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Data Mining, Cocaine and Secrecy
hightimes writes: "Business 2.0 uncovers one of the world's most sophisticated IT network in where else, Colombia. According to the story, Colombian drug cartels have spent billions of dollars to build a huge infrastructure that's helping them smuggle more dope than ever before." Even though this is about a raid that took place most of a decade ago, it's an interesting example of the power (and potential abuse) of large-scale data mining.
Does the term crystalline valley apply?
IANAL, but imagine a beowulf cluster of in Soviet Russia all your belong are base to us welcoming the new SCO overlords.
Hey, are they hiring?
Investing in, and developing technology infrastructer is easiest done when money is no object. Hey Jose, want to protect the 4.8 billion you make every year? Buy this, this, this, etc... Quite unlike getting a req through purchasing withing 4 weeks for a new keyboard.
I sold out for stock options.
It is my worst fears realized. A beowulf cluster, now in the hands of the evil drug cartels!
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
What were they trying to do? Send cocaine over Cat5 Cabling?
(Dopewars: Unix, Palm, Macintosh, and Windows versions.)
--
http://www.aikiweb.com - AikiWeb Aikido Information
[Sorry, I posted with HTML formatting by mistake. Hope this is easier to read!]
While it is true that data mining technologies can be used for corrupt means, this is the same for any technology. A prime example would be file sharing networks. In themselves, not illegal, but when used to trade bad mp3s, very much so.
It is unfortunate that these database technologies are being widely used for such illegal and semi-illegal purposes.
And for those of you who don't know what data mining is all about, this site is an excellent resource.
Any libertarian would think this is a good thing, and ALL slashdotters are atheistic libertarians. There is no debate.
They'll have to buy a client license for every drug user they supply. That should promptly clean out their "unlimited" budget.
The United States should really put a stop to the ludicrous, expensive and entirely ineffective "War on Drugs". Especially before going off half-cocked on another ludicrous, expensive and entirely ineffective "War on Terrorism". What a joke.
Imagine we found a way to transport/teleport cocaine over the internet.
Any attempt by the police to stop it would be met with a bunch of Slashdot whining: "You can't support a flawed business model... US out of my house!"
Fucking whiners.
The so-called Santacruz computer was never returned to Colombian authorities, and the DEA's report about it is highly classified. But Business 2.0 has ferreted out many of its details.
It must not have been too highly classified. It it was and some internet magazine can figure it out then you have to wonder if this data mining system was overkill. They say it was used to find moles and then the undercover agents would be assasinated. Personally I wouldn't want to be an agent for some agency that can't keep this kind of stuff under wraps.
There are times when keeping things secret is a good thing. Our government seems incapable of doing so most of the time. (on a side note this is why I don't buy into most conspiracy theories-- the govt. is way too inefficient at keeping things quiet)
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
True, but doubleclick isn't really using data mining technologies as such. More just collecting lots of data to examine trends.
Oh, and nice site, thanks for the link.
So the Columbians really are Wired...
Invoicing, Time Tracking, Reporting
"keep looking shocked and move closer to the cake"
Nice to know *somebody* is making money off of technology.
We lost 3 million dollars in 3G gsm hardware due to theft. The thieves knew which hardware they wanted, they must of had a shopping list. They backed up a truck to our datacenter, tilted the cameras, busted open the door and took servers, nortel hardware, a firebird, some other sniffers. Since the datacenter isnt staffed at night, and the building is in a warehouse business park, they didnt suspect this kind of theft.
Nortel hardware has been taken by customs agents a few times in columbia. I hear columbian nortel tech support pay is good, but the retirement is rather harsh. (-;
Next thing you know they'll be doing doing large-scale smuggling of toxic chemicals for bombs.
Note that there are a few file sharing networks dedicating to providing LEGAL mp3s. Do a google search for 'mp3' and you shall find a few.
Also, like you say, semi-illegal activites such as bootleg live recordings.
I wondered about that
I'd be sceptical about any claims in this piece about "highly classified documents"... surely this is something the guys in grey suits would love to see as it gives them the perfect ammunition to enact all kinds of new and exciting laws. Buying a router? register with your local cop shop. Using an IP address? register with your local cop shop... Here in NZ we're getting new laws to deal with criminals using technology because apparently it's going to be a big issue one day. One day. I asked how many crimes were committed using text messaging or email and the answer is: none. Not one. Which begs the question: why are these laws necessary yet? It's not like govts have a good track record on being pro-active when it comes to legislation so why this time? ... well, some of you anyway.
I know I'm preaching to the choir here
I am a leaf on the wind
Now see what the American war on Freedom^H^H^H^H^H^H^HDrugs is doing? It's keeping us geeks employed by forcing cartels to invest billions in infrastructure, technology that comes from our nation's companies. I am torn these days between liberty and my job, since it's hard to find work as a CS PhD, and if the drug cartels dry up due to legalization, my company will lose a major customer. What a horrible predicament to be in...
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." - George Bush
i don't care if they are evil, i want to work there. besides, if drugs were legalized they wouldn't have to commit all those murders or anything, they'd just be a wickedly successful company with a product that's good for the nose.
So that's where Carnivore came from.
This is not a dream, not a dream...we are transmitting from the year 1-9-9-9.
They must be using Snort for intrusion detection.
...
Snif snif
I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you
Sir,
I have no idea what you're talking about. There are two links, one to doubleclick.com, and the other to a fine department of the government related to data mining.
He linked to a source of information from a US Government site. WTF are you talking about, troll?
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
The article presents some interesting cases against Palladium and other Trusted Computing style systems.
Without anonymity, you cannot have the whistle blowing or informing that happens. For example: if the cartels are able to steal or purchase all of the phone records for an area, then they can do the database correlation and have the informants killed. An interesting side effect of this is that in 'Brazil' (the movie) style, they do not actually make any distinction of guilt. If the numbers say you are high risk then you are eliminated from the picture.
They also demonstrate the level of Trust we can put in the government/phone companies/microsoft to kee this information safe and only in use by the 'proper authorities'. The large amounts of money at their disposal seem to have overcome their problems so far.
