In the future millions of kilometers of cartel owned fiber optic will be laid from Columbia to the United States
Colombia seizes first unmanned narco-submarine with Starlink antenna
101–110 of 187 posts
Re: Colombia seizes first unmanned narco-submarine with Starlink antenna
#102Just legalize it already. This is stupid.
This has been a failed experiment. When you legalize drugs, it comes at increased cost due to taxes and regulations.
The black market can easily compete because they can sell a cheaper product without either of these things (and now that it's legal, it makes it easier to bring shipments into the country under the guise of a legal business) and it eventually drives the legitimate companies out of business.
This has now been seen in both Colorado and California.
Violence still drives the business and it only makes the cartels richer. I'm also tired of all the pot smoke you can smell everyone now in every US city where it's legalized.
The people like me, that didn't want drugs legalized, predicted all this would happen a decade or so ago.
Update: you know I'm right
Re: Colombia seizes first unmanned narco-submarine with Starlink antenna
#103This strikes me as not a very good technique. With minimal help from starlink law enforcement could find every sub out there. Anyhow, what does this buy you that an offline gps connected controller does not?
Yes, this one got caught. ;) This seems difficult. Even with two Starlinks: one to control it in Colombia, and one to control it at the destination coast, killing power to each. And make it autonomous on the way. This leaves the problem that there is a sudden (dis-)appearance of the link at sea, which might still make you light up like a lighthouse in analysis. However, it would seem cartels could use a cubesat and m…
One cubesat launched as a rideshare payload wouldn't cut it. Those typically get dropped off in a highly inclined low earth orbit -- around the world, roughly pole to pole, in 90 minutes. Any given satellite in that sort of orbit will only be useful to a ground station when it has line-of-sight for maybe 5-10 minutes every few days.
At the very least you'd need a few dozen. Iridium manages to get coverage from 66.
Then there are the power/cooling/antenna size issues.
Re: Colombia seizes first unmanned narco-submarine with Starlink antenna
#104"The vessel was not carrying drugs" Why wouldn't they track it and wait until it rendezvoused with people they could arrest? Also, today I learned it's illegal to operate a semi-submersible in Colombia.
I wonder how much of this is just a publicity stunt. Last time I dove deep into studying corruption in Latin America at University, Colombia was pretty much captive to the cartels. Hope it has gotten better now but I’m not sure if that’s the case given the massive Colombian diaspora that keeps increasing.
The thought is that things had improved in Columbia, until a recent attempt on a Columbian senator.
Miguel Uribe is in the minority conservative party and was shot three times at campaign event by an underage youth who was hired for this purpose. A number of arrests have taken place.
The leftist president Gustavo Petro has not strongly reacted against this event, and the U.S. recently recalled their ambassador for somewhat confusing reasons (Columbia did the same).
Re: Colombia seizes first unmanned narco-submarine with Starlink antenna
#105I wonder what it's like being a developer / systems engineer for the cartel.
Probably pretty scary
Re: Colombia seizes first unmanned narco-submarine with Starlink antenna
#106Wrong antenna choice—should've used Starlink Mini to avoid motor damage from oscillation and salt exposure. Some suggest fiber optics instead of satellite comms, but these aren't submarines—they're boats, and autopilot technology is already reliable. Not sure why real-time communication is necessary; a "fire and forget" approach would suffice to reach the intended target.
Re: Colombia seizes first unmanned narco-submarine with Starlink antenna
#107The definitive source for this stuff - he literally wrote the book on it - is H I Sutton http://www.hisutton.com/ He does videos on youtube too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO-VQllYIZo Its very likely the mainstream media pick up this stuff because they follow him :D
Wow, that website has some interesting stuff on it!
Re: Colombia seizes first unmanned narco-submarine with Starlink antenna
#108In the future millions of kilometers of cartel owned fiber optic will be laid from Columbia to the United States
Columbia is in the United States. Colombia is not.
Re: Colombia seizes first unmanned narco-submarine with Starlink antenna
#109I wonder what it's like being a developer / systems engineer for the cartel.
I imagine you couldn’t keep pushing deadlines out indefinitely like we can in American software companies.
Re: Colombia seizes first unmanned narco-submarine with Starlink antenna
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not a choice between legalization of all drugs or violence and corruption. Sure, the way the US cracked down on drugs did more harm than good. But that doesn't mean there should be no regulation for drugs whatsoever. Take the opioid epidemic for example. It claimed the lives of hundreds of people per day. Do you think "humane and sensible" people were responsible for that?
The opioid epidemic is not a great example, as it began by overprescription of legal, regulated medicinal drugs. The problem blew up when authorities started cracking down on those prescriptions, and the newly dependent started seeking drugs from illegal sources. Those sources included clandestinely produced heroin and fentanyl, leading to massive numbers of overdose deaths. In other words, it was the enforcement of…
That's quite some wall of one insane libertarian take after another that it's impossible to keep up. Regulating drugs isn't the same thing as turning into a police state.
> The opioid epidemic is not a great example
You think the issue of regulating heroin and fentanyl is comparable to alcohol prohibition, but not the opioid epidemic?
> The problem blew up when authorities started cracking down on those prescriptions
The problem blew up when pharmaceutical companies deceitfully advertised addictive pain killers as safe and aggressively prescribed them to even those who didn't need it. It would've been prevented if the government adequately stepped in before it happened. It was already too late when authorities started cracking down, and to frame that time as the starting point of the problem is blatantly disingenuous.
> It definitely wasn’t the doing of ”humane and sensible” policies!
It's you who's framing the deregulation of OxyContin, heroin, and fentanyl as "humane and sensible," not me.
> So you see, it is actually a choice between legalization of all drugs or violence and corruption.
No, you haven't presented a single supporting argument that stands the test of logic and common sense.
> The system can only regulate drugs when they are legal.
What kind of logic is that? The only way to regulate something is to not regulate? What kind of mind games are you playing here?
> Illegal drugs combined with enforcement of prohibition pits producers, traffickers, dealers and users against the police and ultimately the army, which are usually the only groups of people who have a state-sanctioned mandate to use violence against other people.
Just because the US tries to solve every social issue with over-policing, police militarization, and mass incarceration doesn't mean that it's the only solution.
> Just add pervasive income inequality, throw in some general lack of future prospects mixed with widely publicized lies about the billionaire class being entirely self-made through hard work, and baby, you got a stew going, and the people getting thrown in the hot water are already boiling over.
Yes, and you think having more would-be Sacklers selling highly addictive drugs without anyone to stop them is a solution to that? Give us a break. Libertarianism doesn't stop billionaires and their exploitation of everyone else.