6 ms·

I've been wondering - how much would it cost to hire people to subtly sabotage a large city in order to cause financial losses. Say you're a nation state and wa

I've been wondering - how much would it cost to hire people to subtly sabotage a large city in order to cause financial losses. Say you're a nation state and want to mess with your rivals. There's some optimum for how much you can spend to cause your rival to lose a dollar and still come out on top. That will depend in who you are and who your rival is. It seems like it should be fairly good bang for buck, in this sense, to just hire people to drive around kind of slowly and badly. Nothing overtly aggressive, but a few dozen people driving slowly around a few select traffic circles around rush hour should really gum things up. Even better if you can cajole some people into, say, pulling emergency stops on subways. Note I don't think that's what's happening in NYC, but this case does seem to show that a few people could cause outsized disturbances just by being assholes.

odiroot 7y ago
It has already been happening for decades. First Soviet Union then Russia paying various anarchist or extremist groups in the West to cause trouble.
viraptor 7y ago
If you want financial losses, you're thinking too small. There's a ridiculous amount of infrastructure one can break. Mostly telco / power / water / ... It's a great testament to how people are mainly not dicks, given how everything keeps working. Either they're the utilities are exposed https://www.businessinsider.com.au/ships-anchor-cuts-internet-cables-to-jersey-jt-2016-11 https://www.businessinsider.com.au/ships-anchor-cuts-interne... or the overreaction is very expensive https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/17/portland-flush-38m-gallons-water-man-urinates-reservoir https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/17/portland-flush...
- quickthrower2 7y ago
  The fact that it is criminal, possibly terrorism - prison or worse... might put people off too.
  - viraptor 7y ago
    We're already talking in the context of: "subtly sabotage a large city in order to cause financial losses" so if it was beneficial in some way, I'm sure you could pay people off to do it for you. They'd either be aware it's illegal, (break this) or not (pee in this lake for $100).
    - wolco 7y ago
      The more people involved the greater the chance to get caught.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
  - onion2k 7y ago
    That only really affects the amount you'd need to pay to hire people. It doesn't change how hard it would be to sabotage the infrastructure.
- rebuilder 7y ago
  I'm thinking of a nation state wishing to avoid a major diplomatic conflict. So I think it needs to stay low-level, legal or minor infractions only, and of course deniable. Also if it's hard to even notice something's being done, that's a real plus.
- eecc 7y ago
  Heh, just take a walk around Shodan on interesting ports... the amount of infra that’s online screams criminal negligence
- ozzyman700 7y ago
  SCADA systems running public utilities plugged directly into winxp machines that are on the internet is something I have seen in person for 5 different organizations. the CFAA and foreign states not wanting to start a war is seemingly the only thing stopping massive grid failure.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  Major cities should probably be more worried about their own countrymen. If the "boogaloo" ever happens the power lines are probably gonna get shot on day 1.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
snewman 7y ago
This was the premise of "The Cool War" by Frederik Pohl. It's been a long time so I can't remember whether it was a great read, but definitely an interesting idea.
- Someone 7y ago
  There also is Eric Russel’s “Wasp” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasp_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasp_(novel)).
realthing 7y ago
This is nonsense. But the general idea of countries “sabotaging” each other is nothing new. Are you familiar with the Afghanistan-Russian story related to narco-terrorism? Russian being the party accusing the afghanis of funnelling heroine into their country and breaking its people.. and who controls the gold poppies in Afghanistan? none other than the good ol US of A
mda 7y ago
This would probably be classified as terrorism and have some dire consequences.
- luckylion 7y ago
  People driving slowly would be classified as terrorism?
  - goodcanadian 7y ago
    In the U.S.? If they figured out what was going on (a conspiracy to disrupt the city), they would definitely class it as terrorism.
    - luckylion 7y ago
      So all that stands between today and slow drivers having their doors kicked in by DHS is a manifesto somewhere on the internet?
__m 7y ago
You make it sound hypothetical, there seems to be a global war with pretty much every nation state utilizing this kind of warfare
bufferoverflow 7y ago
I remember a story of someone shooting industrial transformers. One bullet from a sniper rifle, and the whole substation is down, millions of dollars in damage. Two people can rent a couple of UHaul trucks and block almost any highway. It will take hours to get the trucks away. I also remember an estimate that ~10000 trained saboteurs can bring the whole country to a grind. It's quite cheap and fast to blow stuff up, and much more expensive and slow to restore it.
baud147258 7y ago
You can look at the impact of the various train and tube driver unions strikes in Paris, there's usually at least one every few years and the cost are usually in the millions
Theodores 7y ago
Recently we had that in the UK. A Brexit Remain demo was the main gig for the day and a bunch of Brexit Leave supporters did their best to do a go slow on the motorways, to cause traffic problems and impede the progress of those wanting to go to the demo. The police were able to pull them over and sort them out. I forget what 'public nuisance' law they used, but the police have a wonderful set of things they can arrest people for. Breach of the peace, public order or a good one is conspiracy. Conspiracy can be proved in court but the act at the heart of the conspiracy does not have to be illegal. You could prosecute people for conspiring to share a chocolate bar in theory. One law the police can truly hang/draw/quarter people for is arson. An 'accidental fire' need cost no more than a box of matches and can definitely sabotage a city. Hence the vast prison sentencing options. I lived somewhere where there was someone setting light to cars at night on our street, they got away with it six or more times and it was crazy how cars would explode the fuel tanks of neighbouring parked cars and melt the windows and guttering of the houses. We had pitchforks at the ready for kids from a neighbouring estate but it didn't turn out to be them. It just took one mentally ill person to put us all on this 'war' footing, suspicious of our neighbours and paranoid. During the fun years of 'The War Against Terror' the government had to make the threat real with lots of terror drills and implausible scenarios. At one stage there were 'ricin' terror plots where some innocuous plant in someone's front garden was going to kill us all, there was another funny plot where the alleged terror operatives had bought several trillion smoke detectors to get the radioactive gubbins out of them and make a 'dirty bomb'. Obviously this would have killed us all but luckily the 'intelligence' services were onto the bad guys and 'saved the world'. There was no foreign nation state doing this, the UK government managed to do it all by themselves. They even shut down London's Heathrow in one of these colour coded terror events, inconveniencing many but making the threat seem plausible if nonsensical. Oddly the terrorists never had a plan that would actually work. There was always a flaw to the story, for instance the likelihood of being able to buy an absurd amount of smoke detectors or the realities of the ricin yield from the castor beans. It was a bit like video games and movies where the bad guys are predictable and stupid. Industrial action has been an area of subtle sabotage. In the UK this was a common thing in the 1970's. Cars would make it to the end of the production line with rattles and other defects that just made mass production a farce. I think the CIA have a manual on how to do this, so a resistance movement in an occupied country can make things grind to a halt, just by being useless at their jobs, never doing anything that could be seen as 'terrorist'.
lelima 7y ago
Well, one drone made a lot of financial damage in UK not so long ago, you don't need a lot of money to do a lot of damage, which is terrible.
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
>It seems like it should be fairly good bang for buck, in this sense, to just hire people to drive around kind of slowly and badly. Nothing overtly aggressive, but a few dozen people driving slowly around a few select traffic circles around rush hour should really gum things up. I see this as a complete win. It would quickly result in cops aggressively enforcing the existing traffic laws that already make this kind of behavior ticket-able. It will be a glorious day when driving like a slug carries more risk of being stopped and ticketed than speeding, rolling an empty 4-way stop or otherwise driving like a normal person.
SolaceQuantum 7y ago
I recall listening to either a video or reading an article but: You can screw over an entire city for a week+ by renting a car, parking it in a particularly busy street, and then leaving it there. If you + a few of your friends do this, then you can gridlock the entire traffic flow of a city, as tow trucks cannot get into the area.