Really, I'm not an idiot. When I first clicked on it I got a porn picture of some guy covered in mud or something... I've checked it again and now it jumps to the ccsu data mining page...
I don't know what changed, but something did.
crack for checking passwords.
Finding God in a Dog
Really, I think you are an idiot because that link does not point to any guy covered in mud.
As a side note, I'm not sugesting that the drug cartels are not evil. The drug cartels are run and operated by some of the most truly evil people alive today. They destroy the lives of millions and plunge entire countries into corruption, misery and poverty. I am just saying that drug consuming nations, such as the US, would probably suffer less from the drug trade if drug prices were lower. A side benefit of this is that drug cartels would make less profit. In fact if drugs were legal, there would be no more drug cartels at all, because the drugs would be produced and distributed by Bayer and SmithKline.
If you notice, the usefull URL: http://www.ccsu.edu/datamining/resources.html
is not the one linked in the post... That links to: http://needles.itgo.com/~mholden/
which mr. holden and possibly others can change on a wihm.
Or didn't you know the web is dynamic?
"mining" is not to be taken literally. Data mining does not involve dirt, mud or rocks. Fool.
Please, His "datamining link" was to a disgusting porn site, but he later changed it to a legit info site. He controls the site he linked too, and therefore can change his page back to the porn picture. Please mods, listen to me, I saw the same picture that the anonymous coward saw. Halgary is putting fake comments below to keep his post modded up. thank you.
"The computer was essentially conducting a perpetual internal mole-hunt of the cartel's organizational chart."
I can't wait to run ratoutasnitch@home.
Excerpt:
...the system fingered at least a dozen informants, [who] were swiftly assassinated by the cartel."
"...the cartel had assembled a database that contained both the office and residential telephone numbers of U.S. diplomats and agents based in Colombia, along with the entire call log for the phone company in Cali, which was leaked by employees of the utility. The mainframe was loaded with custom-written data-mining software. It cross-referenced the Cali phone exchange's traffic with the phone numbers of American personnel and Colombian intelligence and law enforcement officials....
That was in 1994. They've become more sophisticated since then.
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
With the amount of cocaine and coffee in columbia, i'm suprised they didn't build the entire infrastructure in a single evening. Followed by cleaning the entire country top to bottom.
Looks to me like the site used to be there and he redirected it. The date on the HTTP request (check the headers using wget or something) is from Nov 1998.
The likelihood of there being any switching is very slim indeed.
Searching for matching records in a database (phone call logs) with known values (phone #'s of known agents) is not data mining. It's simply setting up an indexed data warehouse and issuing queries.
Data Mining is looking for UNKNOWN relationships between that data, not KNOWN relationships. So although referring to it as Data Mining may make it sound advanced and exotic, it's incorrect.
- CySurflex
The web is not dynamic stupid. Next you'll tell me that mr. holden is a figment of my imagination.
Jeez, you trolls aren't even using convincing low-uid accounts. That's a real piss poor job that you're trying to pull off, trying to get this guy modded down. Give it a rest, everyone can tell that you're trolling.
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." - George Bush
It appears to refresh from your cache and your bookmarks. Make sure to clear both. It looks like the fix.
I sold out for stock options.
Since we're talking about the 'war on drugs' here, I'm wondering exactly *when* the idea of a 'war on drugs' started exactly.
I mean, when did a government (of any type, anywhere) start trying to control the citizen's access to a then desirable substance 'for the good of the country/kingdom/fiefdom/whatever'
I can think of many examples where this has been done so the 'government' could make money off taxes on the substance that was being smuggled in, but I can't quite find any decent resource that would tell me that, for example, it was King Foozle in some_year that used his power to ban chocolate (for example) in his kingdom.
The only thing approaching the 'war on drugs' that I can think about is the 'war on proscribed texts' by various religious entities (Catholic Church during the middle ages for example), but that's about it.
Anybody?
-- the cake is a lie
Answer : Hashdot.......
Reading through all the posts, it seems a natural
that the cartels should be reading this. They
could find some top notch talent here.
OTOH the FBI can now read this thanks to the
war on "terrorism"
Still it would be pretty cool to play with all those toys!!!
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
you're right. Nobody believes me because I registered today. Halgary controls the itgo site. he can put the picture back up at any time. I don't want to get anyone in trouble or anything, but please, take that link off the page. Halgary switched it to a legit site to make us look like fools.
Cheech and Chong were spotted in Columbia recently. They said they were trying to gain employment as IT admins.
I.B.M., proud sponsors of the Colombian Olympic Team. "Keep running guys!"
;-)
I'm sure law-makers will use the story as an example of why privacy technology must be controlled, but wouldn't it be so much better if legal businesses saw it as an example of how amazingly efficient & successful a company can be if technology is applied wisely?
I am not a troll. You have 3 people who saw the picture, unfortuneatly two are anonymous, one (me) registered today. Doesn't it seem a tad suspicious that the link just redirects? halgary can change the page at any time. Please don't call me a troll. Look at the guy who posted this! This is his only post. Don't go off about me being a troll when you haven't seen the link when he first put it up.
Ugh.. really nasty shit porn picture.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts." -- Cecil Adams
when are they going to open snort their system....i mean open source
http://www.vanillaafro.com - take me seriously and I will shoot you
...that the would-be "War on Drugs" is a laughable waste of time, money, and lives. There is no way on this earth that the DEA and other police forces will ever come remotely close to controlling, let alone stopping, drug trafficking.
Imagine if the umpteen billions that are pissed away on fruitless DEA efforts were instead put into drug education and drug rehab programs.
Imagine if instead of creating a criminal underground, all drugs were legalized. The criminal underground would literally vanish: there would be no profit in the trade. We'd have as much a criminal drug trade as we have in criminal moonshine trade: which is to say, virtually none.
Imagine if the government were to tax these drugs, as they do nicotine and alcohol. Imagine if those tax revenues were put into safe injection centres, better policing of impaired drivers, a crackdown on petty thefts, and job training programs for prisoners.
There'd be a drastic reduction in crime. There'd be a reduction in drug abuse, as the abusers would be able to seek the help they need without arrest and with reduced stigmatization. The government would save billions of dollars. Income taxes could be lowered. There'd be world peace.
