Technology and the Drug War

In the week that has just passed, my attention was drawn to three websites. The first two give accounts of some current events (though the underlying issues are not new), while the third puts into perspective something we have already reported upon, namely, the increasing use by the drug cartels of Internet social networking resources and capacities.

Let’s start with the first two. CNN reports on the latest episode in the grab’em/let’em go of Mexican drug lords. This time it has to do with Mexican drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero and how the Mexican and US government seem to have completely different agendas here. Well, that’s nothing new. If ever the two governments did really get it together and work from the same script, it might be a different story. This is so much like some first world colonial government and culture dealing with a poorer, more alienated one that has a completely different agenda. Here’s the link:

 http://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/05/world/americas/mexico-us-reward-caro-quintero/

And speaking about how dysfunctional the US-Mexican relationship is, we have a new meaning to give to the term “undermine” (like in undermining any hope of progress by releasing drug kingpins). CBS reports that a cross-border area linking Tijuana and San Diego has actually been excavated and prepared as a tunnel way for the drug traffickers. This also shows just how ineffective the so-called war on drugs is. Pretty soon (in six years) we will be at the 100^th anniversary of the Volstead Act (passed in 1919): that stroke of American legislative genius and self-righteousness that gave rise to the Roaring Twenties era of prohibition. Will we never learn? Legalize the stuff, and let’s end this farce. Want more? Here’s the link:   

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57610202/major-drug-tunnel-found-on-u.s.-mexico-border-3-arrested/

Finally, you must read this last article (link below) on how the drug cartels are using the Internet social networking capacities. This is not just some crazed bunch of poor kids using their new found money to play with another set of new toys. From the analysis provided on the tracking techniques used to target users interfering or criticizing their activities to the capacity of encryption they posses to hide their messages, with the drug cartels in these instances we are dealing with some heavily intelligent and sophisticated (at least technically) people. The encryption technique mentioned in the article, “Onion” routing, was after all developed for use in the US Navy. How much money does it take the buy the services this caliber of expert, and how many of these experts, one might well ask, come from the US or other countries outside of Mexico. Plenty one could imagine quite a good number (including ex-military) given the money involved. It is all part of supply and demand: classic market economics at work. It worked in the earlier Prohibition Era (so that they finally repealed the Volstead Act in 1933) and it is working again today, some ninety-plus years later.

http://www.vice.com/read/mexicos-drug-cartels-are-using-the-internet-to-get-up-to-mischief