How did the Mumbai attackers leverage global infrastructure and technology to facilitate the attack? Noah Shachtman, the editor of Danger Room, lists the ways (read the post in its entirety):
- Boat navigation was by GPS for precision.
- Satellite phone, found onboard one of the vessels, for coordination en route.
- Constant use of cell phones for tactical communication.
- Blackberries for real-time tactical analysis of media coverage (which provided details on the status of forces arrayed against them). Also, an ability to check Web sites, including that of the police, for tactical data and global media coverage for strategic direction. This allowed them to route around attempts to sever their connectivity.
- E-mail and remailers for communication to the local media.
The evolution towards ever greater leverage continues. It's pretty clear from the above that these guerrillas were better connected to both the tactical and strategic environment than any US and other developed nation military personnel have ever been (the opposition believes in the strategic corporal, why don't we?).
NOTE: The leverage available from off-the-shelf biotech and other DIY (do-it-yourself) advances is en route (at the speed of a Moore's Law Tsunami) and the long tail of potential enemies that will employ them is accelerating with each phase of the global economic melt-down. Unfortunately, we aren't even in the game because we won't even acknowledge the problem.