Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 222 posts

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

#21

Post by tqkxzugoaupvwqr »

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.

Can you please explain in more detail why it makes sense to attack low-level staff? I can’t follow. Is it because low-level staff rotates more often and is only a short time in the country so effects won’t be connected to their stay in Kuba?

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

#22

Post by realce »

tqkxzugoaupvwqr wrote: post #21
Swenrekcah wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can you please explain in more detail why it makes sense to attack low-level staff? I can’t follow. Is it because low-level staff rotates more often and is only a short time in the country so effects won’t be connected to their stay in Kuba?

Low level staff today is the high level staff of 15 years from now, so you just make them dumb now.

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

#23

Post by thoughtstheseus »

tqkxzugoaupvwqr wrote: post #21
Swenrekcah wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can you please explain in more detail why it makes sense to attack low-level staff? I can’t follow. Is it because low-level staff rotates more often and is only a short time in the country so effects won’t be connected to their stay in Kuba?

I’ll take a shot. If it takes years of exposure, or is delayed, to be effective you want to aim for staffers before they are in key/important positions. Maybe staffers in embassy positions track well into higher, more important jobs?

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

#24

Post by pydry »

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…

>What's the point? Make Americans afraid to work in Russia and Cuba?

Wouldn't you want to deter spies from a fairly terrifying hostile power?

It's unclear if they did it (evidence seems thin) but the motive is definitely there, just as the motive for the Latin American "cancer gun" was definitely there:

https://english.pravda.ru/world/120158-south_america/

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

#25

Post by cardanome »

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…

> But the problem with this sort of attitudes is that governments constantly lie.

Governments do lie and there have been many real conspiracies. I don't exactly see how that is a problem with what I wrote. Sure sometimes you have to more research than just look up snopes but the real conspiracies mostly have some realistic motivations and reasons behind them to explain them. Critical thinking can get you far.

> 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).

Exactly, applying the scientific method to find out the truth works.

> 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:

Any measures fighting a pandemic are by nature authoritarian. That can not be helped and doesn't invalidate the measures.

Covid-19 is just the beginning. The more our world is globalized the more often will we have to deal with new viruses and the like. If we don't find a way to effectively contain these challenges we are looking at a world that I don't find particular worth living in. So you are barking up the wrong tree here.

> 1) people who were here were hurt.

Even this is not proven. The symptoms are very unspecific and might not be related to their work.

> 2) the state department is not helping them.

Maybe because of my answer to 1.

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

Again the whole arguments fails apart of as the 1st point is not proven.

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

#26

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#27

Post by leoc »

The whole story of Polymeropoulos' visit to Russia is pretty odd even aside from his strange symptoms and the apparent attack. https://www.gq.com/story/cia-investigation-and-russian-micro... It sounds more than a bit like the farcical UK police visit to Moscow to investigate Alexander Litvinenko's poisoning https://news.sky.com/story/skripal-poisoning-police-must-be-... , which also saw the investigators becoming mysteriously unwell https://www.itv.com/news/2017-04-12/british-detective-i-was-... . Of course Cameron's UK government was reportedly not really that keen on having to do much about Russian espionage in the UK. You'd have to wonder if the Trump administration was likewise not really all that firmly behind the people they send to Moscow, or if the CIA's Russia experts saw trouble coming and managed to duck out of the asssignment, or perhaps both.

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

#28

Post by bArray »

Are microwave attacks something that is proven to exist? Can we replicate the effects on mice from some distance? Given the fact they pass through walls, this kind of bounds the frequency range the attacks could exist in... I would expect to see radio interference on nearby devices, etc (even if operating on a different frequency).

I wouldn't be entirely surprised if these could be self-manifesting symptoms from people experiencing burnout, etc. I think there is an example where some town put up a cell tower and everybody started complaining about headaches, despite it being turned off. I think all possibilities should be considered.

Honestly, if I were to attack diplomatic officials, it would be far easier to get them to ingest something. A slow acting toxin for example that you wouldn't normally be searching for on a postmortem - especially if all you're trying to achieve is to impair their mental agility to better your position in talks.

I know people working in foreign Countries who purposely pay more money for Western-import food to avoid accidentally doing this to themselves. In poorer locations you cannot be sure where or how the food was grown. For all you know it comes from an old lady's garden who lives next to the chemical processing facility. Locating the source of food in an completely un-tracked market will be near impossible.

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

#29

Post by mensetmanusman »

bArray wrote: post #28

Are microwave attacks something that is proven to exist? Can we replicate the effects on mice from some distance? Given the fact they pass through walls, this kind of bounds the frequency range the attacks could exist in... I would expect to see radio interference on nearby devices, etc (even if operating on a different frequency). I wouldn't be entirely surprised if these could be self-manifesting symptoms from peop…

Yes,

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directed-energy_weapon

2.4 GHz is used to heat your food in the microwave. Pulses that increase the fluence by an order of magnitude or more could probably boil water for a microsecond inside the brain and cause some strange reactions.

What is unproven though, is how one would ever shrink the size of an electronic weapon like this.

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

#30

Post by jchook »

The USSR irradiated the US embassy in Moscow with microwaves from 1953 to 1979. Later analysis showed virtually no health impacts and no increase in mortality.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30676008/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3509929/

Post reply on HN