But will this ever happen? Probably not. There's too much money being made by the people who are in control of the "War on Drugs." Follow the money trail... you'll see that for the powerful, drug illegalization is profitable.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Ummmm.... Prohibition????
I saw the porn also.
I wasn't going to post anything but I just had to say that the itgo.com link _did_ link to porn...
It's not right now, tho... But why take a chance? Just use the direct link to datamining resources
You know, trollaxor has a low uid too, but that doesn't make him any less a troll than you (that rhymed).
How about the Irish potato famine, and England's control of the food traffic within the country? They effectively created an Irish holocost.
http://www.codewolf.com - Just good stuff to waste time
http://www.ccsu.edu/datamining/resources.html is the correct address.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts." -- Cecil Adams
Mod the parent down. Porn picture or no porn picture, the last thing we need is a link to a personal site with ads which simply redirects to the actual site provided. If you have a link to post, post the real thing. We don't need your redirects. Thankfully it was blocked by my anti-banner ad HOSTS file.
The datamining link should be:
www.ccsu.edu/datamining/resources.html
th printable version - which has all th text on one page
and less advertising and graphics - is here
in general it is a nice courtesy
to link to th printable version of stories
when this option is available
(this is not meant as criticism of th submitter of this story
- i appreciated yr submission)
Hmm. I'm currently working as a data mining analysis for an internet advertising startup. The job has it's moments, like figuring out that credit cards should be sold to women when they make online purchases for makeup(no I am not kidding). However it would be much more exciting to work for a rich and powerful drug cartel... Does the job come with your own personal E15k?
Amazing... Halgary has tricked most of the people to think his post isn't trolling. The first troll to get anything above a 0 mod point.
Is that a reference to Patrick McGoohan's "The Prisoner" TV show? I used to watch that, when my photo teacher would bring in episodes on tape (and then, because they were so mind-blowing, let us watch them instead of doing work in his class)!
Great show... I've seen the entire set on DVD for about $100, and I'm considering buying it.
-- Reverius
The other Santacruz Operaton.
Of course organized crime is going to abuse the power that technology brings. They aren't regulated and don't answer to anyone. We could wipe out these cartels overnight by legalizing and regulated the trade of cocaine and other recreational drugs - just like we do for alcohol.
http://neoteric.nu/history.html
Why would you ever use a URL redirect to link to someone's static site? I advise you to NOT click this link, and mod this down.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts." -- Cecil Adams
Posting anonymously to avoid the inevitable offtopic moderation...
Hey, I'm just posting the link I found ages ago. It's been sitting in my bookmarks ever since my 2nd year databases project.
Thanks for posting a more direct one though, and if it gets these crazy trolls to shut up, it'll be a bonus!
Seems to only load on IE, not sure about that.
minging
');
//-->
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts." -- Cecil Adams
has become quite crazy but I'll straighten things out. Halgary went on #slashdot on Slashnet and Pengui911 and Dino-Bob were both online when he expressed his very "different" opinions about sexuality (I was there and witnessed the whole thing, along with Dino-Bob calling him an "ass-ramming faggot".
Really, Pengui911 and Dino-bob are just fundamentalist Christian homophobes who want to get back at him by screwing his karma. Do the right thing. Mod up Halgary. Mod down anyone who calls him a troll. Do your part for the war against homophobia.
Coke over IP?
DOIP - dope/drugs over IP?
Regardless, even when it doesn't pop up the pr0n, it does still pop up a bunch of ads, before redirecting to the site corect site http://www.ccsu.edu/datamining/resources.html.
What a fabulous troll your post was.... or how fabulously stupid you are. It's impossible to tell.
Yeah right. Hey, guess what? Just because you have a low uid doesn't mean that you're not a troll. Leave this guy alone, he never did anything to you.
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
I have reason to believe it only loads on IE. I'm not sure. And, OBVIOUSLY do not go to the .jpg listed in here, as it is scat porn. HERE IS THE PAGE SOURCE FROM THAT SITE:
c mJhbm5lcg==/is/'+g+'/?ns_764 scrolling=no marginwidth=0 marginheight=0 frameborder=0></iframe>');c mJhbm5lcg==/in/764/?ns_764 scrolling=no marginwidth=0 marginheight=0 frameborder=0></iframe></noscript>& lt;/div><!-- Auto Banner Insertion Complete THANK YOU -->s catpix/smears_page/scat260.jpg" width=100% height=100%></body></html>
<html><head><title>minging</t itle></head>
<body onunload="for(;;) window.open('index.html',height=390,width=270);" bgcolor=#000000>
<!-- '"NorthSky"' -->
<!-- Auto Banner Insertion Begin -->
<div id=aws_5390 align=center><script><!--
var g=new Date(); g=(window.bRand726 ? window.bRand726 : g.getTime()%1000); window.bRand726=g;
document.writeln('<iframe name=ns_764 width="726" height="64" bgcolor="white" hspace=0 vspace=0 src=http://needles.itgo.com/cgi-bin/b/726/64/dXNl
//--></s cript><noscript><iframe name=ns_764 width="726" height="64" bgcolor="white" hspace=0 vspace=0 src=http://needles.itgo.com/cgi-bin/b/726/64/dXNl
<img src="http://www.winternet.com/~redright/scatsite/
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts." -- Cecil Adams
I saw a show on drugs and smuggling from
british columbia. They stated a 17,000%
mark up on the price.
imagine a 1.00 disposable razor selling for
$17,000.00!!!
Yeah we are really going to put a stop to drugs.
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
READING it is fine. It's the
creation of files on people w/o probable
cause I have a problem with.
If you know your history, two words
should be enough,
Hoover and McCarthy
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
Well since I dont have much of a chance in a dotcom anymore perhaps I can go work for someone down south. AFter watching blow and all the cheech and chong movies I know the lingo. Could work for "hector" for two years then fake my own death and live comfortably for the rest of my life somewhere in america.
-THIS SPACE FOR RENT!
...that's 1 degree of seperation. That's business w/
(yeah, it was low;)
The modern Western war on drugs began in the early 20th century with the banning of opium, cocaine, and dope (the latter of which was largely an exercise in the power of tabloid journalism).
