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Drug cartel assassinates its enemies with bomb-toting drones

• andrewl 6y ago
  When the technology improves sufficiently maybe there will be a drone the size of a dragonfly that land on targets and inject them with ricin or another poison. That requires a lot better targeting than a plastic container loaded with explosives and ball bearings, which just has to get close to the target. Still, it would make a great assassination tool.
• adenozine 6y ago
  I've been worrying about this for years. What's next is micro-chemical attacks. Drones that can cloud an individual or small group of people. They'll think it was just dust or something, the thing zips off into the sky, and the linings of their lungs starts dissolving and they die.
  • HenryKissinger 6y ago
    Russia attempted to kill a dissenter in England with a toxic agent and all of Europe went up in arms. Presidents and prime ministers put out condemnations. Public opinion sharply turned against Russia. The backlash to what you're suggesting would be insane if it actually happened.
    • was_boring 6y ago
      How does this stop the next one? It’s not the first time Russia has done this — and they have done it in European countries.
    • hammock 6y ago
      Skripal? There's a lot of contention and contradicting evidence that suggest it was a false flag.
      • HenryKissinger 6y ago
        Absolutely false. I didn't know Russian propaganda had reached into HN. Study Exposes Russia Disinformation Campaign That Operated In The Shadows For 6 Years: https://www.npr.org/2020/06/16/878169027/study-exposes-russia-disinformation-campaign-that-operated-in-the-shadows-for-6- https://www.npr.org/2020/06/16/878169027/study-exposes-russi...
        • 1MachineElf 6y ago
          >HenryKissinger Username checks out.
        • athms 6y ago
          Hacker News is nothing more than Slashdot in its heyday. This place is a glorious cluster fuck of Internet wisdom.
        • hammock 6y ago
          Did I miss the mention of Skripal in that link? https://off-guardian.org/2020/03/04/the-skripal-case-two-years-on/ https://off-guardian.org/2020/03/04/the-skripal-case-two-yea... http://johnhelmer.net/austria-confirms-opcw-report-on-skripal-faking-by-the-british-vienna-exposes-financial-times-lies-and-cover-up/ http://johnhelmer.net/austria-confirms-opcw-report-on-skripa... https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/07/15/mainstream-media-hide-skripals-connections-to-russiagate-trump-case/ https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/07/15/mainstream... https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/09/the-impossible-photo/ https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/09/the-impossib...
          • Paradigma11 6y ago
            What is the story about the photos of the russian operatives entering on the airport trying to show? Nobody, not even they themselves, dispute being on that flight.
        • dang 6y ago
          You can't post like this without evidence. Someone having an opposing opinion does not count as evidence (or rather, it is evidence only that a topic is divisive). Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't do this again. "Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturf https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • duncan_bayne 6y ago
      Sure but that tends to work against States. Backlash against non-State groups like the PLO and IRA seems less effectual.
    • TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
      > agent and all of Europe went up in arms. Not arms as in weapons, arms as in failing their arms about. Fat lot of good that'll do to prevent the next incident.
  • throwanem 6y ago
    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.
    • R0b0t1 6y ago
      Chemical weapons require some specialized knowledge but within that field it is not an impossible task. It is mostly the acquisition of the raw materials. If you can do a drug synthesis you could probably synthesize a chemical weapon.
    • guscost 6y ago
      With chemical weapons, a tiny palm-sized drone can lift a deadly payload. And it is not hard to assemble a (very) large fleet of cheap micro-drones, so yeah.
    • ashtonkem 6y ago
      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.
      • chongli 6y ago
        Nerve agents can kill you even with a gas mask. They absorb right through your skin.
        • ashtonkem 6y ago
          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?
          • chongli 6y ago
            Nerve agents could be attached to much smaller delivery platforms. If you could build a drone the size of a mosquito you could use it to deliver a tiny, fatal dose of nerve agent to your target. No chemical explosive could match that level of miniaturization. It may be sci fi at this point but it seems entirely possible to me. After all, mosquitoes exist and their behaviour is quite sophisticated. They’re able to locate mammals by detecting our breath, bite us to steal some blood, then fly away their eggs.
  • mycall 6y ago
    Shouldn't these drones be pretty easy to signal jam? I mean cartels don't really care about the law anyways.
    • roywiggins 6y ago
      Only if you see them coming; if you have to run the jammer at all times, that's just a homing beacon for drones.
