Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Colombia’s narco-subs

Prensa Libre reports that a gang that manufactures and operates submarines has been nabbed. They worked for the Úsuga clan. The subs are used for transporting cocaine to Honduras, the U.S., and Europe.

It’ll be interesting to see what information comes about from the seizure of the shipyard; their subs could carry a crew of four, and seven tons of drugs.

Certainly, the technology has evolved immensely since the days of Pablo Escobar.

The Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC) reports on narco-subs:
CAPABILITY ANALYSIS, SOUTH AMERICA
NARCO-SUBMARINES: DRUG CARTELS’ INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY (emphasis added):

In fact, as of June 2012, maritime drug smuggling accounts for 80% of the total illicit flow from the Andean region into Honduras, Mexico and other mid-way transportation regions prior to entry into the U.S. About 30% of the maritime flow is estimated by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to utilize narco submarines. Overall, however, maritime interdiction rates are very low.
…
The numbers of these vessels which now exist is also highly debatable with potentially dozens of them being produced every year by criminal organizations in Colombia such as the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia), Rastrojos, and Urabeños. One point greatly influencing the numbers of these vessels which exist at any specific time is if they are utilized once and then scuttled after their delivery (the traditional U.S. military viewpoint) or if they are utilized multiple times (the traditional Colombian military viewpoint). Depending on the perspective held, greater or lesser numbers of narco subs would be required to be produced each year to replenish the vessels lost due to capture, accidental sinking, intentional-scuttling to avoid capture, and, potentially most importantly, at the end of a delivery run.

The CIMSEC will be releasing a paper,

“Narco-Submarines – Specially Fabricated Vessels Used For Drug Smuggling Purposes”, soon to be released by the Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO) and intended to be an initial primer on the subject of narco-submarines.
. . .
Finally, it is important that we collectively consider the potential of these types of vessels to transport more than just narcotics: the movement of cash, weapons, violent extremists, or, at the darkest end of the spectrum, weapons of mass destruction.

The study will appear on the FMSO website. I’ll link to it when it does.

UPDATE:
Linked to by Silvio Canto. Thank you!


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Soyuz launching from French Guiana

The European Space Agency’s launching from French Guiana a Galileo satellite for the EU’s first own GPS,

They’re using a Russian Soyuz, which shows you how much things have changed from when our generation was growing up: A Russian rocket launched from our hemisphere, for the purpose of providing navigation information to Europe.

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Lockheed security breach tied to RSA Security tokens

In today’s Wall Street Journal,
Security ‘Tokens’ Take Hit
RSA Offers to Replace Nearly All of Its SecurIDs in Use or Provide Monitoring

Lockheed became the first confirmed breach related to the RSA issue, with the U.S. weapons manufacturer saying an investigation into last month’s cyber attack on the company “concluded that the RSA breach was a direct contributing factor.”

“RSA has been with us every step of the way since our breach, and we’re replacing all of our SecurID tokens,” Lockheed spokeswoman Jennifer Whitlow said. “They did review our investigation details and have offered to help out as they could.”

The Lockheed attack showed that it was technologically feasible to hack a third-party using data taken from RSA, and the defense contractor may not be the last example.Mr. Coviello said that “I’m not suggesting we won’t see some other attacks in the interim given the scale of the Lockheed attack, but it is the only confirmed attack we have using the [stolen] information.”

What I want to know is, where are the security tokens made?

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Good news from NJ for all pervs around the world

Yes, fresh from the Garden State. It figures.

roxxxy_1556407c

NJ has been a hub of technology incubators for several years, which makes me wonder where this got hatched:

A New Jersey-based artificial intelligence engineer is now marketing the world’s first sex robot, which includes a laptop even when she can’t lap dance, and has multiple personalities:

The anatomically-correct robot, who can even snore, has an articulated skeleton that can move like a person but can’t walk or independently move its limbs.

There is Wild Wendy, who is outgoing and adventurous, Frigid Farrah, who is reserved and shy, a young unnamed doll with a naïve personality, “matriarchal kind of caring” Mature Martha and S & M Susan, who is geared for more adventurous types.

Geared?

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Iran-backed terrorists hack US drones

… in Iraq and Afghanistan, using Russian software Skygrabber,
drone
Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones
$26 Software Is Used to Breach Key Weapons in Iraq; Iranian Backing Suspected

Militants in Iraq have used $26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need to evade or monitor U.S. military operations.

Senior defense and intelligence officials said Iranian-backed insurgents intercepted the video feeds by taking advantage of an unprotected communications link in some of the remotely flown planes’ systems. Shiite fighters in Iraq used software programs such as SkyGrabber — available for as little as $25.95 on the Internet — to regularly capture drone video feeds, according to a person familiar with reports on the matter.

Iraq, Afghanistan, but possibly also Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia

Some of the most detailed evidence of intercepted feeds has been discovered in Iraq, but adversaries have also intercepted drone video feeds in Afghanistan, according to people briefed on the matter. These intercept techniques could be employed in other locations where the U.S. is using pilotless planes, such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, they said.

Drones are inherently vulnerable:

Gen. Deptula, speaking to reporters Wednesday, said there were inherent risks to using drones since they are remotely controlled and need to send and receive video and other data over great distances. “Those kinds of things are subject to listening and exploitation,” he said, adding the military was trying to solve the problems by better encrypting the drones’ feeds.

The potential drone vulnerability lies in an unencrypted downlink between the unmanned craft and ground control. The U.S. government has known about the flaw since the U.S. campaign in Bosnia in the 1990s, current and former officials said. But the Pentagon assumed local adversaries wouldn’t know how to exploit it, the officials said.

Why weren’t drone communications encripted in the first place?

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Organs Needed, Supply Limited

Today’s must-read: Ed Morrissey‘s compelling book review and article in today’s WSJ:
Organs Needed, Supply Limited
What to do when the wait for a transplant can take seven years?

More than 1,000 Americans die every year awaiting a kidney transplant. Surgeons in the U.S. perform about 7,000 of the transplants annually, but that doesn’t come close to meeting demand: As many as 250,000 patients require kidney dialysis — all of them subsidized by Medicare — but half of them are deemed not sick enough to warrant referral to a transplant program. The wait for a kidney transplant from a cadaver-donor can take seven years.

I’m familiar with these statistics, and the wrenching stories they suggest, because my wife has lived in this precarious wait-and-hope world. She was the recipient of a cadaver-organ transplant, and twice in her life she was blessed with the unbelievable good fortune of receiving kidney donations from friends. Non-family donors are rare, and even within a family, as in our case, finding a good tissue match can be a challenge.

Desperation, then, can slowly seep into the wait for a kidney transplant.

These are the books Ed reviewed,

At Hot Air, Ed asks, Is it time to offer compensation for live kidney donations? This is not an abstract question. As techonology improves, the answer to that question may save your life.

Go read both Ed’s article and post.

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Lost in space?

GPS system ‘close to breakdown’
Network of satellites could begin to fail as early as 2010

US government officials are concerned that the quality of the Global Positioning System (GPS) could begin to deteriorate as early as next year, resulting in regular blackouts and failures – or even dishing out inaccurate directions to millions of people worldwide.

Let’s hope it doesn’t happen.

If it weren’t for Garmin, Rick Moran and I would still be in a cab trying to get to Lilek‘s birthday party.

UPDATE
AJ Strata eases my mind.

Thank you!

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