It began earlier in China, but the Chinese government's efforts to keep opium out of the country failed when the Western nations used their armed forces to ensure the viability of the opium trade.
This brings new meaning to people who want to "crack" into the system!
Berto
How many more people have to die, how many more drug lords need to come into power before people will realize that it is a never ending cycle. Legalize it, and put the billions of dollars spent on enforcement into education, save billions on crimals who are in jail for usage offenses, and tax the companies that produce it heavily to put even more money into education. Its the only solution that makes any sense at all.
Does anybody have a crack for it?
*groan*
El Karma: excelente(principalmente la suma de moderación hecha a los comentarios de los usuarios)
ba da da DUM ba da DUM
If you wanna deal, you gotta use SQL, cocaine
If you wanna get stoned, you gotta write the code, cocaine
Data mine, data mine, data mine, COCAINE
ba da da DUM ba da DUM
ba da da DUM ba da DUM...
Data mine, data mine, data mine, COCAINE
If we just legalized it, we could control it.
After the other guy had finished, the always laconic Gibson simply said "Told you so!"
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
We could wipe out these cartels overnight by legalizing and regulated the trade of cocaine and other recreational drugs - just like we do for alcohol.
There are many who would argue with you on that. Personally, I think legalizing some of these drugs would seriously hurt them (although I'd stop short of saying "wipe them out"). However, there's also another way of winning the war on drugs.
We could make this so-called war on drugs a real war. We go in to Columbia with some military force and start taking out the cartels. I'm not trolling -- I'm serious. I'm sure our satellites must be able to detect some large drug facilities. We'll just go in there and bomb them.
I can hear people screaming that we don't have the right to do that. We don't have "jurisdiction" to take out the cartels -- we're supposed to wait for the Columbian government to clean up that mess. But how would that be different than what we just did in Afganistan? There was an organization in that country that caused serious damage to the United States. We ordered the ruling government (the Taliban) to turn over the terrorists or we'd go in there and do it ourselves. They didn't so we did. So how would it be different for us to demand the Columbian government takes care of the drug cartels. And if they don't, we'd do it ourselves.
Either we should legalize these drugs or we should fight a full-scale war. This half-assed bullshit that we're doing now is just not going anywhere. Are we fighting a war on drugs or not?
GMD
watch this
It's from a Simpsons episode entitled "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes" in which Homer "knows too much" and gets transported to an island which is a spoof of "The Prisoner" -- it even has a guest voice of Patrick McGoohan in it as one of the other prisoners.
I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you
It would be interesting to see an article about the worldwide groups of chemists and the lengths they go to. They probably even synthesize their own chemicals used in production. Mass orders of kerosene and sodium carbonate are sure to turn heads. Also...Coca leaves don't magically turn themselves into cocaine hydrochloride, that has to take some skill.
Only the meek get pinched. The bold survive.
Can you imagine how livid agents of the DEA and CIA would be if this was common knowledge amongst them? I'm not suggesting that it isn't, but who better can you think of to keep this kind of knowledge from -- "yeah, yeah, we're sending you on assignment to fight the Cali cartel, oh, and by the way, they've been tracing your hotel phone calls for 3 months")
Security is a process, not a check box option,
- RLJ
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Of course, it would be unpatriotic to suggest that this will never happen because the cartels are spending far more on US politician campaign contributions than they are on IT, right?
Tech Public Policy stuff
consider this. If a bug that crashes the network is in the code you wrote, it might cost you an arm and a leg ... literally
A religious war is an adult version of a fight over who has the best imaginary friend
'well atleast we won't be getting killed any time soon' remarked an anonymous FBI agent after it was discovered the machine was running SQL Server and IIS...
It seems to be slashdotted, lets try the Google cache
I'm surprised that no one else has pointed out your ignorance.
Your meth lab argument is absurd. It's like saying that legalizing flour will result in your neighbor's grain elevator exploding. It's not going to happen.
The *only* reason that people are making meth in bathtubs is because making meth is illegal. Sure, people might want to make their own meth if it was legalized. But then, they'd see safe, pure drugs in the drugstore, at a lower price than they would be able to produce them, thanks to economies of scale.
Drugs would absolutely be cheaper and safer if they were legalized. Compare the price and quality of alcohol before, during, and after prohibition. Prohibition caused the price to skyrocket and it caused quality to fall.
Have you ever looked at the prices of drugs as they go along the distribution chain? The price jumps when you cross the border because punishments become draconian.
Also, in New York, cigarettes are expensive because of taxes, not from people "charging what the market will bear." And, this is in a city where people will pay $15 for a movie and $20 for a sandwich. There's no comparison to drugs.
Economics will tell you that drugs would sell at a price that brought in the most money for the producer. That's bound to be less than it is now, although there would probably be expensive "status" brands for rich people.
On the societal consequences: First, they are empirically denied. Look back to the 19th century when drugs were legal. No one was stealing and there were no crack babies.
Second, there's fetal alcohol syndrome as well as myriad other ways that people can mess up their children. You still don't have the right to decide what substances they can ingest or how they entertain themselves.
Legalizing drugs would cause a drop in crime. You know how drug dealers settle disputes? With guns. You know how alcohol distributors settle disputes? In court.
No comment at this time
100% markup doubles the price (n + 1.00 * n). :-)
17000% markup multiplies the price by 171. Still a formidable value. I had always heard the street value of drugs was inflated roughly 100 times due to being illegal. Not much real difference between 100 and 171
Infuriate left and right
By 'dope' don't you mean opium?
To be technical about it, the drug war started with the passage of the (anti-chinese) opium smoking ordinance in san fransisco. It was either very early 1900s or late 1800s can't rember which.
I say anti-chinese because it was only a law against opium smoking and not against laudinum or other morphine/heroin containg products that were widely used by whites. Opium smoking was culturally restricted to the chinese immigrants.
It is especailly interesting that the Harrison narcotic act wasn't passed until those drugs were more commonly associated with the lower classes than the higher/middle class ones.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
With pot growing in BC, and meth being produced all over the states, not to mention that cocaine is being transplanted to other areas.
And look at Afganistan, we blew the piss out of it, and have taken control of the country, but that doesn't stop the opium poppy crop from being the first thing replanted.
