like tiny towns having surplus tanks and assault rifles.

Why/how are the cartels not just "put down" immediately with some assistance? Is there something deeper, like people being born into it or politicians much rather having drug money than a living population? I don't understand why there even needs to be any form of civil war, unless the cartels have embedded themselves deep enough to be similar to guerilla warfare-esque with innocent actors.

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

#155

Post by bigiain » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 3:33 AM UTC

anitil wrote: post #89

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I work in this field. There's two components to this. There is the possibility to track devices from the manufacturer via serial numbers etc. Regulation will help here. This isn't useful until after the fact for evidence gathering. The second is to track them in the sky. DJI has a product AeroScope that tracks their drones, my company has a competing product (this isn't a plug so won't mention the name). The issue wi…

> There is the possibility to track devices from the manufacturer via serial numbers etc. Regulation will help here. This isn't useful until after the fact for evidence gathering.

From where I'm, sitting, I can see one drone which can readily be "tracked via the manufacturer" (A DJI Spark). There are two more which came assembled - from random AliExpress (or maybe GearBest) vendors, which have nothing resembling a serial number nor any way to "phone home" to the manufacturer. There are another 5-6 which were completely assembled from parts (some of which I 3D printed myself) and which run open source software on ubiquitously available flight controllers. (And probably enough parts to assemble another 3 or 3 at least).

Most of those can be set up to fly completely autonomously, where jamming of the control channels and/or video link won't affect the completion of the flight plan. (Jamming GPS would fuck them all up though, but I might have enough parts on hand to make a machine vision and lidar and IMU capable SLAM platform, that'd be able to fly a mission plan even in the absence of a good GPS lock...)

(I'd be fascinated to know how your company's system fares against a reasonably creative "white hat" amateur drone builder who's intentionally set out to beat it...)

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

#156

Post by sudosysgen » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 3:34 AM UTC

mdorazio wrote: post #147

sudosysgen wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ass…

There are plenty of countermeasures, but they're all active countermeasures - ex. a couple guys with shotguns, trained falcons, or your own anti-drone drones.

Yes, but kinetic countermeasures scale really badly. The definition of "drone" is also quite flexible here, a couple guys with shotguns, falcons, or your own anti-drones work fine against a few slow drones, badly against a few dozen slow flying drones, not at all against a few hundred slow flying drones, are essentially useless against one jet-powered drone (microjet engines are very cheap!) don't have a hope against a dozen fast flying drones, and are non-existent to a few hundred fast flying drones.

You'd pay around 2500$ for a 60lbf jet engine, and around 3000$ tops for the rest of the drone. That's around 5500-6000$, so for a hundred drones you'd pay 600 000$, or about 60% of the cost to train one soldier, and around one 0.8 millionths of the yearly US defence expenditure. For 100 drones. That means with the US defence budget you could make 120 000 000 such drones.

Sure, against the current crop of electric consumer drones, it's not much of an issue. But there's the tech to make a 500km/h drone that's fully autonomous and encased in a Faraday cage for less than 10 000$ a piece. That scares the crap out of me.

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

#157

Post by chongli » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 3:34 AM UTC

ashtonkem wrote: post #83

throwanem wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does that make more sense than a bomb that just straight up kills a dude? Chemical agents are difficult and dangerous to synthesize, but you can get explosives anywhere there's a mining industry.

Especially since it is much easier to protect yourself against gas than it is to defend yourself against high explosives. Gas masks are cheap, explosives requires armored vehicles.

Nerve agents can kill you even with a gas mask. They absorb right through your skin.

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

#158

Post by vmception » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 3:38 AM UTC

phobosanomaly wrote: post #87

dane-pgp wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If these groups effectively control territory, then maybe formalizing that control rather than trying to fight against it makes sense. That way, instead of a cartel trying to infiltrate and bribe the local law enforcement, the law enforcement could be paid a competitive and transparent monthly fee in return for helping to protect the cartel's territory. (This would mean arresting competing cartel members caught there…

Part of the issue is that the cartels have always provided a sort of summer camp for psychopaths. Charles Bowden wrote a bit about how absolutely terrifying it was to be anywhere in the proximity of these organizations. By formalizing it, you would be essentially giving a formal role to guys who cut people's limbs off with chainsaws and post videos of it on LiveLeak. Fighting the cartels leads to unimaginable violenc…

There are countries that routinely chop peoples heads off in a form of due process that we would not recognize or respect for seemingly minor actions. Even the most developed nations have laws to chop off the hands of thieves.

We vilify and drone people with the same belief systems merely because they are not associated with an existing state, non-state combatants.

There is simply no distinction I can lean on that would lead me to avoid formalizing reality. The concept of the state simply isn't legitimacy to me, it is just consensus. Cartels already have that consensus and act like public enterprises in their region.

Do notice, I’m not arguing for anything to occur, I am recognizing that nobody has to ask permission to achieve access to the capital markets and noticing how that fits types of organizations that are not welcomed in established capital markets.

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

#159

Post by chongli » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 3:44 AM UTC

searchableguy wrote: post #29

sixothree wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

On the bright side, you don't need to bomb everyone. Future wars could be more efficient.

But that lowers the deterrence factor. If you’ve got lethal drones that can target any individual you want then who needs war when you can establish a totalitarian state? Just eliminate all of your enemies with drones and use them to keep the population firmly under your heel.

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

#160

Post by sudosysgen » Mon, Aug 31, 2020, 3:50 AM UTC

CamperBob2 wrote: post #148

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…

Only way to overcome this great filter is by adopting policies that provide equal opportunities to each member of the species and create a non-divisive/united society where everyone practically helps each other How does this utopian ideal address the lone nutcase who would actually do something like destroy an entire city if he could? The Unabomber wasn't standing up for BLM or fighting income inequality, you know.

Having a social structure where everyone is checked up on, and people who seem to be up to no good can be talked about.

Alternatively and additionally, automated, limited, algorithmic surveillance and controls over some technologies. It's certainly difficult, but not completely impossible. There really aren't that many lone wolf nutcases that have the resources and ability to do such damage. It generally turns up warning signs and and/or takes coordinated groups.

The Unabomber also wasn't a completely mad act, he had some method to his madness and his crimes ultimately came from his perception of the modern world as a horrible place to live in and a destruction of the environment.