      • grugagag 6y ago
        You can run decoy ones as well. I think we’ll see a drone defense industry pop up soon
        • roywiggins 6y ago
          It exists, mostly defense contractors though. https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/5/18169215/london-heathrow-gatwick-airports-anti-drone-defense-systems https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/5/18169215/london-heathrow-g...
    • anitil 6y ago
      Disclosure: I work for a company in this field. They are easy to jam if you don't mind also not having GPS, Wifi and 3G/4G/5G service. You can do selective jamming but this is much more sophisticated
      • dron3r 6y ago
        More sophisticated actors can fly on vision alone. Disclosure: I also work for a company in this field.
    • sigstoat 6y ago
      at some point they’ll be autonomous, running off of IMUs and SLAM. there won’t be anything to jam.
• phobosanomaly 6y ago
  I remember someone flying one full of meth into the side of the Tijuana Costco. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/border-baja-california/sdut-drugs-drone-crashes-2015jan21-story.html https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/border-baja-califo... I always thought drones would bring down the violence in Mexico, since it would be easier to keep your distribution network under the radar. If you don't have to recruit hundreds of people to actually drive the drugs across the border, and can fly it over the fence in the middle of the night, what would be the reason for anybody to be shooting anybody. Whoever's turf you were operating in wouldn't even know you were operating on their turf because your whole operation could be just two white-collar-type guys keeping a really low-key presence. The rise of the narco-technocrats. But, I guess it didn't go that way.
  • nip180 6y ago
    This is an oversimplification of what the drug cartels do. The Cartels are the only buyer and seller of significance in Mexico, two narco-technocrats couldn’t get enough cocaine to import to make a difference without their buy in
    • phobosanomaly 6y ago
      I think what you're saying makes sense. I just want to pull out the idea a bit more. Mexico is a country with a massive informal economy. For every McDonalds that operates in the formal sector, there are millions of small business operators who are totally off the radar. The cartel is the McDonalds. The narco-technocrats are the thousands of taco carts off the metro crammed into every corner of Mexico City. Two technocrats, sure, they wouldn't break the bank. But it's not tremendously difficult to get a package across the Guatemalan border, drive it up to Tijuana, and have your cousin with a drone fly it across the border where your other cousin picks it up on the other side. There's no overhead. There's no need to pay protection money. There's no need to pay off police. There's no psychos in your organization calling attention to you. This is the same thing that happened with black tar heroin distribution in the United States. A low-key family operation run by guys from the same small town in Mexico. They were revolutionary because they flew completely under the radar. No guns, no violence. Just earning a buck to send home to mom and dad. Ref: Dreamland by Sam Quinones
• narrator 6y ago
  Gibson's Slamhounds are here.
• Animats 6y ago
  Small armed drones could be the game-changer the AK-47 was. Before the AK-47, revolt against an army with machine guns was almost impossible. "Whatever happens, we have got ... The Maxim gun - and they have not." Post AK-47, the guerillas usually win, or at least can keep the struggle going on indefinitely. The combination of drones for assassination and Bitcoin for payment could force everyone with money or power into a bunker or armored vehicle for the rest of their life.
  • duck2 6y ago
    Drones are easy to jam. The communication link and GPS are most obvious targets.
    • aaron695 6y ago
      There no reason it can't use Google maps to travel and be autonomous with facial recognition. Star-Tracker Algorithm for Smartphones and Commercial Micro-Drones -https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7070887/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7070887/ The short distance drones can travel is a big problem, you can backtrack to the launch location. Committing murder for money is mostly unheard of outside of Hollywood. It happens but it's generally somewhat crazy people or people copying Hollywood. This is more the real reason it wont happen. Society doesn't like murder and will pull out all stops to discontinue it.
      • Animats 6y ago
        Mexico is way past that point. Some of the drug cartels operate openly.
    • Animats 6y ago
      Progress marches on. Autonomous visual navigation have been available for some time. Face recognition can be done with smartphone hardware. Inertial guidance for drones is available but still a bit pricey.[1] This is going to be a major problem for the golf industry. It's the ideal target environment - high-value targets, no place to take cover. [1] https://www.uavnavigation.com/products/ahrs-imu/polar-300 https://www.uavnavigation.com/products/ahrs-imu/polar-300
• Yc4win 6y ago
  Drone swarms will definitely be a go-to standard in warfare soon. It has already been in use for a few years over in the ME.
