Welcome back, aspiring cyberwarriors!
OSINT has applications in so many fields including pentesting, investigations, cybersecurity, threat intelligence, missing persons, and criminal investigations. OSINT can also help to anticipate future conflicts on the geopolitical stage. Just like the Ukraine/Russia War, we are now seeing indications--via OSINT-- that a new storm may be brewing!
The new Trump administration in the US has said that they consider the drug cartels in Mexico as terrorists (whenever you don't like someone, call them a terrorist, then you can justify any violence) and as such, they have reserved the right to use the US military against them. Although the US military is the best in the world (does anyone doubt that?), it could be very messy going into Mexico and fighting a guerrilla war against a well-funded and well-armed organization on their territory.
We are now getting indications that the US military is readying its war machine against one of its best neighbors. The US has begun to send spy planes over Mexican territory and the strongholds of the cartels. This is a first in recent memory.
In recent days, the U.S. military has ramped up its activity, with spy planes flying over Mexico and warships moving closer to the border in preparation for potential operations against drug cartels.
This article examines how open-source intelligence (OSINT) techniques—particularly flight tracking data—can reveal insights into U.S. surveillance efforts along the Mexican border. While we will not explore classified information, publicly available data can still offer valuable perspectives.
On February 4, US Homeland Security News published a post on X (formerly Twitter) stating that: “US Military surveillance planes are now in Mexican airspace gathering intelligence and targeting information for the military against Narco-Terrorists!”
Let's try to track this plane and determine its route.
Getting Started With FlightRadar24
There are many services available for tracking aircraft, such as RadarBox, FlightAware, and ADS-B Exchange. For this analysis, we'll focus on FlightRadar24.
When you visit flightradar24.com, you'll see a screen similar to the one below, displaying nearly every flight in real-time across the globe. This is quite impressive! These services use the same radio and GPS data that the airlines use to track flight information. Nearly all airplanes broadcast an ADS-B (see our article on use SDR to track local flights in your area here). signal and many use GPS.
As shown in the image provided by U.S. Homeland Security News, the primary flight route passed through the Gulf of California. Let's zoom in on this area for a closer look.
We can navigate to any city, region, or country, much like Google Maps. By clicking on an aircraft, we can access detailed information about its flight and specifications.
Tracking the Flight
Now let's use the “playback” function and try to track the US spy plane. The US aircraft is the elite U.S. Air Force RC-135 Rivet Joint and U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon. These planes are equipped with sophisticated electronics to sweep up any electronic signals in the area including cellphones and internet data.
Scrolling through the playback timeline, we can see that the plane appeared on radar near the territory of Mexico on February 3 at about 21:00 UTC, and returned to the US airport on February 4 at about 5:30 UTC.
Scrolling back a bit further, we can see that the takeoff was from Omaha airfield.
By clicking 'More' in the left window, you can access details such as the aircraft's registration, airline, origin airport, and more. You can also hide other aircraft to focus solely on one flight without distractions.
This site allows you to track nearly every aircraft and flight worldwide.
Summary
While access to classified information is beyond the scope of OSINT, publicly available flight tracking data, combined with other open sources, can provide valuable insights into US surveillance activities along the Mexico border.
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