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from the if-you-build-it-they-will-come...and-cut-through-it dept.
Smugglers have found an easy way to get through the vertical steel tube Mexican border wall. From https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/smugglers-are-sawing-through-new-sections-of-trumps-border-wall/2019/11/01/25bf8ce0-fa72-11e9-ac8c-8eced29ca6ef_story.html
The breaches have been made using a popular cordless household tool known as a reciprocating saw that retails at hardware stores for as little as $100. When fitted with specialized blades, the saws can slice through one of the barrier's steel-and-concrete bollards in minutes, according to the agents, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the barrier-defeating techniques.
After cutting through the base of a single bollard, smugglers can push the steel out of the way, creating an adult-size gap. Because the bollards are so tall — and are attached only to a panel at the top — their length makes them easier to push aside once they have been cut and are left dangling, according to engineers consulted by The Washington Post.
The taxpayer-funded barrier — so far coming with a $10 billion price tag — was a central theme of Trump's 2016 campaign, and he has made the project a physical symbol of his presidency, touting its construction progress in speeches, ads and tweets. Trump has increasingly boasted to crowds in recent weeks about the superlative properties of the barrier, calling it "virtually impenetrable" and likening the structure to a "Rolls-Royce" that border crossers cannot get over, under or through.
In other words, no one did any serious pen testing on the wall design, or it would have been obvious that with all that leverage, the top tie-in was easy to flex.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 04 2019, @05:39PM (33 children)
I had some misgivings about the design. A single bolt holds the slats, up at the top? FFS - wish I had known that. How many people DID know it, and never put two and two together?
I'd like a few more details. Is it an all-day job to cut through a slat, or is over and done with in ten minutes? A battery operated sawzall doesn't last long, on a single battery. If they cut through with one battery charge, then the slats are ultra-cheap sheet metal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 04 2019, @05:46PM (1 child)
Umm, RTFSRNW
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 04 2019, @08:14PM
This is the same media that says you can print a gun in minutes, so yes, an actual number would be necessary to understand what the claim really is.
(Score: 4, Informative) by richtopia on Monday November 04 2019, @05:50PM (12 children)
As the article discusses, this installation is a compromise between cost and function. The border patrol strongly requested a see-through wall to audit the other side, so rigid concrete is largely unfeasible. Apparently during testing all prototypes could be defeated with the proper application of power tools.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 04 2019, @07:23PM
Just so. This is why all the people who actually knew the situation and technology (*insert political commentary here*) disagreed with the idea of a wall.
The big trick is that walls never STOP things, they slow things down. The goal is to allow more time to respond to the situation.
It's just like a safe in your house. It makes turns the 5-second grab-and-go into a 5-minute grab-and-go, or the 2-second swipe to a 30-minute use a drill to get through the metal.
So walls make sense in a city, where people can cross the street in 15 seconds, put a wall there so they now need to take 3 minutes. Now you can set your patrols to be 2.5 minutes rather than every 10 seconds, and now humans can deal with the border crossings much more efficiently than before. The Berlin Wall wasn't effective because of the barbed wire and the high cement walls; it was effective because there were guards who shot people trying to cross it and the time-to-cross was long enough that the guards could catch them before they escaped.
In a wide desert, though, when the travel time is already 24 hours, adding another two hour means you can turn your 23-hour patrol cycle to be a 25-hour patrol cycle. That is negligible, especially in terms of cost to build, maintain, and the environmental impact of a wall.
But I guess seeing how Mexico is paying for the wall, the cost is minor. Mexico is paying for it, right?
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday November 04 2019, @08:17PM (3 children)
With the proper application of power tools, you'd be hard pressed to find something you can't get through.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 04 2019, @10:41PM (2 children)
Bullet hailstorm.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 05 2019, @03:59PM (1 child)
Psychopath
And you think you're righteous too, whaddaprick
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday November 05 2019, @11:17PM
Irrespective of the state of mind or moral stance, I can't stop noticing it's a good example to using tools doesn't necessarily dismantle the defense.
Yes, the use of tools can get around the defence (e.g. dig tunnels).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 04 2019, @08:24PM (6 children)
Pretty much anything can be defeated with the proper application of power tools. Power tools tend to make noise though, so a microphone set up as a noise detector every twenty yards or so would largely solve that.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by vux984 on Monday November 04 2019, @10:11PM (5 children)
"so a microphone set up as a noise detector every twenty yards or so would largely solve that."
How does that solve anything? unless you have a border agents every few hundred yards or so to come running when the alarm goes off?