Your going to have to take out every country in the world, as well as all your neighbors houses.
Be a whole lot easier to legalize it, just like caffiene is legal. Regulation is far more effective than prohibition.
Since when is an AS/400 a mainframe.
Maybe I'm just a nitpicking geek, but come on writers.....do some f*ing research.
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
What would the US gub'mint destroy the Columbia drug cartels that it created, funded, gave "aid" to (free airplanes and guns), and even flown their drugs in CIA planes? The CIA has been aiding drug cartels, toppling their competition and political opposition, and sabotaging DEA investigations and arrests in South America for many decades. This has been well documented in many sources. See Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press for a good introduction.
Of course, the CIA has also been funding drug cartels in Afganistan and Pakistan, but that is a story for another time..
cpeterso
Unlikely that layoffs would ever happen with drugs of course being so lucrative, but I imagine the retirement package for those datacenter techs is a 9mm bullet.
I don't care how bad your boss is, it probably pales in comparison to most any boss, at any level, in a cartel.
OK, this story was pretty cool until I got to page two and three. On page two this guy wants us to believe that former special ops EW dudes have been recruited to help build their coms infrastructure - no real match of disciplines there - beside the stretch that our ops people would sell out just like that...
Then on page three, the author wants us to believe that the bad guys have gotten P3 Orion surveillance schedules (doubtful since they aren't scheduled - on purpose) and even better, the black-hats have gone airborne to map radar patterns of the Orions with fuzzbusters.
Hooey and keerhyst, I have had enough of this!
In the age of en-bomb and world-dom it makes sense the media would BS their way to profitability.
Too bad the average Joe might be taken in by some of the fiction in this.
B.C. bastards... first runaway production, now pot! I say we in the California National Guard, to safeguard our state's economy and our citizens' well being, should make a preemptive strike on the foreign drug/movie cartel known as British Columbia. First we'll take out Vancouver, and once WETA finishes the last LOTR movie, we'll invade New Zealand!
Sigh. You'd think if we were really that anti-drug, we'd be a little more disgusted with the drug use in movies? And don't get me started on how Hollywood has no clue on how to teach proper gun safety...
If they searched the cartel's server disks... would it be a "RAID raid" ??
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
as homer would say DOH!
thats what I get for figuring it "off the cuff" eh?
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
"The central feature of the facility was a $1.5 million IBM AS400 mainframe..."
Is that street value?
Get your Unix fortune now!
legalize it
The first troll to get anything above a 0 mod point.
You're kidding... right?
Dragging people kicking and screaming into reality since 1996.
That is a laugh. GWB, Ashcroft, Enron, WorldCom, QWEST, MS, Texas Style accounting (Tried to be stop by the SEC in 2000,2001, but Bush refused to sign the bill) etc, etc. Few US companies have scruples any more. We are no different than the Drug Suppliers. Actually, the dealers will be honest about who and what they are, so they have more. Sad
You read an article like this, and you can only imagine why people would want to legalize drugs and legitimize criminal scum like this. Let's see... the cartels have a monopoly on the North American drug trade. All drugs are legalized. Do you magically think the cartels will all fold up and go out of business? No, they'll try to maintain that monopoly, and you'll have a little mini-Colombia in the USA. I wonder how many American pharmecutical factories would be torched...
I hate to break it to all the apologists who always sympathize with the underdog (even when they're so blatantly wrong as like in this case), but _drug dealers are killers_. They kill with drugs, they kill by shooting people in the head. You do not "put them out of business" by legalizing drugs. You put them out of business by arresting them and putting them in front of a judge, or perhaps far more satisfyingly, shooting each and every one of the bastards in the heads.
To hell with "out of Colombia". To hell with "what will the rest of the world think?". It's amazing that Nader-lovers and other socialists can spew the crap they do, really. According to them, the US _deserved_ 9/11. That sort of talk is _morally repugnant_. Next thing you know, Israeli babies who get slaughtered in suicide bombing attacks deserved it, too! Oh, wait, they already do say that! I could care less that the "poor people of Colombia who've been horribly hurt by globalization, and now need to turn to drugs for money". That's totally inane. YOUR SUFFERING DOES NOT GIVE YOU THE RIGHT TO HURT OTHER _INNOCENT_ PEOPLE. Really! If the rest of the world thinks that saving your citizens' lives through force is wrong, then I really could care less what they think. Better to be alone and doing the right thing than being wrong with everyone else. Moral relativism will kill us all someday.
My countrymen are _dying_ because our country is too damn timid to go in and fix a problem, as the last resort, with the barrel of a gun. Drug dealers are taking over a country with the fruit of their deadly labors, and _terrorizing_ it. Diplomacy doesn't work unless you've got a solution when it fails. Diplomacy has failed - the friendly drug dealers aren't listening to us or the Colombian government. We need to start giving them another sort of talk - the type with lead teeth.
For all those who'd like to convince me otherwise, I've had this sort of discussion a hundred times before, and I've listened, too. I just _don't agree_. Yes, people can disagree and be educated and not fanatical. Don't even bother wasting your misguided fingers on me by typing out some response I've already heard before. Go pamphlet a campus with pro-Nader flyers or something that'll be far more entertaining than reading your responses.
Before you all crucify me for my views, realize that I am not totally against the legalization of marijuana. I just do not believe that legalizing crack cocaine and kow-towing to drug dealer scum will help anyone in this world, and would prefer to deal with them in a more terminal way, or arrest them.
My apologies for being forceful. I understand what the other side of the issue is... I just seriously do not agree.
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
They're just a bunch of corrupt south american half monkeys anyway. Bomb away.
US citizens can't get a grip on their drug habits? Let's just wipe Columbia off the map. That'll teach them.
I sincerely hope that you were on some serious drugs when you wrote that comment. But I'm afraid you weren't.
bla
BTW - my current high score is 164,737,425 :)
Huh? you talking about putting alcohol in drugs? Keep dat shit outta my weed, homey!! And it will make my blow worthless if you pour liquor over it. yuk!
I'm in favor of anything that will get people to shut up and think for a moment.
I do not read AC posts.
What if an AC post will get people to shut up and think for a moment?
