Poachers Are Trying To Hack Animal Tracking Systems (helpnetsecurity.com) 70
Orome1 quotes a report from Help Net Security: Animal tracking through electronic tagging has helped researchers gain insight into the lives of many wild animal species, but can also be misused by wildlife poachers, hunters, animal-persecution groups and people interested in seeing and interacting with the animals -- all to the detriment of our animal brethren. A recent paper by a group of researchers from several Canadian and U.S. universities has pointed to several instances of misuse or attempted misuse of the tracking technology. The researchers believe that instances of poachers intercepting signals to track animals down are under-reported, as the researchers and conservationists are worried about losing funding. The researchers have also noted that photographers and people interested in seeing wild animals have been known to acquire and use tracking equipment, and they are worried that "frequent exposure of animals to people can habituate them to human interaction, which at minimum alters the animal's natural behavior, thus negatively influencing research findings." The tagging devices are usually collars with GPS or radio transmitters, and cost between 150 and 4,000 British pounds, The Times reports. But, unfortunately, security measures for protecting their signal are not adequate.
Poachers should be tortured when caught (Score:2, Insightful)
Preferably in a town square.
This might stop poachers.
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What's the limit on poachers? Hate to go over, that would be poaching...
Re: Poachers should be tortured when caught (Score:1)
Hmm, this could be useful. Let them think it's the signal of a male elephant, then when they get there...trap! It's a bunch of snipers to murder all the poachers.
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We're not running low on game animals and the animals are consumed with little to no waste.
Presumably, the animals that are being tagged and tracked are not the ones that are plentiful in the wild (TFA mentions tigers, white sharks, and wolves.) I'm also making the assumption that these animals are not being hunted to stave off starvation - Otherwise surely they'd be hunting more common game. I know you're just trying to point out that poaching isn't entirely black and white, but when you're hunting tagged animals it sure seems that way.
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Now if you want to fuck over the poachers, what you need are decoys that take pictures of the poachers.
I think the only way taking a picture of a poacher would have any impact would be through a scope with a thunderous flash.
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The ONLY way would be going after their "customers".
Anyone buying that stuff should face at least from half a year's salary to serius prison time.
But I can imagine that most of them sit in Russia, China and maybe Japan. And their government doesn't give a fuck, too. So, little hope there...
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No. The poachers are poor, stupid fucks who need the money and couldn't care less for the animals.
The ONLY way would be going after their "customers".
Anyone buying that stuff should face at least from half a year's salary to serius prison time.
An important part of solving the problem is to go after the customers, but punishment alone won't help; education, in particular of the children, will have to be a major part of it. That was a major part of why we became much more aware of envirnmental issues in the West: parents may reject what the government or campaigners tell them, but they find it hard to resist when their children disapprove of what they do.
The other important part of the solution must be to make poaching less desirable to the poacher
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Re: Poachers should be tortured when caught (Score:1)
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Define "poacher":
(a) Bastards slaughtering elephants with automatic weapons for Ivory? String 'em up, (if you can catch them).
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fa... [cbsnews.com]
(b) Desperate people in conflict-ravaged areas needing any food they can get their hands on? Maybe not.
Meanwhile, the biggest cause of megafauna and other "wild" animal extinction is not poaching; it's habitat loss.
You want to torture to death large swathes of populations in Africa, South America, India and China?
Seems a bit extreme (Score:2)
animal-persecution groups (Score:2)
What????
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But those had already been itemized in her list of no-goodniks.
our animal brethren. (Score:5, Interesting)
Who is Zeljka Zorz to think that animals are our brothers?
Doesn't this loon know that they're our cousins? Very, very, distant cousins.
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Who is Zeljka Zorz to think that animals are our brothers?
Doesn't this loon know that they're our cousins? Very, very, distant cousins.
Does that mean in some states its legal to marry them? I know of at least one Pope who married his horse :)
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Caligula allegedly made his horse a Senator, but I've found no stories that a Pope married a horse.
why do you post this fake news garbage? (Score:4, Interesting)
There is in fact ZERO documented reports of this actually happening.
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"are"
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There is in fact ZERO documented reports of this actually happening.
There is quite some some evidence for even 1st world countries [independent.co.uk] for prices like $40,000 a rhino tusk. If $40,000 was enough incentive in Paris to kill an animal in a freaking public zoo then how much is $40,000 in an African hutt with 5 starving kids all barefoot? You could live years without working for just one kill!