• grugagag 6y ago
  Legalizing all drugs would kill these cartels almost instantly. People who do drugs do them anyway and find a way to even if they’re illegal. If drugs weren’t illegal all that money wouldnt end up in mexican cartels pockets.
  • jimbob45 6y ago
    I’ve read that the cartels have diversified their businesses enough that this is no longer true. Do you have a source?
    • grugagag 6y ago
      Source for what? Currently US dollars are entering the cartels pockets, big dollars and there’s no secret. And naturally they scaled up the operations because the demand is high. If drugs became legal demand would go down and it would cut into their operations “biggly”.
  • eanzenberg 6y ago
    This is untrue, as drug cartels still make tons of weed to sell in areas where it’s already legalized.
    • tw04 6y ago
      Citation please? The profit that Colorado and other states are reporting makes it hard to believe the black market is even a shadow of its former self in those states.
      • azinman2 6y ago
        https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-07-20/california-weighs-steep-new-fines-illegal-pot-industry https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-07-20/californ...
        • stjohnswarts 6y ago
• anitil 6y ago
  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.
  • Yc4win 6y ago
    Has there been any progress with coming up with a system that can _reliably_ jam them?
    • dron3r 6y ago
      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.
      • jojobas 6y ago
        INS chips providing enough precision for autonomous operation over last few kilometers are rather cheap nowadays too. A small-ish plane frame could easily deliver a grenade from sleepy suburbs 10km straight to the Oval Office with only few minutes of warning (assuming somebody could actually detect it in time at all). We're just lucky nobody seems to be bothered to do that.
      • implements 6y ago
        Well, if you managed to detect and track an incoming drone you could ‘jam’ its camera with a high-powered laser - or something that threw up a curtain of flares or burning magnesium, or whatever.
        • brendawalsh 6y ago
          Does that work for a fleet of 10 drones? 100 drones? 1,000 drones?
• DethNinja 6y ago
  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 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. Aim would be to colonise other planets as soon as possible to decrease risks of civilisation destruction by technological offshoots. I strongly believe that most of the alien species that achieve interstellar flight and escape the great filter must be benign, united, and highly intelligent for these reasons. I also believe humanity’s chances of escaping the great filter is ~0%.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • otoburb 6y ago
    >>I also believe humanity’s chances of escaping the great filter is ~0% That turned dark, quickly. I was nodding my head up until that point. Things may look bleak now, but I live believing that humanity’s chances are higher than a measly ~0%.
    • asdff 6y ago
      I think we are fundamentally too tribal and violent as a species. I think there is nothing we can do against millions of years of natural selection favoring the furthering of your kin at the expense of your species. We aren't wired for civilized society, it has to be learned and ingrained and even then, we revert to our tribal tendencies at the slightest encounter with an unknown.
      • phs318u 6y ago
        Without knowing what the actual answer to survive the filter might be, it's worth noting that across the entire universe, it's surely statistically unlikely that not a single species has made it through to the other side. If they have broken through, and assuming that they would view as a positive the breakthrough of other species through the "great filter" (and hence the collective uplift of intelligent life in the universe) - there's an implication that maybe what is required for breakthrough cannot - by definition - be transferred (in a similar way that children have to learn some lessons for themselves no matter what your parenting style). Either that, or they haven't gotten to us yet, or they're species-ist and quite happy to be the only ones past the filter.
• JackFr 6y ago
  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 hard. While the “cool” factor is high, I suspect guns, bombs, hard men, threats and bribes are more efficient.
  • mark-r 6y ago
    Technology progresses. What's hard today may be easy tomorrow.
  • Causality1 6y ago
    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.
    • Mromson 6y ago
      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?
    • divbzero 6y ago
      HN guidelines [1] do mention: “please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait”. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  • antupis 6y ago
    Killing specific people might be hard but harassing gathering and attacking to crowds don't need 2 kilos.
  • ashtonkem 6y ago
• sharker8 6y ago
  Silicon valley must love articles like this, the more to fund their Reagan "Star Wars" style digital border wall follies. Nothing like fear to direct billions of dollars in the wrong direction.
• kumarvvr 6y ago
  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.
  • sudosysgen 6y ago
    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.
    • kumarvvr 6y ago
      Well, that scary to hear.
