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More Details On Drug Cartel's Clandestine Communications Network
K7DAN writes "The AP reports that Mexico's drug cartels have built their own sophisticated two-way radio communications system using computer-controlled linked and local repeaters on mountain tops, walkie-talkies, mobile transceivers and and base stations. The solar powered system covers vast areas of Mexico that are unserved by cellular phone network and has the advantage of being more difficult to trace." This article adds much more substance about the technology than was included in the report several weeks ago of the seizure of thousands of this network's components; from the description in this article, the earlier headline overstated the case by saying that the network had therefore been "shut down."
Can you hear me now? Good.
People get creative. In this case, the sale of the drugs provides the incentive and the network throughout a non-cellular covered area is the resulting creativity. WE (the technically oriented community) should be doing this as well with 802.11 networks. I imagine a day where everywhere you go, you can stay connected for general (non-secure) data transfer / searches, etc.
--I like turtles...
I have seen various elements of this system assembled by amateur radio operators; the equipment is not terribly hard to find. Getting all the components together does take a level of organization...which the cartels would have to have, considering the business they are in.
What is really impressive is how long they were able to keep a system of that size secret for so long.
Palm trees and 8
We don't need no stinkin' 4G!
Have gnu, will travel.
If the mexican authorities really wanted to shut down this network, they simply would have to do a bit of flying in those areas with a SIGINT plane and map out all the transceivers. Then send the GPS coordinates to helicopter teams who will destroy the gear. All the talk about "concealment" is basically rubbish, as these atennas are not concealed at all if you have a directional receiver and a cheap spectrum analyzer in your hands.
I assume this one of these publicity stunts where the authorities "demonstrate how they crack down", when 99% of the illegal business continues without any disruption.
The very fact that these drug cartel even perform "show of force", hang mayors and policemen dead from bridges, set up their own checkpoints and so on demonstrates that the drug lords have already taken over a large portion of the mexican state.
Anyone have actual news about this? The linked article was fluffy-lite. I'm curious if they were using a trunking system, if so, which one, or just classical repeater and remote RX site design. Seems odd they wouldn't mention brand names in the story. Motorola trunking? LTR? Maybe the cartel is the first really successful OpenSky trunking deployment? I've often thought the only way to get OpenSky to Really work successfully would involve pointing automatic rifles at the vendors heads, or perhaps reviving the roman era decimation procedure in full detail, both areas of expertise for the cartels. Maybe no trunking and just a bunch of old linked repeaters?
It sounds from the fluffy article like all commercial gear, like you could buy off ebay for your tow truck company, not .mil FHSS and satellite stuff.
If you want to listen to technology like this without becoming an amateur pharmaceuticals supplier you can buy a modern trunking scanner. Or if you want to work on similar gear as an operator, again, without becoming an amateur pharmaceuticals supplier, you can get your ham radio license.
I'm curious if it was a business hit vs the cartels own stuff. Right now in the USA you can talk to your local trunking radio provider and purchase more or less identical service for your small business. Its possible the only small business purchasing from some trunking provider in .mx was the cartel. Theoretically they've got common carrier protection, but I could see them getting siezed if their main/only customer was criminal. That would suck to go out of business because your main customer was crooks, but I guess thats life in .mx
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I am not even going to read the article. It is silly. Want to set up, let say a "clandestine" encrypted network .... easy .... use your iphone thingy and get the "clandestine mexican drug cartel encrypted network app".