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are you claiming poachers sniffed GPS tracker signal in order to locate Paris Zoo? or are you just stupid?
you don't have to 'hack' the system (Score:3, Insightful)
Animal tracking systems all broadcast their location, you don't need to 'hack' the system, or even be able to decode the signal, all you have to do is to be able to track the signal via direction finding techniques that haven't changed significantly in decades.
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If you can't decode the signal then you don't know if you're tracking an elephant, a dormouse, or a shark. Tagging of animals has become so widespread probably half the critters in Africa are putting out more Twitter posts than Trump.
If you think you're tracking an elephant signal only to discover when you get close enough that it's an endangered hedgehog signal then you - as a poacher - are going to be pretty annoyed.
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How about putting a receiver on tracking devices, and programming so they send No signal unless they first receive a coded transmission?
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How about putting a receiver on tracking devices,
You mean like this, [projectlifesaver.org] which is essentially long-range RFID?
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(if you try to send it a command while the receiver is powered off, nothing will happen)
Power on the receiver only briefly once every X minutes, and listen for a tone -- If there is no tone, then sleep the receiver for X more minutes.
If a tracker wants to locate the device, in order to access the tag, the tracker is required to transmit a Tone continuously on a specified frequency for X minutes to "capture" the receiver, Then, just before they stop sending the tone, they send something like a HMAC
A Right To Be Left Alone (Score:3)
Maybe some of the creatures and animals in nature should have a right to be left alone.
It doesn't necessarily fit in with peoples' schemes to do "science" and get funding and a livelihood from doing said "science" but maybe if poachers are going to take advantage of the tracking devices (they always will) it's time to leave the animals alone.
Just a thought point. It would be impossible for humans to leave all of nature alone... but really it's worth thinking about.
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If you live in modern society and you are stupid enough to be eaten by a wolf or a bear, then I'm glad to see you removed from the gene pool.
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As far as the rest of the country is concerned, we "tamed the west" and we meant it.
You fucked up. If you had just left the fucking Bison alone, we could have had free meat. Instead, you had to put up fences.
Re:Good. (Score:4, Insightful)
And the rednecks are still surprised that others consider them stupid. Wolves are generally not a danger to people. There are exceptions, but they are so rare that they are borderline apocryphal. I blame red riding hood for the notion that wolves consider humans prey. Bears, on the other hand, are indeed dangerous but normally tend to avoid humans, so the probability to be killed by a lightning strike is higher.
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If you like to play with your kids in the city park, live in the city. If you wanted to live in a Disneyland park (as opposed to a Disneyland resort) why did you move to the country?
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The grandparent might be referring to coyotes. They were once only rural but have returned all the way to the east coast and suburban areas which was not the case when I was a kid.
Yes they are a threat and even wolves are a threat outside of suburbia to cattle and other livestock. Coyotes attack pets and even small children too
Put open bounties on poachers. (Score:3)
Humans are by far the apex predator of this planet, so why not use that to poach the poachers? The "stick" method isn't doing nearly enough, so I think it's time to employ the "carrot" method for all the other humans. #GottaCatchEmBeforeTheyCatchEmAll
decoy trackers (Score:2, Insightful)
We could make decoy trackers that would draw the poachers to a place so they can be easily arrested.
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We could make decoy trackers that would draw the poachers to a place so they can be easily arrested.
Yes, we need lots more laws about what is illegal to do with radio. Making it illegal to track a radio signal is a really good idea.
We had a similar problem with dolphins (Score:5, Interesting)
So one year we deployed the beacons and ran our AUV ops for a week. We'd then go back to our lab to analyze the data for the rest of the month. Since we were going to be back in the water in a month, we left the beacons. We came back the following month, sent out a test signal to make sure the beacons would respond and.... nothing. We sent down divers to recover the beacons and all their batteries were dead. We assumed someone had programmed the charging power supply wrong so they hadn't gotten a full charge. So we recharged them, re-deployed the beacons, and ran our ops.
The following month, same thing. Sent a test signal and all the beacons were dead again. This was a real head scratcher. Eventually we figured out what was going on. Dolphins had heard the coded signal the AUV transmitted. They thought it was pretty cool that our beacons would respond back with a ping. So while we were away, they were having fun whistling the coded signal over and over making the beacons ping until the batteries were dead.
Honeypots (Score:2)
Easier.. (Score:2)