      • sudosysgen 6y ago
        It really is. I came to this realization on the way back from a robotics competition, I was editing pictures I took with my new camera. I was reading articles about improvements we could make to SLAM, and editing pictures I took on the trip. When I realized that I had so much dynamic range that was able to completely remove haze and flaring from incredibly bright objects very close with a very middling lens, and combining that with the very impressive results in optical SLAM, it certainly gave me pause. Since then I've done quite a bit of research on this and I haven't been able to find any kind of usable countermeasure. Hanging out on photographers forums, there's people who have been able to edit out details by substracting up to seven stops, with current consumer tech and optics, and improvements are coming every few months. Canon just demonstrated a sensor with 20 stops of dynamic range. Coupled with IR sensors, far UV sensors, and different wavelength filters to filter out lasers, there's really not much that can be done anymore. Except for kinetic or directed energy approaches, but they are incredibly expensive and incredibly vulnerable to saturation.
• nradov 6y ago
  Short-range air defense (SHORAD) is going to be a huge growth area for defense contractors over the next several years.
  • CapricornNoble 6y ago
    I wonder if we can repurpose mm-wave 60GHz panel antennas and SDRs for cheap short-range radars. Then combine with a commercial infrared camera for multi-mode target acquisition. Put those on a mount with servos to control a PKM or M240 machinegun, and mount the whole setup on the roofs of buildings. Critical infrastructure anti-drone air defense guns at fairly low cost.
    • praptak 6y ago
      Firing a machine gun in a city is a huge risk. A free falling bullet can still kill a human.
    • Nextgrid 6y ago
      > Put those on a mount with servos to control a PKM or M240 machinegun Leaving weapons unattended like that is a recipe for disaster. Even worse if they're network-connected (look at the tons of insecure IoT devices already out there).
      • jdhbbbhb 6y ago
        What????? What he is describing already exists and is extensively used. CRAM - it shoots down rockets and artillery. Go watch a video of it
        • ashtonkem 6y ago
          CRAMs are both several tons in weight, require a lot of power and special mounting, and are found mounted on a warship or in a military base; you're not really going to worry about some random insurgent carrying it off. Besides, they eat 20x102mm ammunition, which isn't exactly common stuff. That is a far cry from the consequences of leaving a M240 around, which is both man portable and consumes the incredibly common 7.62x51mm NATO cartridge.
• sadmann1 6y ago
  Heh there was that killerbot video back in the day, swarm of small bomb drones hunting via facial recognition. Cartels are quite innovative when it comes to killing
  • BoorishBears 6y ago
    That video where a terrorist group successfully stole a military weapon shown to be at or above the level of importance of a Predator drone... Then decided to kill a specific person instead of just bombing the entire building where they apparently knew that person would be I never bought into the premise that it should be more scary than if a terrorist group was to steal a sophisticated military strike weapon today. We have drones carrying missiles that can kill a person in the passenger seat of a car without killing the driver by deploying swords after launch, I think we leapfrogged DJI drones with facial recognition and grenades in terms of brutality
  • DuskStar 6y ago
    This one, I believe. https://youtu.be/9CO6M2HsoIA https://youtu.be/9CO6M2HsoIA
• bleepblorp 6y ago
  If this kind of thing keeps up it wouldn't be much of a stretch for drones to be banned from civilian ownership in many parts of the world.
  • tootahe45 6y ago
    Really all it takes is for one incident where someone gets killed. We live in a ban-happy society that doesn't consider the consequences of banning absolutely everything except maybe videogames.
  • Moeg 6y ago
    As far as I know C4 isn't for civilians either..
    • DuskStar 6y ago
      Tannerite is, though. (And where it isn't, blasting charges for mining are. And where those aren't, fertilizer probably still is. Explosives are hard, yet also far easier than you'd think)
      • Spooky23 6y ago
        Buy those things and you’ll end up on a list and under surveillance quickly.
        • smolder 6y ago
          Doesn't that imply you're already under surveillance? The list that we're on is: anyone who is alive and can be surveiled.
          • Spooky23 6y ago
            No, but there are specific collaborations for high risk purveyors of things like explosive precursors. If you show up at a farm store to buy certain fertilizers in unusual quantities, that interaction will likely be reported or otherwise flagged.
