Although it's fallen off of the headlines lately, piracy continues to be a big problem, with an annual economic impact estimated at $10 billion. Fighting pirates after they've already attacked is only so effective. And trying to track them down and bring them to justice before a raid is next to impossible. The best solution is to just keep boats and pirates away from one another. But how? Applied mathematician James Hansen* has an idea. With the Naval Research Laboratory he's put together a computer model of pirate behavior.
The project combines data on wind, waves and currents with intelligence gathered by informants, surveillance and other means on pirate habits: how far their small skiffs can travel; their assault tactics; the timing of forays.
Running the model yields maps that show the highest-risk areas. Adding real-time information on ship traffic can identify possible pirate targets.
"It's sort of like tornado warnings," Hansen said. Everyone may know the probability of tornadoes spikes during the spring in Oklahoma. But what residents want to know is whether a twister is likely headed their way today.
The pirate model may be able to provide ship captains and security forces with that level of alert, by combining statistical odds with on-the-ground observations. Weather is clearly important to pirates, who can't operate in rough seas, Hansen pointed out. "These guys are running around in tiny ships."
Followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, rejoice!
(Via Mara Grunbaum)
*Not that James Hansen. A different one.
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Aside from fishermen and gun-wielding thugs, some of the pirate groups keep some clerks, techies and other specialists on retainer. This is less likely to be ‘math versus pirates’ than ‘math for pirates.’ I’m sure there’s a few groups out there that would be happy to use such modeling programs to hunt out new opportunities and avoid the most obvious traps.
after so many years, at last a cheat code for “pirates!”
Nobody really wants to invest in it, but convoys escorted with armed warships would be the best solution.
Here’s the all important link: Avast!
for most of that first paragraph i was sure you meant internet piracy
I was kind of hoping they’d build a fleet to stop the pirates.
Math is cool and all, but it can’t take us back to the halcyon days of two ships lining up broadside and going at it.
Well, there’s the ship, the guns, the navigation….
It took me till well into the first paragraph to realise you meant actual pirates, rather than, ‘the RIAA still can’t add up’.
Why is that land pirates do not seize trucks and hold them for ransom?
Because the police will come and arrest/shoot them all.
The biggest problem with kidnapping is how do you get away with it? You normally get nabbed when trying to collect the payoff. It seems that these pirates have solved this problem.
But I think this is only because everyone is just letting them off. Why is it necessary to only catch them red handed while trying to attack a vessel? Why do ships need to be in convoys escorted by armed warships? Why can’t the pirates be attacked AFTER they have seized their victims. Perhaps AFTER the have released their victims?
It’s not like the crews all live in barracks together while at home, separated from their wives and children like Spartans. Your question presumes that the pirates are treated as criminals by their own societal context, and therefore sequestered in some way from the general population. They’re not; they have families and friends and other jobs, and live in towns full of innocent people, many of whom would themselves take up arms against any foreign incursion.
Responding to what are, realistically speaking, pinprick cross-border raids on the periphery of the global market with a giant indiscriminate massacre (exactly what it would be) is a barbaric notion.
I wonder how much it would cost to restore the Somali economy to a point that it could offer meaningful opportunities to the people who instead become pirates to support themselves. Surely that would much cheaper than arming a navy to combat them outright.
The ‘War on Drugs’ fails for a number of reasons, among them the continuing lack of economic opportunity in parts of Mexico. Is it wrong to assume that the ‘War on Pirates’ will also fail for similar reasons?
Generally, I think addressing the underlying socio-economic causes to problems is a better approach, and this seems like a classic case that a little Marxism could address.
Though I have to agree with Xzzy, maybe some cannon could just as easily address the issue.
There are other details surrounding the story aswell. The piracy boomed after the fall of the Somali government and when anyone could travel into somali waters and fish. The oceans outside the cost couldnät support fishermen anymore since foreign fleets took the chance for unprotected waters and fished it more or less bare.
Sounds like the premise of a segment from some “PBS Kids” program.
Where’s the world budget that tells me whether a $10 billion economic impact is a big problem or just a big number that a blogger suspects might be a big problem? Consider this a proposal for a Boing Boing hosted world budget visualization.