You'd kill a cocaine user for a mere $1k? He doesn't deserve to live because he chooses to put something you consider dangerous in his body? First, cocaine is less dangerous than alcohol or cigarettes under normal circumstances; would you kill a smoker or drinker for a grand? Now how about a mountain climber, or diver, or someone else who takes similar risks for thrills? I don't disagree that the kick is dangerous, but a person's life is his or hers to risk as he or she sees fit - not yours to take for a few bucks.
Nah. He meant Columbia, as he spelled it... the University in New York City.
Countries that like to crack down on dissidents are going to love this stuff. So far, China doesn't seem to be able to bring it off, but eventually they'll probably get it.
You obviously haven't visited Afghanistan ever, nor read a book about war in some time. It's the Taliban, and we didn't really kick them out; most of them simply switched sides. And it's the brown shirts, and while both the brown shirts and the Taliban are bad news, they are nothing like one another. The military force we backed in Afghanistan is known for the same abuses as the Taliban; in fact the guy who first came up with te idea of throwing acid in women's faces who weren't wearing burqas was a Northern Alliance hero.
...agents also found on the mainframe over 300 music files in MP3 format. The RIAA estimates that this collection was responsible for some $15 billion in lost music sales.
"In a 32-bit world, you're a 2-bit user. You've got your own newsgroup, alt.total.loser." -Weird Al
Do you have your cape dry-cleaned or does the DEA fedex you a new one every week?
> this is mostly a result of legal and economic
> consequences of the drug war.
Do drugs destroy people? Yes, drugs *do* destroy people by making them *slaves*to*the*drug*habit*. Do you condone slavery? Why do you oppose the government clamping down on extremely addictive drugs then?
My point briefly is this:
Hey, maybe you're a "liberal". Maybe you say that "Hands-off! People are solely responsible for what they do to their own bodies"
Hey, just maybe, a few centuries back, you'd be one of those unsavory Europeans making a fortune trading booze to native Americans.
A true liberal is kind and loving to people. You probably are a fake liberal - the type who puts his own desires first and assuages your own conscience by throwing money at problems... yours and other's tax dollars.
finally the little man could compete with BigPharm
Hmm,
You know the "war on drugs" essentially began during prohabition if not before. So it's effectiveness is measured how? By the situation you describe. I've had more than 10 friends who died of drug overdoses. I sucks but it's hard to notice the war on drugs impacting this - indeed it seems to have on it's "watch".
I would agree that no matter how isane the present status quo is, it will continue.
The intertwined interest of politicians, drug dealers, banks and a vast host of movers and shakers guarentees this.
The traffickers have the advantages of unlimited funds and no scruples
INSERT FAVORITE BILL GATES/MICROSOFT JOKE HERE.
This is one server you definitely don't want to hack...
This is one of those stories where you have to consider the source, and realize a lot of it may *not* be true.
If the documents were secret, how does Business 2.0 get ahold of them? And even more to the point, how could you verify that they were?
Answer: The DEA (and Military Industrial Complex) is seeking a huge amount of cash right now. We're buying arms for one side in a military conflict down there -- regardless of what they say they are doing. You don't need blackhawk & apache helecopters with full arrays of missiles to do fly overs to look for coca. You can do that in a cheap Bell. You don't need tanks to drive down roads to look for coca.
This is typical of the planted story. Impossible to verify, no "source" listed, but you know the "source" has to come from the government, probably the DEA or an interested military contractor. It's only being released because they need a press release to stir support for coughing up about a billion and a half dollars
They've been fighting a civil war down there for 40 years. Roughly since the time we wanted to build an oil pipeline through the middle of the country, but they decided not to compensate people for their land. Instead they used the military to clear indigenous people from their land. That's what started the war, and they've been fighting it ever since. So long in fact, that many people there don't even remember why they started fighting in the first place.
Despite press reports you see in the US -- most coca production, as well as processing is done in the North of Columbia, not the South. Which means it's being done in territory not controlled by the FARC -- but by the government we are supporting. Uribe's(the president "elect" )own campaign manager is the largest importer of cocaine processing chemicals in the *world*.
There is a lot more than meets the eye when talking about Columbia.
Freedom is merely privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all.
Libertarians, like most Americans, demand to be safe at home and on the streets. Libertarians would like all Americans to be healthy and free of drug dependence. But drug laws don't help, they make things worse.
The professional politicians scramble to make names for themselves as tough anti-drug warriors, while the experts agree that the "war on drugs" has been lost, and could never be won. The tragic victims of that war are your personal liberty and its companion, responsibility. It's time to consider the re-legalization of drugs.
The Lessons of ProhibitionIn the 1920's, alcohol was made illegal by Prohibition. The result: Organized Crime. Criminals jumped at the chance to supply the demand for liquor. The streets became battlegrounds. The criminals bought off law enforcement and judges. Adulterated booze blinded and killed people. Civil rights were trampled in the hopeless attempt to keep people from drinking.
When the American people saw what Prohibition was doing to them, they supported its repeal. When they succeeded, most states legalized liquor and the criminal gangs were out of the liquor business.
Today's war on drugs is a re-run of Prohibition. Approximately 40 million Americans are occasional, peaceful users of some illegal drug who are no threat to anyone. They are not going to stop. The laws don't, and can't, stop drug use.
Organized Crime ProfitsWhenever there is a great demand for a product and government makes it illegal, a black market always appears to supply the demand. The price of the product rises dramatically and the opportunity for huge profits is obvious. The criminal gangs love the situation, making millions. They kill other drug dealers, along with innocent people caught in the crossfire, to protect their territory. They corrupt police and courts. Pushers sell adulterated dope and experimental drugs, causing injury and death. And because drugs are illegal, their victims have no recourse.
Crime IncreasesHalf the cost of law enforcement and prisons is squandered on drug related crime. Of all drug users, a relative few are addicts who commit crimes daily to supply artificially expensive habits. They are the robbers, car thieves and burglars who make our homes and streets unsafe.
An American Police StateCivil liberties suffer. We are all "suspects", subject to random urine tests, highway check points and spying into our personal finances. Your property can be seized without trial, if the police merely claim you got it with drug profits. Doing business with cash makes you a suspect. America is becoming a police state because of the war on drugs.
