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Comment by lizzard | Hacker News Reader

And they probably won't bother to trace actual Anonymous folks exposing this information but may end up targeting random people who are into computers, or even heavy social media users.

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I think you're underestimating the reach of these cartels. I doubt they have the resources to find hackers, but they do have people feeding them information from inside the Mexican and US governments.

Also, the Anonymous people have made themselves a pain in the ass to governments who have the resources to find them. Even if the cartels don't have ears in the right place it's not hard for me to imagine a list of probable Anonymous members somehow making it into their hands.

> I doubt they have the resources to find hackers

Hey kid : People tell me you're the smartest computer guy in your year. My friends know where your mother lives. Please help me find some of these "hackers".

Sure, but can they put a tap into all the fiber running through the US? That's what I mean by resources.

You don't need to tap all the fiber running through the US to track down someone. That would take too long. Much easier to put "Wanted" posters up with "$$$" on the bottom and wait for the head to come back.

Sure, if you knew who they were already. But if you don't, you need to start tracking packets.

Do you know who any of them are already? Plausible deniability doesn't count for much.

> I doubt they have the resources to find hackers.

The Los Zetas cartel, being the second largest cartel in Mexico, probably has revenues of well over a billion dollars per year. (It's estimated that the overall earnings of all Mexican drug smugglers is $13-40 billion.)

I'm pretty sure that's enough money to hire a hacker or two.

You need more than money if you're buying something illegally. You also need a certain amount of sophistication to know you're getting what you want.

In this case, I'm pretty sure that money is enough. It's not like the cartel needs to know anything about hacking or how to choose good hackers. All they have to do is tie the monetary reward to the result they want (track down the Anonymous member who said this), and somebody will figure it out, through hacking or other means.

As an aside, I don't know of any billion-dollar industry that doesn't have a fairly high level of sophistication. I don't see why the cartels should be any different.

The sad thing is that they do not need to hire hackers. They have been kidnapping Engineering students (electronic or software) and forcing them to work for them with the "plata o plomo" approach.

Moreover, it is known that cartels have connections in every government agency, such as the CISEN (Mexico's national security agency), Policía Federal Ministerial (Mexico's FBI). That's one of the reasons why a lot of "protected witnesses" or people who report crimes are murdered, because there is always someone inside these agencies.

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