Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Drug cartel assassinates its enemies with bomb-toting drones

thedrive.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 369 posts

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

#201

Post by denisastoyanov »

sudosysgen wrote: post #156
mdorazio wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Umm people speak about lasers, energy based weapons and etc and etc. That problem was solved almost century ago. Flak cannons. The moment you have means to properly detect such cloud of problems, few flak cannons will rip them apart in seconds.

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

#202

Post by heavenlyblue »

loceng wrote: post #24
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.

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.

Isn’t that one of the scenes in the Iron Man? Elon isn’t as original

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

#203

Post by 082349872349872 »

I've been ghoulishly interested in the various US poorly-regulated militia since Malheur, and rationales behind their fetish for twentieth-century weaponry.

Reading that the "counterforce" against which they train resembles a BATF unit more than a military unit made me guess they might be hoping to contract for cartels, but that supposition was dashed upon finding that (at least on US soil) the cartels are far fonder of the bomb than the bullet.

Sixteenth-century vehicle borne improvised explosive devices: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellburners

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

#204

Post by Mromson »

Causality1 wrote: post #188
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…

I'm always torn about articles like this. The fact the headline is a lie makes me want to flag it but the content itself is interesting enough I would have read it without a clickbait title. I wish HN had guidance on this topic.

I'm of the opinion that if the headline is a lie, then the thread should be flagged; no matter how interesting the content. Lying shouldn't be rewarded.

But then again, I don't have flagging rights yet, so who am I to judge?

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

#205

Post by divbzero »

Causality1 wrote: post #188
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…

I'm always torn about articles like this. The fact the headline is a lie makes me want to flag it but the content itself is interesting enough I would have read it without a clickbait title. I wish HN had guidance on this topic.

HN guidelines [1] do mention: “please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait”.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#206

Post by hamburglar »

phobosanomaly wrote: post #196
renewiltord wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How come they don't use artillery to launch? Does it damage the product? Too hard to aim? Wonder if you could ship drugs by just mortar with radio transmitter embedded. Way greater capacity and practically undetectable at landing site unless you have the receiver.

I know they've used catapults. https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/15/us/marijuana-catapult-trnd/in...

> This is just the latest example of drug smugglers' ingenuity, or more accurately, the ingenuity of the authorities who caught them.

Talk about blowing smoke. Border patrol saw these guys using a catapult to hurl drugs over the border and took their catapult. Where's the "ingenuity" on the part of the authorities?

I think a catapult is a great idea. Now I want to design a pumpkin chucker that hurls a steerable projectile for extra precision.

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

#207

Post by ggm »

asdff wrote: post #177
Yc4win wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't know if you could ever stop a low cost drone short of using a shotgun. Even if you had some sort of directed EMP technology, the drone could position itself along the correct precomputed vector from far away, cut off electric, and glide the bomb to the target silently.

Oh great: low budget stand-off weapons. This is not going to end well.

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

#208

Post by ashtonkem »

chongli wrote: post #157
ashtonkem wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's still much easier to defend against than high explosives, and probably much harder to procure. If narco-terrorists can get blocks of C4 and cheap drones, why bother with the extra steps and international attention that a nerve agent would get you?

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

#209

Post by ashtonkem »

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…

High value targets will justify expenditure of more resources. For most targets a few men with AK-47s might do the trick, but for the well protected target this would be a pretty decent strategy.

It certainly would strike fear into the hearts of men otherwise protected against more pedestrian threats, which is probably part of the point.

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

#210

Post by ashtonkem »

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…

You forgot one: shotguns. The most reliable means to take out a drone might be some good old fashioned birdshot.
Post reply on HN