But if you have that, then you don't really need the wall at all. Just set up poles every 20 yards with motion sensors, cameras, and mics.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 05 2019, @02:42AM (4 children)
Border agents aren't goose stepping back and forth along a line painted in the dirt. They have vehicles. One every mile, adjusting for terrain, would be plenty fast as far as response times go.
And you don't need a lock on your front door if you have a security camera pointed at it? No one approach is ever going to be perfect and layering approaches increases effectiveness multiplicatively rather than additively.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 05 2019, @03:58AM (1 child)
Submitter here, TFS cut off my personal comment,
Your submitting AC guesses that the first bollard/column/tube was cut within a week of the wall construction. A careless user failed to push it back into place after going through, so it was finally spotted. C'mon guys/gals, were you born in a barn?
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Tuesday November 05 2019, @12:42PM
Well now AC, considering the horrid conditions most are running away from, it is quite possible some of them were actually born in a barn....or worse.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Tuesday November 05 2019, @07:36PM (1 child)
The lock on my door is under $100 and might need replacing once a generation. So its a no-brainer to have in place. It prevents casual walk-ins, and delays a dedicated break in attempt by a few seconds. And in that event its primary benefit is in securing evidence of a break in for insurance coverage.
If I had a security camera pointed at my door, and it was monitored 24x7, and a guard was stationed nearby, and adding the door lock was going to cost 30 BILLION dollars, that would be a very different equation. :)
And that's the border wall situation. We already need active monitoring (microphones, and cameras), we already need active patrols to respond to alerts.
The wall costs 30 BILLION dollars, will need constant maintenance and repair, and delays a prepared crosser less than 30 minutes. Less than a couple minutes if they simply want to over and come with ropes and ladders instead of cutting through.
This isn't a question of whether the wall increases effectiveness. I'll agree that it has some effectiveness. It's a question of cost vs benefit.
If you are already going to have the cameras and mics and infrared sensors, and drones, and manned patrols/response teams. Then multi-billion dollar wall doesn't buy you that much additional security relative to its cost to build AND maintain. It *might* be worth it in a few spots; although any measured reduction in traffic at those spots may simply mean the traffic is crossing somewhere else; so evaluating even that is non-trivial.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 07 2019, @10:27PM
Well, sure, if you make what you make now. If you made what the US government makes, that would be an entirely different story. Especially as for some reason what they make has little relation to what they spend.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday November 04 2019, @06:22PM (2 children)
OTOH, there's no reason they can't either use several batteries, or a portable generator, or just hook it up to a car/truck.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 04 2019, @08:26PM (1 child)
Generators are fucking heavy. Also quite expensive compared to a couple extra rechargeable batteries.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday November 04 2019, @09:04PM
Expensive to own, fairly cheap to borrow for a couple hours of steal.
But in many cases, a couple extra batteries will do just fine.
(Score: 2, Informative) by paul_engr on Monday November 04 2019, @07:46PM (1 child)
With a 5Ah or 9Ah 18V pack, you could cut for at least half an hour before it was depleted. I can fit the saw, twenty blades, and five batteries in a backpack that weighed like fifteen pounds total.
Once the tubes start to rust, you could also probably just hit them with a cold chisel and a 10lb sledge and shear the tubes. When I was a kid we had a basketball pole full of concrete and after a few years, we took it out by just a few hits with a chisel at the base and the whole thing just snapped in half right at the footing and fell over with a gentle tug
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 04 2019, @08:28PM
Depends how heavy a workload you're asking of them as to how long they'll last but, yeah, extra battery packs are absolutely viable.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by paul_engr on Monday November 04 2019, @07:49PM (1 child)
3/16 wall box tube isn't cheap sheet metal. It is pretty thick, but for 6x6, it would be considered thin wall. You can probably get up to or above 1/2" wall hot roll from any respectable steel vendor.
(Score: 2, Informative) by paul_engr on Monday November 04 2019, @07:53PM
Yeah, EMJ blue book says .188 wall is the thinnest in 6x6 for HREW square tube. They went cheap, could have done .375 or .5 wall
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday November 04 2019, @09:47PM (5 children)
No matter how much they add reinforcements, unless they change the material all it means is the sawzall has to make two cuts to get rid of a bar instead of one and then flex.
Trump has a simple solution, though, just add diamonds to the concrete mix, that will stop the sawzall blades.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 05 2019, @09:53AM (4 children)
Just filling them with rocks/gravel would add a lot to the difficulty of cutting. Metal cutting blades don't like rock, and rock cutting blades are very slow in metal.
