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This 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 tha

This 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?

drakenot 1y ago
Remote tracking?
- zarzavat 1y ago
  Just a simple radio transmitter could fulfil that function.
  - Retric 1y ago
    At the cost of it being really obvious where you are. However the bigger draw is probably high bandwidth two way communication globally. No need for an obvious route as you can use GPS to get near US waters before turning it on, while still being in control of location of delivery or even meet up with it on the open ocean.
    - zarzavat 1y ago
      Not as obvious as a Starlink transmitter though! Sending the position only requires a few bits, let's say 48. A position update requires even less, depending on how far it could have travelled since the last known position. At such low data rates you could hide the transmission quite effectively.
      - 0cf8612b2e1e 1y ago
        I also wonder if you could have a visible surface vessel (e.g. fishing boat) which acts as a navigation beacon for the sub. Sub can just follow the beacon without any active communication of its own. If enforcement appears, sub will destructively sink to avoid revealing the operation.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      - Retric 1y ago
        As a once off it’s not going to be investigated, start making regular trips and people are going to start looking for such signals. Short bursts strong enough to detected many hundreds of miles away inherently need to be fairly strong making them standout from the background noise for close receivers. You can similarly triangulate based on signal strength given some ocean ships or even cheap buoys. Starlink needs to be detectable by satellites, but you can almost completely block the signal going in other directions. SpaceX might already be sharing it’s data with coastguards though.
  - more_corn 1y ago
    No. Consider the distances.
ungreased0675 1y ago
Because the cargo is high value and illegal, real time connectivity is needed. If it was on autopilot, how could they verify delivery? What if a third party was tipped by an insider and intercepted the shipment? What if it simply sank along the route?
- gambiting 1y ago
  >>If it was on autopilot, how could they verify delivery? You put in a cheap SIM card and it will pick up signal when you get close to the coast and send a message saying it reached its destination.
  - krisoft 1y ago
    I just imagine being a techie working for the cartel. In case you do not receive the ping, would you want to tell this to your violence prone boss: “Hey boss! Sooo. According to my calculations the significant investment you made in my idea should have pinged back by now. Maybe it is there, just there is something wrong with the SIM, or the antenna, or the network. Or maybe it is a few miles left or right on the coast and not getting cell signal. Or maybe the snorkel got swamped out on the sea and it stalled the engine and it is drifting somewhere. Or maybe our rivals nabbed it. Or maybe a random ship colided with it and it sunk. I hope this uncertainty is fine with you and won’t affect adversely our relationship, or how you treat my family.” Sounds like a nightmare honestly.
    - immibis 1y ago
      Don't ask me how a criminal operation holds together without either someone defecting and getting everyone killed, or someone killing someone else because they thought they were defecting. Presuming that it does, in fact, somehow maintain cohesion, I think they're all aware the submarine stuff is risky. They're earning however many tens of millions of dollars per successful shipment and it's way higher than what it actually cost them to produce. And I'd guess they send perhaps ten to fifty shipments per year. Having 50% shrinkage is balanced by a 9999% profit margin. This one, if it truly had no drugs in it, might have been a test run (risk-reducing).
AngryData 1y ago
If you have direct control you need far less automation and can potentially solve more problems at sea or change destination as needed or retrieve it faster if it breaks down by telling you exactly what is wrong, and it requires less skills to build all the hardware. Your entire radio communications setup is as close to plug-and-play as it gets and it both looks like "legitimate" radio signals and is far less likely to detected on the ground as a remote control link since it is using phased array antennas pointed at the sky rather than at the horizon. You also have to remember its not like they are building tons of identical subs and moved an entire fleet over to starlink. They could have a dozen very different setups running with just a few guys tinkering around with whatever devices are easy to obtain under the radar, and it prevents single design vulnerabilities from collapsing your entire sub delivery supply line at once. Even if it only evades enforcement a single time by being novel, the cocaine it delivers out values whatever hardware and work it took to setup in the first place.
thephyber 1y ago
GPS is only a confirmation of positioning. It doesn't free you from having a pilot in the vehicle. Starlink opens the possibility for remote command & control. It opens up the possibility to fully remote drone capabilities. Starlink should probably be disabled except to rarely report sensor data and accept new routing commands, so law enforcement can’t use EM scanning to find the source.
flowerthoughts 1y ago
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 make their own links?
- Polizeiposaune 1y ago
  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.
  - idiotsecant 1y ago
    Isn't iridium way higher, though? At LEO geometry is not your friend.
    - Polizeiposaune 1y ago
      Not way higher. wikipedia says Iridium satellites orbit at 781km altitude. Starlink satellites are a little lower -- mainly at around 560km (but there's some variation). Way higher would be O3B at around 8,000km, GPS at 20,200km and geosynchronous at around 35,800km.