If you go to the popular (well, poor) neighborhoods in northern Mexico you'll find thousands of young people, joining the cartels. The young people that don't, are idolizing the narcoculture: headache inducing narcocorrido music, big pickup trucks, cowboy attire, violent and arrogant behavior, etc. This has stopped being some clandestine business run by old families specializing in recreational agriculture export activities and has become an attempted takeover of society by the organized crime, at a level that makes Al Capone look like a beginner. In the controlled states most business and middle class independent professionals have to pay protection money to these guys or else. Bank employees provide all the required information. What about the police, army, government? Everybody knows they are in the payroll. It's more like Mexico during the later phase of 1910's revolution where all the young people joined one General or the other to survive while plundering, killing, raping, etc. Today the situation in the affected areas is controlled by terror. Psychological studies of the people doing terrorist activities have shown they're mostly "normal" people adapting to a new economic environment. In other words, young people are being recruited by the organized crime because the current economy is not providing quality jobs. I'll spare you the usual rant about the US-supported neoliberals elites blocking popular movements, but the fact is those elites want to go back to a semifeudal society controlled by the Church and Old Money, and are stopping any development that could empower the general citizens. If you've tried to do business in Mexico you realized how everything seems to be prohibited, or excessively controlled. What happens when you cannot honestly make a living? You do it unhonestly. And the elites have been doing a good job stunting critical education and lowering the level of popular culture through the TV chains like Televisa, so instead of becoming aware of who the real enemy is, young people unleash their frustration against their own.
the US govt does nothing. Honestly a few drones targeting these and blowing them up will do a lot to disrupt the cartels comms. I am certain the Mexico Govt will happily let us do that.
Makes me wonder if the "war on drugs" is actually an excuse just to jail random poor people if the cops dont like them.
You guessed right. Here is who profits from having well-heeled and violent cartels on our border:
1: Private prisons. You realize how many people are locked up in detention centers? That is a lot of moola going to the private corrections companies... who turn right around and "suggest" judges should have better conviction ratios, or else they will be replaced by those who do come next election. There is a whole industry around locking people up, and everyone profits except the arrestee. 1/3 of people under 23 have seen the inside of a jail here in the US. So, yes, we are tough on crime, I guess...
2: A whole industry about fear of the southern bad guys.
3: People who make money by keeping pot illegal. I don't smoke the stuff, and see that it makes people drooling stupid, but I'd rather have my tax dollars go for welfare for them, than paying more for keeping them locked up for the rest of their life. Here where I live, people get 20+ years for possessing a single joint. At least if they were on the dole, they would be keeping the local economy busy by keeping the local Taco Bells and Pizza Huts going.
4: Eventually, private mercenaries. Once the violence starts spilling over (well, it is pretty bad... you do not dare try a rest stop on I-35 or I-10, else you will eat a shotgun blast to the face when some thug needs to blow away a gringo so he can join his "blood in/blood out" gang), our troops will wind up fighting the Mexican War 2... and this time, the cartels actually have tanks, unmanned drones, and submarines.
Those idiots!
They should never have shut that down. Sure, it might have been used to support drug cartels etc. and so on, but it is one of the most advanced communications systems available.
Go find a cellular provider that runs their entire infrastructure on solar power, and who has their network de-centralized (meshed) such that it's difficult to take down.
There is no mistaking it, the drug cartels have developed a superior communications system, and it was just shut down. I'm going to build my own version of this thing to cover the island I'm currently on.
Make no mistake, the drug cartels have an incredible amount of financial power, and they are only now starting to use it for potentially good development. Take the hi-tech underground tunnels, the hi-tech submarines, and now the advanced solar mesh network. Someone needs to partner with these guys.
You forgot the bankers. They make over (probably well over) $150 billion a year on "private banking" (aka money laundering) every year. It's so profitable that Clinton's treasury secretary went to work for CitiCorp's private banking branch and engineered the takeover of Banamex, known as "the drug smuggler's bank of choice", with its very valuable customer list.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
The entry level Technician class ham radio operator license is stupid easy to get now days which gives you 2M and 144cm. Goto www.QRZ.com/ht/ and use their free online practice tests from the bank of FCC questions and you should be able to pass the test in 3 weeks of practice. The test is $15 for a 10 year license. I have talked to Boulder, Birmingham, and Houston from the Dallas area using a simple Yagi antenna on a 10' PVC pipe with 55 watts on 2M.
A far cheaper solution would be to turn half of Kansas into poppy farms and half of Florida into Coca farms. Subsidize them like corn and sell the FDA-grade drugs in supermarkets and vending machines at subsidized prices. I guarantee that the illegal drug trade in the U.S. will be gone with 5 years, and the international rings will switch to completely legal flights out of the U.S. into staging countries. Fire the goddamn ATF and balance the budget with the taxes on drugs.
But no, carpet bombing with B52s is the way to go, of course. Why not just nuke them?