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Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

theguardian.com

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Re: Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

#11

Post by candiodari »

cardanome wrote: post #7

I wont fault people for lacking a basic understanding of science but at least using basic fact checking should be doable. Like maybe google "microwave attacks snopes" or something: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/do-sonic-weapons-explain-t... (Written in 2017(!) but hey just lets just warm up the story again and again). I am sorry for being snarky but between having to explain grown ass adults why they should wear…

But the problem with this sort of attitudes is that governments constantly lie. In a number of cases this is explainable. For instance, one way we do nuclear weapon containment is by lying about certain properties of Uranium (and of course mostly lie about lying, and of course, most researchers don't think it's particularly effective. While you need uranium to find the correct values, uranium + an old tv can tell you exactly what's being lied about and what the correct values are. Any experimental physicist leans how to do this).

But we are now in the situation that media in Europe are lying every day about the constant violence used by the police in Paris (and Brussels, and Madrid, and ...) against COVID-protestors. For example, just from today:

https://twitter.com/KevinTONON_/status/1388575836387880965

(Paris is usually much worse btw)

So you cannot trust these messages. Your argument is essentially an appeal to an authority. It is critically dependent on the authority not lying, and not leaving out critical information, and since you have no ability to figure out what they would lie about (and the State Dept has lied about their own people getting hurt and the causes many times).

That doesn't mean other sources are believable or not. The sources of these conspiracies do mean

1) people who were here were hurt.

2) the state department is not helping them.

3) the purpose of these denial messages is, at least in part, to justify 2).

I'm willing to bet that you at the very least think 2) is not true. So your careful fact checking has in fact lead you astray as well, because authorities, just like anyone else, serve their own interests.

Re: Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

#12

Post by enkid »

ALittleLight wrote: post #6

Absurd that groups as well resourced as the intelligence agencies aren't taking care of their people who've seemingly been injured in enemy attacks. Also, I don't understand the point of using this weapon. It seems like it causes debilitating issues, sometimes years later, but it's intermittently used on relatively low level personnel? What's the point? Make Americans afraid to work in Russia and Cuba? I also wonder…

It's possible it's a side effect of something else. Maybe they are using directed microwaves to power eavesdropping equipment, and the individuals in proximity to that equipment are getting sick.

Re: Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

#13

Post by markdown »

GVIrish wrote: post #9
cardanome wrote: post #7

I wont fault people for lacking a basic understanding of science but at least using basic fact checking should be doable. Like maybe google "microwave attacks snopes" or something: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/do-sonic-weapons-explain-t... (Written in 2017(!) but hey just lets just warm up the story again and again). I am sorry for being snarky but between having to explain grown ass adults why they should wear…

That article doesn't disprove a microwave attack at all, it just says there is no known public evidence that matches up with what is described. Fact is that if this is real, it is the work of a sophisticated adversary that may have found a novel way to attack people. Even going back to the 60's there was stuff done in spycraft that would seem implausible to most people even today. A relevant example is the use of mic…

It isn't real.

Re: Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

#14

Post by enkid »

cheaprentalyeti wrote: post #10
GVIrish wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could try that, but it seems like personnel are being attacked outside of embassies. They'd need to equip everyone's domicile with detectors as well. That said, State Dept and the intelligence community should've been all over this. When this happened in Cuba, everyone should've been on high alert. When it happened again after, people should've snapped into action. It's possible that the powers that be didn't ta…

Uh, the administration Biden belonged to more or less ignored worse stuff than this that enabled attacks like this. Take, for example, the OPM "hack." Read this: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/06/encry... IF you're wondering how whoever was running attacks like this would get the data to follow people home with attacks like this, in places where there aren't any sensors, look at these hearings fr…

I agree that more should have been done, but the director of the OPM did resign, which is basically being fired in that kind of position. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/07/10/421783403...

Re: Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

#15

Post by 6510 »

Google234 wrote: post #2

Why don’t they install detectors inside all the embassies at risk to prove or disprove this? Why didn’t they do this earlier? I’m pretty sure there are many places that could be contracted to make a detector in a few weeks - this isn’t new technology. This seems really easy to test... so why are we still speculating.

I would put them on police cars. They are driving around anyway and their other duties are not that different. Also, the alternative is for them not to know they are getting zapped.

Re: Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

#16

Post by cardanome »

GVIrish wrote: post #9
cardanome wrote: post #7

I wont fault people for lacking a basic understanding of science but at least using basic fact checking should be doable. Like maybe google "microwave attacks snopes" or something: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/do-sonic-weapons-explain-t... (Written in 2017(!) but hey just lets just warm up the story again and again). I am sorry for being snarky but between having to explain grown ass adults why they should wear…

That article doesn't disprove a microwave attack at all, it just says there is no known public evidence that matches up with what is described. Fact is that if this is real, it is the work of a sophisticated adversary that may have found a novel way to attack people. Even going back to the 60's there was stuff done in spycraft that would seem implausible to most people even today. A relevant example is the use of mic…

> That article doesn't disprove a microwave attack at all, it just says there is no known public evidence that matches up with what is described.

I can not disprove that there is a magic man in the sky. Or a teapot revolving around the sun. [1]

The burden of proof is on the person making the claim not the other way round. Yes, lack of evidence is enough to reject it. Not to mention that the claim goes against established scientific knowledge and therefore would need some serious evidence for it to be taken serious.