• vmception 6y ago
  Interesting map, its crazy how often these groups fracture and splinter! Really wish one of these would go publicly traded and report revenue, leading to real price discovery of these operations and ability to manage risk. There are permissionless systems they can use now to list shares, and if they have a liquidity issue they just need to take over a dam and generate some electricity for themselves for their crypto mining hardware which will convert to currency. I know I know, multiple topics for people to disagree with so I don't expect this to lead to a conversation about solutions today, I'm just making a note publicly that I perceived the possibilities before it happened.
  • est31 6y ago
    During colonialism, you could buy stocks in companies erecting colonial empires, like the dutch east india company, or the british east india company. They had ships, troops, and actually did engage in trafficking if you can call that, by avoiding the silk road and its large dangers/taxes.
    • barkingcat 6y ago
      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, enslave the people there to make more drugs.
      • jdc 6y ago
        Could you name a couple of countries they burned down because nobody would buy or take drugs?
        • janitor_monkey 6y ago
          Search for the opium wars, fascinating (and terrifying) stuff.
• dathinab 6y ago
  Man I knew it was just a matter of time for this to happen, to easy to do and to many intelligent people with no morals (or just desperate, threatened etc.). Anyway thinks like this make it more likely for unreasonable regulations, like even small drones being tracked when used or similar. But the bad joke is it's pointless as: - The "bad" people can always circumvent such measurements (it's illegal but you plan to do illegal things anyway) - Even if drones are banned it's not too hard to build them yourself from parts your will always be able to get one way or another for not too much money.
  • r00fus 6y ago
    Could this become like other cheap, easy to manufacture societal disruptions like drugs - solution being: make them illegal.
    • whatshisface 6y ago
      Someone should write a book set in a science fiction dystopia where you have to apply for a specific permit to construct any device or write any software (lest you make a drone or a singularity AI), and where machine tools are carefully controlled and limited to regularly inspected industrial facilities.
      • webmaven 6y ago
        > Someone should write a book set in a science fiction dystopia where you have to apply for a specific permit to construct any device or write any software (lest you make a drone or a singularity AI), and where machine tools are carefully controlled and limited to regularly inspected industrial facilities. Something like RMS' story, The Right to Read?: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html
  • xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
    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.
• airstrike 6y ago
  Insert obligatory reference to Slaughterbots (2017) https://youtu.be/HipTO_7mUOw https://youtu.be/HipTO_7mUOw
  • est31 6y ago
    Black Mirror has an episode on this too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hated_in_the_Nation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hated_in_the_Nation
  • DuskStar 6y ago
    I think that might be a reupload of this? https://youtu.be/9CO6M2HsoIA https://youtu.be/9CO6M2HsoIA 3x the views, at least.
• charliebrownau 6y ago
  I know lets create DRONE FREE ZONES, that worked to prevent illegal murdering of people using GUNS in "GUN FREE ZONES"
• 082349872349872 6y ago
  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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellburners
  • linksnapzz 6y ago
    Bundy & Co. are a militia in the same way the James Gang was, or for that matter, the Wu-Tang Clan are. Disgruntled armed rural whites have been the bete noir of the urban reportorial class for so long that any crime, no matter how absurd, committed by guys in pickup trucks wearing cowboy hats is treated like the Austrian Anschluss. Guaranteed acre-feet of press coverage; for the titillation of Euros who exoticize && Other the culture of the rural America.
• _pmf_ 6y ago
  I'm still somewhat surprised there have been no prominent terrorist attacks in Western countries by means of drones with payload.
  • meheleventyone 6y ago
    Isn’t that just because the drone bit is easy and the payload bit is hard. Particularly in terms of procuring explosives, and making them effective and light enough for a drone to carry? Then you need a target that actually needs a drone to attack it versus doing something simpler.
• eunos 6y ago
  No mention of the software? What worries me is that in a close future they might develop their own autonomous Software to do the assassinations and sooner or later the software "leaks" to outside world. Then with a few thousand dollars you can program your own assassination tools. More sophisticated entities will develop the swarm version to do mass damage. Will there be a proliferation fears of software similar to nuclear proliferation?
  • rl3 6y ago
    The Black Mirror episode Hated in the Nation kind of touches on this.
• chriselles 6y ago
  Well, it will be 3 years next month since the first open source kinetic attack by non state actors using commercial off the self drones was conducted. Frankly, I’m surprised it has taken 3 years for them to be used for kinetic attack by exceptionally well funded narcos. Illicit use of drones has happened and will continue to grow.