America Can Handle Legal DrugsToday's illegal drugs were legal before 1914. Cocaine was even found in the original Coca-Cola recipe. Americans had few problems with cocaine, opium, heroin or marijuana. Drugs were inexpensive; crime was low. Most users handled their drug of choice and lived normal, productive lives. Addicts out of control were a tiny minority.
The first laws prohibiting drugs were racist in origin -- to prevent Chinese laborers from using opium and to prevent blacks and Hispanics from using cocaine and marijuana. That was unjust and unfair, just as it is unjust and unfair to make criminals of peaceful drug users today.
Some Americans will always use alcohol, tobacco, marijuana or other drugs. Most are not addicts, they are social drinkers or occasional users. Legal drugs would be inexpensive, so even addicts could support their habits with honest work, rather than by crime. Organized crime would be deprived of its profits. The police could return to protecting us from real criminals; and there would be room enough in existing prisons for them.
Try Personal ResponsibilityIt's time to re-legalize drugs and let people take responsibility for themselves. Drug abuse is a tragedy and a sickness. Criminal laws only drive the problem underground and put money in the pockets of the criminal class. With drugs legal, compassionate people could do more to educate and rehabilitate drug users who seek help. Drugs should be legal. Individuals have the right to decide for themselves what to put in their bodies, so long as they take responsibility for their actions.
From the Mayor of Baltimore, Kurt Schmoke, to conservative writer and TV personality, William F. Buckley, Jr., leading Americans are now calling for repeal of America's repressive and ineffective drug laws. The Libertarian Party urges you to join in this effort to make our streets safer and our liberties more secure.
"Saddam Hussein cavorts with terrorists."
Moderate this the hell up everyone...
Your point about the original drug laws being racist in origin are particularly salient. Legislation was first introduced about the same time marijuana use began to spread into the population at large.. seems to be largely puritan government didn't want the white majority doing like the black folk do. Over here in the UK the first drug control laws were introduced round about the time the papers were full of 'Yellow Peril' scare stories about chinese immigrants using opium to corrupt our decent english women.
It can only be hoped that our current situation is merely one of temporary prohibition much like (but longer lived) the one that existed for alcohol in the States during the 20s. Let's hope that more and more of the world accept that whilst demand is there the drug war is utterly unwinnable and alternative approaches (such as those found in Holland, Switzerland and more recently the Lambeth district of London) are seriously considered. If 40 million americans are recreational drug users then surely that's a popular mandate. In any kind of democracy worth the name surely that's a powerful enough slice of the electorate to get things changed. Perhaps it's the ingrained, blindly moralstic standpoint of the media we have to worry about...
Incidentally.. quick calculation for you:
450 tons cocaine smuggled in to America every year (assume imperial tons).
(450 x 1016 x 1000) grammes/year.
Here in the U.K. 1g pure cocaine fetches £60.
That's £27 billion a year.
DEA budget last year: ~£1.3 billion year.
Who's going to win ?
can't wait to see after they follow the electronic food chain around how they deal with the reality is these guys are tied into the top US banks and commodity traders in new york miami and chicago. Want to see where the top smugglers are, look there, there and inside the US gubbermint.
I'm amazed at the naievity of the US spoonfed populace when it comes to "the war on drugs".
So I guess what they are saying is: our current efforts to block the shipments of cocaine into the United States are worthless. I sure am glad that government is taking 1/3 of my paycheck, and wasting it on air fuel flying over Columbian mountaintops while the pilots are probably just doing rails themselves.
-Rich Dredge
One Word: Prohibition
The original "War on drugs" And incidentally the cause of much gang related crime in the US. You dont really hear about people going blind from moonshine anymore these days, but it was a big problem during prohibition. I wish more people would learn lessons from history.
I like Cocain, and Our cocain is also coming from Columbia. Go and bomb somewhere else.
Dear Bill, do you have a
The tech industry is apparently going south (of the border). Time for a mass migration of techies.
Sorry, kid. But this is about the simplest law of economics: supply and demand.
The Evil Colombian Drug Lords (TM) exist because there is a market for their product: the addicts. someone must buy their drug, or else they will go out of bussines. And if the US (America? that's a whole continent, not a fscking country) is their target... well, maybe (and just maybe) there are LOTS of addicts in the US.
But, hey! America, a nest of addicts? No fscking way! They are the evil doers! The Columbians (sic) corrupt everything they touch! Their mere thoughts are enough to make our boys fall in addiction!
Yeah, I know the sobject is offensive. But the "American" (WTF?) world view annoys the rest of the world.
At least you are right in something: Your suffering does not give you the right to hurt other innocent people ("war on drugs", "war on terror" anyone?).
The modern war on drugs as we know it first geared up during the Nixon administration when drug use was closely associated with leftist politics. Strengthing drug laws was a specific tactic against hippie war protesters.
Now decades later, when the political correlations of drug use are but a distant memory, the war must go on. More tax dollars wasted to save crackheads from themselves and to lock up harmless suburban potheads who don't vote anyway.
No they won't, for the simple reason that making and distributing legal drugs is not their core competence. Smuggling and distributing contraband is their core competence. Once their product is no longer illegal there are lots of companies with the knowledge and infrastructure. Purity requirements alone are enough to put the illegal dealers out of business because only drugs made to sufficient purity will be legal to sell, and underground labs can't come anywhere near meeting those requirements.
If drugs are made legal then the illegal dealers will be out of business. They have a huge infrastructure dedicated to shipping those drugs into the country, and it will no longer have any value. I don't know of any product other than illgeal drugs that could use that infrastructure, so they can't switch to any other product.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
I am not a Philip Morris employee, I would add, and this is largely conjecture.
But, why on earth would PM not sell heroin. The problem with cigarettes has always been that the tobacco companies lied to consumers ("no, of course they're not addictive", and "these cigarettes will actually help your lungs"). Even after the tobacco companies had definitive evidence their products killed people, allegedly, they continued to sell them.
Now with Heroin (brand name: Get-u-High?) that's hardly an issue. The packet of 12 syringes would contain a "are you mad? these things are more dangerous than... well, most things" leaflet.