odiroot 7y ago

It has already been happening for decades. First Soviet Union then Russia paying various anarchist or extremist groups in the West to cause trouble.

viraptor 7y ago

If you want financial losses, you're thinking too small. There's a ridiculous amount of infrastructure one can break. Mostly telco / power / water / ... It's a great testament to how people are mainly not dicks, given how everything keeps working. Either they're the utilities are exposed https://www.businessinsider.com.au/ships-anchor-cuts-internet-cables-to-jersey-jt-2016-11 https://www.businessinsider.com.au/ships-anchor-cuts-interne... or the overreaction is very expensive https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/17/portland-flush-38m-gallons-water-man-urinates-reservoir https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/17/portland-flush...

quickthrower2 7y ago
The fact that it is criminal, possibly terrorism - prison or worse... might put people off too.
- viraptor 7y ago
  We're already talking in the context of: "subtly sabotage a large city in order to cause financial losses" so if it was beneficial in some way, I'm sure you could pay people off to do it for you. They'd either be aware it's illegal, (break this) or not (pee in this lake for $100).
  - wolco 7y ago
    The more people involved the greater the chance to get caught.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- onion2k 7y ago
  That only really affects the amount you'd need to pay to hire people. It doesn't change how hard it would be to sabotage the infrastructure.
rebuilder 7y ago
I'm thinking of a nation state wishing to avoid a major diplomatic conflict. So I think it needs to stay low-level, legal or minor infractions only, and of course deniable. Also if it's hard to even notice something's being done, that's a real plus.
eecc 7y ago
Heh, just take a walk around Shodan on interesting ports... the amount of infra that’s online screams criminal negligence
ozzyman700 7y ago
SCADA systems running public utilities plugged directly into winxp machines that are on the internet is something I have seen in person for 5 different organizations. the CFAA and foreign states not wanting to start a war is seemingly the only thing stopping massive grid failure.
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
Major cities should probably be more worried about their own countrymen. If the "boogaloo" ever happens the power lines are probably gonna get shot on day 1.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

snewman 7y ago

This was the premise of "The Cool War" by Frederik Pohl. It's been a long time so I can't remember whether it was a great read, but definitely an interesting idea.