drakenot 1y ago

Remote tracking?

zarzavat 1y ago
Just a simple radio transmitter could fulfil that function.
- Retric 1y ago
  At the cost of it being really obvious where you are. However the bigger draw is probably high bandwidth two way communication globally. No need for an obvious route as you can use GPS to get near US waters before turning it on, while still being in control of location of delivery or even meet up with it on the open ocean.
  - zarzavat 1y ago
    Not as obvious as a Starlink transmitter though! Sending the position only requires a few bits, let's say 48. A position update requires even less, depending on how far it could have travelled since the last known position. At such low data rates you could hide the transmission quite effectively.
    - 0cf8612b2e1e 1y ago
      I also wonder if you could have a visible surface vessel (e.g. fishing boat) which acts as a navigation beacon for the sub. Sub can just follow the beacon without any active communication of its own. If enforcement appears, sub will destructively sink to avoid revealing the operation.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - Retric 1y ago
      As a once off it’s not going to be investigated, start making regular trips and people are going to start looking for such signals. Short bursts strong enough to detected many hundreds of miles away inherently need to be fairly strong making them standout from the background noise for close receivers. You can similarly triangulate based on signal strength given some ocean ships or even cheap buoys. Starlink needs to be detectable by satellites, but you can almost completely block the signal going in other directions. SpaceX might already be sharing it’s data with coastguards though.
- more_corn 1y ago
  No. Consider the distances.

ungreased0675 1y ago

Because the cargo is high value and illegal, real time connectivity is needed. If it was on autopilot, how could they verify delivery? What if a third party was tipped by an insider and intercepted the shipment? What if it simply sank along the route?

gambiting 1y ago
>>If it was on autopilot, how could they verify delivery? You put in a cheap SIM card and it will pick up signal when you get close to the coast and send a message saying it reached its destination.
- krisoft 1y ago
  I just imagine being a techie working for the cartel. In case you do not receive the ping, would you want to tell this to your violence prone boss: “Hey boss! Sooo. According to my calculations the significant investment you made in my idea should have pinged back by now. Maybe it is there, just there is something wrong with the SIM, or the antenna, or the network. Or maybe it is a few miles left or right on the coast and not getting cell signal. Or maybe the snorkel got swamped out on the sea and it stalled the engine and it is drifting somewhere. Or maybe our rivals nabbed it. Or maybe a random ship colided with it and it sunk. I hope this uncertainty is fine with you and won’t affect adversely our relationship, or how you treat my family.” Sounds like a nightmare honestly.
  - immibis 1y ago
    Don't ask me how a criminal operation holds together without either someone defecting and getting everyone killed, or someone killing someone else because they thought they were defecting. Presuming that it does, in fact, somehow maintain cohesion, I think they're all aware the submarine stuff is risky. They're earning however many tens of millions of dollars per successful shipment and it's way higher than what it actually cost them to produce. And I'd guess they send perhaps ten to fifty shipments per year. Having 50% shrinkage is balanced by a 9999% profit margin. This one, if it truly had no drugs in it, might have been a test run (risk-reducing).

AngryData 1y ago

If you have direct control you need far less automation and can potentially solve more problems at sea or change destination as needed or retrieve it faster if it breaks down by telling you exactly what is wrong, and it requires less skills to build all the hardware. Your entire radio communications setup is as close to plug-and-play as it gets and it both looks like "legitimate" radio signals and is far less likely to detected on the ground as a remote control link since it is using phased array antennas pointed at the sky rather than at the horizon. You also have to remember its not like they are building tons of identical subs and moved an entire fleet over to starlink. They could have a dozen very different setups running with just a few guys tinkering around with whatever devices are easy to obtain under the radar, and it prevents single design vulnerabilities from collapsing your entire sub delivery supply line at once. Even if it only evades enforcement a single time by being novel, the cocaine it delivers out values whatever hardware and work it took to setup in the first place.

thephyber 1y ago

GPS is only a confirmation of positioning. It doesn't free you from having a pilot in the vehicle. Starlink opens the possibility for remote command & control. It opens up the possibility to fully remote drone capabilities. Starlink should probably be disabled except to rarely report sensor data and accept new routing commands, so law enforcement can’t use EM scanning to find the source.

flowerthoughts 1y ago

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 make their own links?

Polizeiposaune 1y ago
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.
- idiotsecant 1y ago
  Isn't iridium way higher, though? At LEO geometry is not your friend.
  - Polizeiposaune 1y ago
    Not way higher. wikipedia says Iridium satellites orbit at 781km altitude. Starlink satellites are a little lower -- mainly at around 560km (but there's some variation). Way higher would be O3B at around 8,000km, GPS at 20,200km and geosynchronous at around 35,800km.