--- My dad's political betting
The problem with cigarettes has always been that the tobacco companies lied to consumers
This has been the most effective tool of use lately. But you watch- as time passes and people continue to knowingly smoke and die as a result of that- their will be those who will continue to sue and win settlements against tobacco companies. Their product directly causes death in the consumers. Their product places people into the health care system (and increase the load on that system) directly. There will always be those looking to recoup losses.
I am using conjecture as well and only time will tell. But I have a feeling that the legal morass of selling drugs would be daunting to any potential producer. At this point it is speculation and only great changes in current laws will move into the realm of something that can be proven.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
So you're suggesting that a company selling legalized drugs would be protected against lawsuits because they have a warning on the package? That doesn't make sense.
Cigarettes sold in the US have had increasingly strident government-mandated warnings on every package since 1966. Radio and television ads for tobacco products have been forbidden since 1971. For at least 30 years everyone has known pretty definitively that cigarettes were bad for you (and quite possibly for other people around you), it's just a matter of how bad they are.
Despite all this there are stupid people who start smoking every day. And despite having ample warning it hasn't stopped the tobacco companies from being hammered by lawsuits filed by some of those same stupid people.
Combine that same stupidity, the disregard for personal safetly we already see with alcohol, and the even more severely intoxicating effects of many drugs. Now, tell me again how legalizing drugs will make everything better.
Maybe we could suggest to the Thais that they just assassinate the US senators from both Carolinas?
--
E_NOSIG
Protected against lawsuits?
Of course not. But, if you examine the lawsuits brought against (and the settlements with the states) the tobacco companies were done for:
* Saying cigarettes were not addictive, etc. when they had clinical proof they are.
* Advertising aimed at minors.
* Increasing the health care costs of smokers.
Cigarette companies have *never* TTBOMK been sucessfully sued outside these parameters.
It's like cars, if you drive off the road (your choice) into a concrete wall, then you made the choice not the car company.
*r
--- My dad's political betting
nice to see someone wasting their mod points on making a humurous post a 'flamebait'.
Wrong.
Abuse of this brain-damaging substances is dangerous, period. The illegality has hampered the pushing of them.
"(2) confiscating my property and putting me in jail for five years so I can be raped is not good for my health."
It's your choice. Don't abuse drugs, and this will not happen to you.
"The criminalization solution does not solve the problem -- it creates many more problems."
It cripples the drug market and puts the dope fiends where they belong. Any "problems" such as costs can be taken care of with structural reforms such as greater fines and increase confiscation of the property of the criminals involved.
"People will drive under the influence of substances whether or not those substances are illegal"
No, it is much less likely if the substances are illegal (and thus have more limited availability)
It is bad when the US censors expression. But we do, so this is somewhat hypocritical of the US to complain. However, there is every reason to complain about Thailand's censorship of this advertising, and no reason to support it.
"The U.S. suppliers cried foul and had the WTO and IMF step in to pressure them to revoke the decision."
This is a good example of the WTO and IMF stepping in and stopping a government from denying people basic rights of free speech.
"Are you saying then that Thailand had the right to initiate bombing raids on the U.S. to destroy tobacco fields?"
If Thailand outright bans tobacco, and the US still makes great effort to send it there illegal, yes. But as long as it is legal (approved by the Thailand government) there is no reason.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
"Democracy is based on the premise that the population to be governed have the right to choose how and by whom they are governed."
Democracy is not the be-all and end-all. The passion of the mob must be tempered with some sort of protection from the ravages of government, even of a perfectly democratic government. Hence the Bill of Rights.
"Just as in the U.S., if the people disagree with those laws, it is up to them to change the laws or change their representatives"
Basic freedoms should not be something you have to get the permission of representative for.
"If we cared about the rights of Thai people, we wouldn't have interfered with their process of democracy"
Which right was interfered with? The right to censor people? That is the only right that is interefered with. Not much of a right: it is based on denying others their rights.
"And how do you know that the Thai people were unhappy with the law?"
So democracy is everything. If Thailand voted to kill off all of its citizens of Cambodian decent, that would be good, since it is the result of Thai democracy?
"Finally, I don't believe that public advertising is free speech or a right of corporations"
It is a right of individuals. Corporations are made of them, and do nothing without them. I don't hold to the idea that people lose basic rights if they are part of despised organizations. You might say that I take a radical, very tolerant view of free speech: one that opposes censorship more than most, and certainly opposition to censorship of people who belong to organizations.
"My senses are mine, and I should be able to control them. Advertising like billboards takes away my right to view nature and my surroundings unobstructed"
It seems to me rather intolerant to have the idea to destroy or banish anything you see that you do not like. I can see the point about nature, but what if the billboard obstructs only the blank wall of a building? This is the case with many urban billboards.
"Free speech says you have a right to speak and I have a right not to listen. But public advertising takes away my right not to listen"
Where does it end? Is it OK to get rid of all the placards and puppets of those who oppose a G8 meeting? If not, why? How about a separation of church and state where no religious building is able to be seen from a public road?
"Yet you're supposed to be focusing your attention on the road so you don't cause an accident! Doesn't that seem a little stupid? "
I'll give you that. How about billboards where away from view of drivers? Is that OK?
The 'neurological damage' caused by E is non-conclusive at best. I have been an occasional user for several years and I don't notice any ill effects myself. The research about damage caused to seratonin receptors is cooked, IMHO. If the receptors were damaged, don't you think that E wouldn't work anymor? There is no evidence meth causes any brain damage directly. The health risks of meth are indirect and are related to malnutrition and sleep deprivation. What can I say, don't be an idiot and remember to eat and sleep when you are on meth. BTW, I love meth I do have a job. If anything, it increases your capability for work manyfold. Think of it as industrial-strength caffeine.
'non-addictive' cannabis alternative. Merck was a leading cocain manufacturer. Our current choice of 'good' and 'bad' chemicals is in fact completely arbitrary and illogical. The list demonized substances in different cultures and different times have been quite different from ours and just as arbitrary. One would expect at least /. readers, who consider themselves digirati to have some clue. Coke speficially powered some good work. To name a few avid users -
Thomas Edison, Freud, Conan Doyle.