> Even going back to the 60's there was stuff done in spycraft that would seem implausible to most people even today.

There is lot's of things we do not know but that does not make a good argument for the existence of something.

> A relevant example is the use of microwaves to activate a passive antenna through walls to eaves drop on conversations (look up "The Thing Listening Device). Again this was done many decades ago. Not too far fetched to consider that maybe Russia intelligence services found a way to weaponized microwaves.

Not really, there is no clear quantitative development patch from The Thing Listening Device to the Havana style microwave attack.

Now we know the hypotheses requiring the fewest assumptions to be more likely true. [2] So what is more likely?

The whole Havana Syndrome is fabricated propaganda that is typical and in line of many similar cases of proven lies?

Or that Cuba has some advanced secret technology that even the US has no access to and that they are using on US diplomatic personal without any good motivation. In fact it will hurt their reputation. So we need to also claim that they are irrationally evil.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

Re: Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

#17

Post by mc32 »

Swenrekcah wrote: post #8
ALittleLight wrote: post #6

Absurd that groups as well resourced as the intelligence agencies aren't taking care of their people who've seemingly been injured in enemy attacks. Also, I don't understand the point of using this weapon. It seems like it causes debilitating issues, sometimes years later, but it's intermittently used on relatively low level personnel? What's the point? Make Americans afraid to work in Russia and Cuba? I also wonder…

If the attack takes years or decades to have full cognitive detrimental effect, then it makes sense to attack the currently low-to-mid level staff.

That doesn’t make sense. This isn’t baseball and you’re scouting for good prospects to sabotage.

As someone else pointed out it might be a side effect to something else.

Re: Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

#18

Post by XorNot »

Swenrekcah wrote: post #8
ALittleLight wrote: post #6

Absurd that groups as well resourced as the intelligence agencies aren't taking care of their people who've seemingly been injured in enemy attacks. Also, I don't understand the point of using this weapon. It seems like it causes debilitating issues, sometimes years later, but it's intermittently used on relatively low level personnel? What's the point? Make Americans afraid to work in Russia and Cuba? I also wonder…

If the attack takes years or decades to have full cognitive detrimental effect, then it makes sense to attack the currently low-to-mid level staff.

How widespread can this equipment be though that none has ever been recovered as a weapon of the enemy?

If you have enough resources to start targeting low to mid level staff, then you have to have a lot of practical devices which are mobile.

While it's plausible the US has in fact recovered a whole bunch of them and kept it secret...why? The microwave attack rumor is common which means everyone is looking into whether it can be done. Announcing you found the device and not showing pictures even - but instead nothing. No detectors either and as noted above detecting RF would be extremely cheap - deploy a couple of devices and you've got a direction finder telling you exactly where it's coming from.

Havana syndrome could be a lot of things: the US is a big place, and decades ago food safety standards and additives were very different - MRE composition or catered food service would have had regional characteristics, but so would just random events happening randomly - on a long enough timescale you'd get a cluster of health issues from the people you sent through one part of the world but not another. Once you're into talking about multi-decadal outcomes this gets even fuzzier.

Re: Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

#19

Post by skinkestek »

candiodari wrote: post #11
cardanome wrote: post #7

I wont fault people for lacking a basic understanding of science but at least using basic fact checking should be doable. Like maybe google "microwave attacks snopes" or something: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/do-sonic-weapons-explain-t... (Written in 2017(!) but hey just lets just warm up the story again and again). I am sorry for being snarky but between having to explain grown ass adults why they should wear…

But the problem with this sort of attitudes is that governments constantly lie. In a number of cases this is explainable. For instance, one way we do nuclear weapon containment is by lying about certain properties of Uranium (and of course mostly lie about lying, and of course, most researchers don't think it's particularly effective. While you need uranium to find the correct values, uranium + an old tv can tell you…

> For example, just from today:

> https://twitter.com/KevinTONON_/status/1388575836387880965

I don't know if it was correct for the police to get those people away, but from the video the police

1. didn't use force until someone started kicking against them etc

2. when people continued moving away police immediately left them alone

I was expecting police to run after someone who hadn't done anything or something but this looks like a quite ordinary example of "play stupid games, win stupid prizes".

You don't kick after a police officer (or anyone else for that matter) and act surprised when you get a beating.

That said I agree with much of the rest.

Re: Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

#20

Post by teachingassist »

enkid wrote: post #12
ALittleLight wrote: post #6

Absurd that groups as well resourced as the intelligence agencies aren't taking care of their people who've seemingly been injured in enemy attacks. Also, I don't understand the point of using this weapon. It seems like it causes debilitating issues, sometimes years later, but it's intermittently used on relatively low level personnel? What's the point? Make Americans afraid to work in Russia and Cuba? I also wonder…

It's possible it's a side effect of something else. Maybe they are using directed microwaves to power eavesdropping equipment, and the individuals in proximity to that equipment are getting sick.

This makes it seem like friendly fire is a reasonable hypothesis - as some side-effect of physical security measures taken by the US government.

Since the reported attacks generally happen within a radius of US locations requiring physical security - and apparently not in any other location.

It's otherwise difficult to explain why the USA would be the singular target of these alleged attacks, for a period stretching across decades.

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