This sounds suspiciously like the work of Hagbard Celine.
Beware the man who is rich in flax, for his morals may be sadly lax.
It’s easy to imagine all those hijacked ships as an enormous drag on the world economy, but look at http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/ and you’ll see that there are a lot of ships out there.
We need an easy to read “World Budget” that let’s us judge whether $10 billion in economic activity is a big deal or small potatoes.
@dainel, good point. We know where the pirates take the ships, but for some reason we don’t go into the Somali territorial waters, despite the fact there is no government there to object. That seems to be the real political problem at the heart of the law enforcement issue.
Now the poverty / inequality / willingness to fight issues are entirely separate. The ethics there get much more complex.
Too bad there’s no allowing for white-hat piracy, funded by booty taken from the black-hat pirates.
Math versus pirates? My money is on the pirates.
SQRT((r+f)/(r-f))=a/d
Solve for Arrrrrr…
Solution is easy: arm the ships.
You’ll have to sooner or later, as Somali pirates are just the vanguard.
Piracy is about to become a growth industry globally.
If the Somalis had their political house in order, and their act together, these pirates would be the germ, and would form the practical nucleus – perhaps they already are such – of the Somali Naval Forces or Coast Guards.
There’s a void, and these guys have filled it.
Oh wait, this is about world piracy, right?
My comment above is obviously limited to the piracy along the Somali coast.
I, for one, look forward to our first International Multiply Like Pirates Day.
Unlike tornadoes, pirates can change their behavior. If the prediction algorithm was successful, I’d bet the pirates would adapt and beat it.
it’s kinda funny, everyone here is talking about how to combat the pirates with arms and big ships, but the simplest thing would to be to let the somali government reform. the us doesn’t have any interest in this, because our government is controlled by corporations. not only is the coast off of somalia getting over fished, but there are many different companies that are using the chaos over there as an excuse to dump toxic waste off their coast, killing fish and taking away the livelihood of fishermen. The US and most first world countries have an interest in keeping somalia of balance and without a government so that we can dump all of our waste there.
What is the best way to hunt down pirates? Maybe access to food, water, and jobs?
What about instead not going into somali territorial waters? Let’s not forget how this started:
1. Somalia charged for boats to cross through their territory (saved fuel)
2. Somali government implodes.
3. Kenya starts selling rights to somalia’s waters
4. Shipping companies stop honoring contracts because “the money would be misused”
5. Countries (many of them EU) start using somali waters for nuclear waste disposal)
6. Foreign fishing fleets start illegally fishing somali waters and hiring mercenaries to fire upon somali fisherman who resist/protest
7. Some somalis start motoring out to charge “shipping fees”
8. Moronic somalis cross the line and go all pirate on everybody
The somali pirates are bad, mean people. But this is their territorial waters, if the sort of incursions were occuring here in the US, we would attack too. So there aren’t a whole lot of innocent players here. maybe folks should just stay out of somali territory, those pirates aren’t driving those little sputter-put motorboats 200 miles out to attack people.
Bobthecitizen, great post.
As a sailor I hear your same statement mentioned all the time:
“Why not just avoid the place?”
“Those poor fisherman have no choice but to take hostages.”
“This is the result of Big Oil’s Blood money hurting the small guy..!”
Territorial waters since the last incarnation of pirates (Some 400+ years ago) have been rather untouched in their definitions. 12 Nautical Miles offshore and its “free sailing” for the most part.
A lot and I mean that, a lot of the boardings by these “Pirates” happen hundreds of miles away from Somali shores. In the definitive “Don’t mess with me zone.”
12 Nautical Miles from what I remember was actually used because at the time that was the longest distance to be safe from cannon fire. Thus forcing any nation or entity that wanted to bombard a coastline with their warships to be within the “Rule of Law”.
So with that in mind, sailors like me that want to get to the Mediterranean from that side of the world have two options:
Head north through the Suez Canal from the Seychelles.
Or.. Round the entirety of Africa, around Good Hope, adding some 10,000+ Nautical miles to your trip instead.