Someone 7y ago
There also is Eric Russel’s “Wasp” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasp_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasp_(novel)).

realthing 7y ago

This is nonsense. But the general idea of countries “sabotaging” each other is nothing new. Are you familiar with the Afghanistan-Russian story related to narco-terrorism? Russian being the party accusing the afghanis of funnelling heroine into their country and breaking its people.. and who controls the gold poppies in Afghanistan? none other than the good ol US of A

mda 7y ago

This would probably be classified as terrorism and have some dire consequences.

luckylion 7y ago
People driving slowly would be classified as terrorism?
- goodcanadian 7y ago
  In the U.S.? If they figured out what was going on (a conspiracy to disrupt the city), they would definitely class it as terrorism.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    So all that stands between today and slow drivers having their doors kicked in by DHS is a manifesto somewhere on the internet?

__m 7y ago

You make it sound hypothetical, there seems to be a global war with pretty much every nation state utilizing this kind of warfare

bufferoverflow 7y ago

I remember a story of someone shooting industrial transformers. One bullet from a sniper rifle, and the whole substation is down, millions of dollars in damage. Two people can rent a couple of UHaul trucks and block almost any highway. It will take hours to get the trucks away. I also remember an estimate that ~10000 trained saboteurs can bring the whole country to a grind. It's quite cheap and fast to blow stuff up, and much more expensive and slow to restore it.

baud147258 7y ago

You can look at the impact of the various train and tube driver unions strikes in Paris, there's usually at least one every few years and the cost are usually in the millions

Theodores 7y ago

Recently we had that in the UK. A Brexit Remain demo was the main gig for the day and a bunch of Brexit Leave supporters did their best to do a go slow on the motorways, to cause traffic problems and impede the progress of those wanting to go to the demo. The police were able to pull them over and sort them out. I forget what 'public nuisance' law they used, but the police have a wonderful set of things they can arrest people for. Breach of the peace, public order or a good one is conspiracy. Conspiracy can be proved in court but the act at the heart of the conspiracy does not have to be illegal. You could prosecute people for conspiring to share a chocolate bar in theory. One law the police can truly hang/draw/quarter people for is arson. An 'accidental fire' need cost no more than a box of matches and can definitely sabotage a city. Hence the vast prison sentencing options. I lived somewhere where there was someone setting light to cars at night on our street, they got away with it six or more times and it was crazy how cars would explode the fuel tanks of neighbouring parked cars and melt the windows and guttering of the houses. We had pitchforks at the ready for kids from a neighbouring estate but it didn't turn out to be them. It just took one mentally ill person to put us all on this 'war' footing, suspicious of our neighbours and paranoid. During the fun years of 'The War Against Terror' the government had to make the threat real with lots of terror drills and implausible scenarios. At one stage there were 'ricin' terror plots where some innocuous plant in someone's front garden was going to kill us all, there was another funny plot where the alleged terror operatives had bought several trillion smoke detectors to get the radioactive gubbins out of them and make a 'dirty bomb'. Obviously this would have killed us all but luckily the 'intelligence' services were onto the bad guys and 'saved the world'. There was no foreign nation state doing this, the UK government managed to do it all by themselves. They even shut down London's Heathrow in one of these colour coded terror events, inconveniencing many but making the threat seem plausible if nonsensical. Oddly the terrorists never had a plan that would actually work. There was always a flaw to the story, for instance the likelihood of being able to buy an absurd amount of smoke detectors or the realities of the ricin yield from the castor beans. It was a bit like video games and movies where the bad guys are predictable and stupid. Industrial action has been an area of subtle sabotage. In the UK this was a common thing in the 1970's. Cars would make it to the end of the production line with rattles and other defects that just made mass production a farce. I think the CIA have a manual on how to do this, so a resistance movement in an occupied country can make things grind to a halt, just by being useless at their jobs, never doing anything that could be seen as 'terrorist'.

lelima 7y ago

Well, one drone made a lot of financial damage in UK not so long ago, you don't need a lot of money to do a lot of damage, which is terrible.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

>It seems like it should be fairly good bang for buck, in this sense, to just hire people to drive around kind of slowly and badly. Nothing overtly aggressive, but a few dozen people driving slowly around a few select traffic circles around rush hour should really gum things up. I see this as a complete win. It would quickly result in cops aggressively enforcing the existing traffic laws that already make this kind of behavior ticket-able. It will be a glorious day when driving like a slug carries more risk of being stopped and ticketed than speeding, rolling an empty 4-way stop or otherwise driving like a normal person.

SolaceQuantum 7y ago

I recall listening to either a video or reading an article but: You can screw over an entire city for a week+ by renting a car, parking it in a particularly busy street, and then leaving it there. If you + a few of your friends do this, then you can gridlock the entire traffic flow of a city, as tow trucks cannot get into the area.