Sur-lanta

Planning must begin with a sober assessment of what you are actually up against. You face a persistent, automated adversary on just about every corner. This short narrative offers a macro perspective on an urban environment, integrating lessons from unconventional warfare and urban exploration to highlight low-hanging fruit in Atlanta's local infrastructure and social landscape. 

Again, this is for educational purposes, but it's a great topic to hit on. Plus, Atlanta is the most surveilled city in the United States. With 124 surveillance cameras per 1,000 people, what better city to write about :/

Ingress into an urban area is by far the most significant challenge your team will face. Your entry into the AO has to prioritize "place-hacking" and low-visibility methods to exploit gaps in conventional surveillance. This requires a shift from traditional ingress routes to the use of non-normative corridors, including subterranean networks and vertical spaces.

• Subterranean: Atlanta has an abundance of storm drain systems, utility tunnels, and disused railway lines (e.g., portions of the Gulch and other industrial areas) for movement exploitation. These systems are often overlooked and provide secure, unmonitored pathways for ingress and exfiltration.

• Vertical: Gaining access to secured, active rooftops and uninhabited floors of tall buildings in high-density areas like Downtown and Midtown can assist your team in establishing critical vantage points. This involves understanding and bypassing standard security measures such as key card systems and rooftop access alarms.

• Blend-in: Public transportation hubs, such as the MARTA rail stations at Five Points and Lindbergh Center, can mask team movement by leveraging high foot traffic. Operators should appear as ordinary commuters, with gear concealed within standard luggage or backpacks. Don’t be “that guy” rocking tactical footwear or clothing. Utilize OSINT tools, such as Street View or social media, to gain insight into how locals dress and act. 

Hide Construction: Hides, or observation posts, need to be established with an emphasis on "no trace" operational security. The goal is to recode a space to serve an operational purpose without altering its outward appearance.

• Materials: Utilize existing environmental materials for concealment, such as construction tarps, commercial advertising banners, or discarded furniture.

• Locations: Hides will be established in pre-vetted locations that offer both concealment and a clear line of sight. These include abandoned commercial spaces, construction sites, and upper floors of multi-unit residential buildings.

• Hide Characteristics: The hide must dominate its area of responsibility, but height can be a mistake. It is generally not advisable to go above the second floor to avoid being an obvious observation point. Locations should be selected for security and quiet approach/egress routes.

You must learn to see the city not as a collection of solid structures, but as a landscape of voids and screens. This means looking beyond an object's intended function to see only its geometric potential. 

Shooting through glass is not a viable option due to unpredictable deflection and the immediate signature of shattering. 

The focus must be on stable, pre-existing apertures. To help you with putting tiny projectiles through tiny holes, check out the web app I built below, "Loophole Calculator." 

• Structural Voids: Modern construction offers numerous, often overlooked, apertures. These include weep holes in brick facades, ventilation slats on commercial buildings, gaps in cinder block construction in retaining walls, and drainage pipes or culverts. These are often small, exist at varying heights, and are not perceived as threats.

• Urban Decay: Cities are rich with opportunities presented by neglect. A broken-out section of a wall in an abandoned factory, a rusted-out panel on an industrial silo, or a gap in a corrugated metal fence all provide viable loopholes that blend perfectly with the surrounding environment.

• Vehicular Obscurity: The space between parked cars creates temporary firing lanes. The dark, shadowed area underneath a truck chassis offers a low-angle position that is almost impossible to spot from a distance. A strategically placed hole in the opaque panel of a commercial van turns it into a mobile hide.

Operations depend on a detailed understanding of the urban environment, including its digital and physical infrastructure. 

• Topographical and Geospatial Data: In addition to standard maps, team members should analyze 3D models and topographical data of the operational area. This allows for the identification of subtle elevation changes, natural depressions, and building-induced blind spots not visible on flat maps. These are critical for planning approaches and establishing concealed observation positions. Street View is your friend here. Use it. Exploit it. 

• Utility Infrastructure: A thorough analysis of the city's utility grids is essential. Mapping out the city's power, water, and fiber optic communication lines can reveal critical vulnerabilities or provide additional covert access points. For instance, teams can identify locations where utility tunnels or maintenance access points offer secure passage.