  • Aerroon 6y ago
    I'm surprised that it has taken this long for all of it. I remember reading the news several years ago about how some small drones got close to Merkel. My first worry was about assassinations. Quadcopters aren't expensive or even very difficult to make. How do you even stop something like that?
    • vertis 6y ago
      Without being an expert... Shotguns, firing a net, anti-drone drones and also interfering with signals are all on the table.
    • chriselles 6y ago
      There are a range of options to defeat drones that include kinetic(birdshot and specialist shotgun rounds, netguns), non kinetic(electronic attack), as well as anti-drone drones(Anduril Industries). There have also been trials on using falconry to counter drones.
• fsflover 6y ago
  Obligatory video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM
• mitchtbaum 6y ago
  https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/36910.Langston_Hughes https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/36910.Langston_Hughe... https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=8f1BNgtfthU https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=8f1BNgtfthU ysk https://www.painting-analysis.com/logo_guernica_colour500.jpg https://www.painting-analysis.com/logo_guernica_colour500.jp...
• 2rsf 6y ago
  Israel's "Lahav Or" (Light Blade) can > Said to be the first defense system of its kind in the world, the Light Blade system will target incendiary balloons and kites, which have started countless fires in the southern border vicinity communities in recent years, as well as drones. [0] https://www.israelhayom.com/2020/08/12/israel-deploys-first-of-its-kind-laser-system-to-gaza-border-to-fight-incendiary-balloons/ https://www.israelhayom.com/2020/08/12/israel-deploys-first-...
• pvaldes 6y ago
  I assume that an attempt on assasination on a really relevant figure, president and so, could end with the entire cartel city nuked in retaliation. There is always a bigger fish, so there is a limit to what you can do with this. My bet would be that this is a PR stunt and what they are really trying is to discourage people from catching drones that transport thousands of dollars in drugs to steal the cargo. Beware!, They could have a bomb included! so let them pass without shooting down it, specially in urban areas. Once the police and population take the message, the delivery drones will be safe.
  • pjc50 6y ago
    Slightly baffled by this comment; Mexico is not a nuclear-armed state and is not going to start responding to its cartel problems with genocide? Or are you suggesting that the US would engage in a first strike genocide in response to a single quadcopter bomb?
    • martin_a 6y ago
      "Nuked" probably only refers to somebody sending a bigger bomb on the way back and not so much on nuclear warfare.
    • pvaldes 6y ago
      Is just an metaphor that there is always something with a bigger drone. Change nuking by bombing and city by hacienda if you prefer. Of course the concept of drone-bomb, once released, is like pandora's box. A double edged sword that could harm both parts. The natural answer from the enemy cartel after being bombed would be to intercept as many enemy drug-delivery drones as possible with a, lets name it, "falcon-fly drone", attach a package bomb and a postcard with a magneto and let it to continue their route. And if you are the police you could attach a beacon instead to convert it into a "Judas drone" and release it. Even better if you can catch again the drone in route or release the beacon automatically after a few minutes, the narcos wouldn't suspect that now you have a velocity and a vector. That would help you to trace a possible point of origin and maybe delivery over the same straight line.
  • sudosysgen 6y ago
• andybak 6y ago
  Can someone make a new series of Robot Wars with drones? That would be fascinating viewing.
• Zigurd 6y ago
  The pattern to discern from articles like this is that they highlight the threat and not the difficulty of actually realizing the threat. When you put two layers of improvisation into a weapon the odds of it working are very low. Building an effective homemade grenade is difficult. Delivering it with a noisy machine that limits the size of the grenade multiplies the odds of making a spectacular but ineffective attempt that will only get you noticed. But it does increase the odds that some consultant will get hired by DHS to write an unreadable report about this supposed threat.
• bawana 6y ago
  Another example of how humans turn good tech into bad shit. Could all of this be solved by blowing up every explosives factory?
• ScannerSparkly 6y ago
  Yeah, not the worst way to go about assassinations
• adultSwim 6y ago
  I'm reminded of the failed assassination attempt against Venezuela leader Nicolas Maduro
• ShinyObject 6y ago
  "group opposed to dictatorial Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro" Gee what great, totally-not-editorialized analysis from yet another military think tank pr writer.