Weather and difficult sail plan aside, at 140-150 NM a day, that is a lot of extra days at sea.
What everyone is doing now at least in the Cruising community (Sailors) is going as a convoy. These convoys are planned beforehand and everyone meets up then heads off as a group. Via Radio everyone checks in and the leader leads the convoy safely into the Suez. Recently Maritime security experts are even hired to give lectures to the groups before leaving.
I skipped responding to all the gun talk in here as it is too extensive to list why that is not a viable option for not just sailors but also the corporate megatankers in those waters. However, for those interested, there have been a few incidents of exchanges of gunfire between small vessels and Somali pirates. Most notably SV Gandalf’s fending off of pirates with a single 12 Gauge shotgun and some very quick thinking. Quite an intense account, but it was early on in the Pirate debacle and just as they stated they were, “Very lucky”.
As a sailor I feel that it is my right to be able to go where I please, the invisible borders I traverse state just that. If its 12 Nautical miles from your shore, you have no right to impede any of your country’s grievances on my vessel or journey. Thats the way it has been for a long time and I know I am not alone in feeling that whatever Somalian fisherman have to complain about, I am not going to listen to anyone’s explanation of why I do not have the right to sail open ocean in safety.
“Just don’t there” has never been part of a sailor’s creed. It goes against everything that drives us to pilot our small vessels across nature’s treacherous skin.
I agree with all but #8.
By this measure ‘crossing the line’ is the point at which it starts to be a problem for first world interests.
They are fighting back.
It’s not moronic, just desperate.
Bobthecitizen – For your information, this isn’t just about ships crossing Somali waters. Somali pirates have struck as far away as the coast of India, 1,500 miles away, using motherships to cover the distance.
The cheapest and simplest solution would be to employ small teams of armed guards equipped with a couple of portable 50 cal. machine guns mounted fore and aft, along with some radar and night vision gear. That would be enough to make mincemeat of any pirate skiff that tried to approach.
The piracy is nothing that a handful of Dillion M134s and a couple of pintel-mounted Javelin launchers wouldn’t fix.
The average “pirate” crew has a mix of Ak’s FN-FAls, old HK G1s and G3s and a smattering of M-16’s. If they’re lucky, they also have some RPG-7’s.
The Javelin has a much greater range than an RPG-7 and much better accuracy, being wire guided.
No one while floating in a small boat can stand up to an M-134 Sorry, it just ain’t happening.
Swimming pirates and a notoriously low capture rate. In fact, they don’t capture anything. Except the attention of the local shark population.
(oops split post)
You should read some of the academic literature about the Somali pirate community. These aren’t bank robbery crews with boats; they’re more akin to La Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian mafia – except that they have fully open presence in their community, and sanctioned role in the economy, that the mafia never achieved. They have a (albeit primitive) futures market for pirate hauls, believe it or not.
The point is, they’re less a criminal group than an emerging civic institution – the legal code they’re operating on just doesn’t match up with the global framework, which is hardly surprising, considering that they have no relationship with that framework. Were it not for the ideological commandment “thou shalt not negotiate with actors not recognized as legitimate by states,” it’s entirely possible that an adequate agreement could have been worked out. Say, a set maritime border and passage tariffs, and gradual reductions of the border down to the accepted 12-mi standard in exchange for a compensatory temporary increase in UN aid?
Mr. Hansen has not taken into consideration that the pirates are launching attacks from mother vessels, not land. They sit and wait on mother vessels for days, perhaps weeks.. waiting for their targets to happen by.
12 miles? The excepted exclusive economic zone is 200 miles. Also I’m more than a little dubious over the “mothership thing”
People keep posting that if only the ships had *insert weapon you’ve seen in COD2* they would slaughter the pirates, except international law is not on their side. If you have been following this in the UN, etc you will see that the ships are violating somalia waters. THe EU has strongly held that if these ships attack the “pirates” (somali naval militia) within somali waters they face seizure upon return to their home port for… you guessed it, piracy.
Come on folks, shipping companies know what guns are, if that was a viable solution, it would have been done already.