(You couldn't use just sand because you could just drill a hole and let it trickle out, then cut above it.)
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Tuesday November 05 2019, @01:21PM (3 children)
Never used a diamond blade then have you? Makes quick work out of iron, steel, granite, marble and other incredibly tough natural materials. I have never found a better blade nor have I found something it wouldn't cut. Cuts through metal or stone with ease.
Reasonably priced too at around $20 for three. You may burn through a couple getting there, but you will get there, and quite quickly. The only thing I don't use them on is wood.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @02:05AM (2 children)
What about filling them with tar? As soon as you cut through it is going to coat the blade.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Wednesday November 06 2019, @04:19AM (1 child)
I know a green tree root can plug them up pretty good. Not sure about tar. High viscosity (guessing here) might plug the blade pretty good, but then even very thick tar would leak out so you'd probably going to have to deal with environmental impact and at minimum it wold have to be refilled depending on how much ended up leaking out.
Hmmm, I wonder how flammable tar is, I know with an hour of sawing pipe and blade can get pretty hot, never caused an actual fire (well, not with the sawzall anyway!) though.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @06:55AM
I meant stuff like in that pitch drop experiment. Slow enough that it will take hundreds of years to run out, but it will stick to and coat a hot blade. Add in the filings from the bit of cutting you can do and the blade would end up clogged with something like asphalt.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 05 2019, @08:17AM (2 children)
A decent one [milwaukeetool.ca] lasts a goodly long time. Longer if you slam the bigger 12AH pack on it.
Not that I'm arguing with you persay, but I've had to update my perception of battery-operated tools recently, and I suspect a lot of other people need to as well. I hadn't used battery operated stuff since NiCad ruled the world, and after trying some of the new Milwaukee FUEL tools, I'm just blown away by what they can do. Got a 1/2" FUEL impact I use to change semi tires with. That's a job a 3/4" air impact would grunt a bit to do, and one charge does all six tires. It's ridiculous.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 05 2019, @02:00PM (1 child)
I've been using them a lot lately myself and I can tell you from experience this very week that one 9AH battery will cut copper AC line all day long but ask it to cut steel gas line and you're going to run it down rather quickly. Don't get me wrong, it'll do the job. If you have a lot to cut you need to bring a spare battery or have something else to do while it charges back up though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday November 05 2019, @02:48PM
That, exactly. And, aluminum might surprise you too. 3/8" plate seems to run the batteries down pretty quickly. I moved my work to the shop, where I could plug in corded tools to get the job done. Cordless just wasn't going to "cut it" for me.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday November 05 2019, @03:18PM
You miss the point. This is not a theoretical vulnerability. This is a zero-day [washingtonpost.com] as it has already happened in reality (at least according to WP,) and the extent of it is being sat on very carefully by Border Patrol.
In fact, that article also says that they not only make the cuts happen, but they shove them back in place so that a casual visual inspection won't show the problem and it can be used again. (Of course, BP can also pull a 'we won't fix it but just keep it under close observation to catch the next group who uses it' strategy... If they catch where it has happened.)
The article even tries to even put out Republican spin that "if only the Dems had approved more funding this wouldn'ta happened," conveniently ignoring that thanks to President Trump's non-emergency declared emergency he gets to reallocate however many funds he thinks he needs to have gotten the job done right.
So, so much for, "oooooh, I know construction derp derp derp," Trump. Maybe it's not quite as beautiful as advertised and I'm still waiting for Mexico to pay for it.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Tuesday November 05 2019, @05:25PM
They claim about twenty minutes with two sawing from both sides if I recall correctly. With high quality diamond blades and a backpack full of charged batteries that sounds 'feasible.'
I can't find the article I read with the technical specs so details may not be correct.
My understanding is the steel is rather thin (lowest bidder syndrome?) and filled with concrete. each bollard is square shaped, so easier to get an initial bite on than if they were round. They also will go to the same bollard repeatedly as the concrete is compromised and hell, why cut the whole thing twice if you can just cut the weld alone and be done with it? Sometimes they are disguising the cuts with putty that looks like a weld to fool border patrol. Agents have taken to using a highly technical procedure to check any suspicious looking bollards.....they kick them.
Years ago, when my soil chain pipe cutter broke I cut a four inch cast iron sewer pipe with carbide (much inferior to diamond) blades while still in the ground. It took about forty minutes or so and seven blades if I recall correctly. It was also corded, I don't recall cordless being an option back then. So modern saw, diamond blades and a whole shitload of batteries.....mmm...feasible.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.