• Demographic and Event Data: Understanding the rhythmic pulse of the city is key to a successful operation. Publicly available data on population density, pedestrian movement patterns, and event schedules (such as sporting events at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, concerts, or large construction projects) can be used to predict distractions, create opportunities for movement, or identify periods of low activity.

Intelligence gathering should leverage open sources to predict and circumvent surveillance. This requires a dedicated focus on the city's public data portals and monitoring tools.

• Atlanta Monitoring Technology: As the most surveilled city in the United States, with over 124 cameras per 1,000 people, the Atlanta Police Department's Video Integration Center (VIC) and "Connect Atlanta" program form a massive surveillance network. This network, known as "Operation Shield," integrates tens of thousands of cameras from both public and private sources (businesses, homeowners, universities, and other institutions). While the total number of cameras is estimated to be over 60,000, only a fraction of them, approximately 1,878 video cameras and automated license plate readers (LPRs), have had their locations publicly identified via open records requests. These mapped cameras show a high concentration in Downtown, as well as in predominantly Black neighborhoods on the city's west and south sides. The system is also noted for having a high rate of non-working cameras due to maintenance issues.

• OSINT for Reconnaissance: Open-source tools and platforms can be used to map and predict real-time conditions. Websites like defloc.me provide an example of how public data on city transportation (bus, rail, etc.) can be tracked, offering insights into routes, timings, and potential choke points. This information can be used to plan ingress and exfiltration routes that avoid high-traffic areas or exploit predictable delays. Social media and local news can also provide real-time updates on traffic accidents, protests, or other events that create distractions or opportunities for covert movement.

A successful op depends not only on understanding the surveillance network but also on actively mitigating its effects. 

• Mitigating LPRs: The proliferation of LPRs, particularly those from companies like Flock Safety, is a huge bummer. These systems are deployed not only by police but also by homeowners' associations and private businesses. They track vehicle make, model, color, and even unique attributes like bumper stickers or damage, creating a searchable database of vehicle movements. To counter this, teams should prioritize foot movement or use vehicles with altered or temporary plates in areas with known LPR concentration, such as Buckhead.

• Exploiting Network Inconsistencies: Reports have indicated that a significant percentage of the city's cameras are non-operational at any given time. While it's impossible to know which cameras are down, this could present an opportunity. Surveillance can be assumed to be less reliable in areas with low public investment or where a high percentage of cameras are part of older, non-integrated systems.

• Geospatial and Temporal Avoidance: The publicly available camera maps (see resource below) show a high concentration of surveillance in Downtown and on the west and south sides of the city. While this does not mean other areas are free of cameras, it does suggest a tactical focus. Operators can leverage this information to plan routes that avoid these high-density areas, particularly during peak hours or large-scale events. Movement in less surveilled neighborhoods or during off-peak hours (e.g., late night to early morning) is advisable.

• Private vs. Public Cameras: The surveillance network is a public-private partnership. This means that while the police centrally monitor some cameras, others are registered, with footage only available upon request. An awareness of this distinction allows for a nuanced approach to concealment, as not all cameras are "eyes on" at all times.

• Targeting and Bias: The surveillance network is often criticized for its disproportionate focus on predominantly Black and working-class neighborhoods. This targeting is seen by some as a continuation of historical policing practices, treating these areas as zones of occupation rather than communities to be served. The use of predictive analytics and automated license plate readers further amplifies these concerns, creating an environment of constant monitoring and potential criminalization for specific populations.

Hopefully, this narrative provided you with a brief macro perspective on what it would take to conduct an urban operation in a major city outlet. The table is stacked against you, and navigating an urban area requires serious dedication and commitment. We didn't touch on caches, communications, or covert entry, as that will all be covered in the upcoming "Light Fighter Manifesto Presents" The Bootleg Tapes. This is going to be a DVD Set of just unfiltered tutorials of knowledge bombs, without the censorship of YouTube. Let me know what you think of the article, and check out the LoopHole Calculator.