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‘Havana syndrome’ and the mystery of the microwaves

bbc.co.uk

11–20 of 67 posts

Re: ‘Havana syndrome’ and the mystery of the microwaves

#11
That article was much more informative than I thought it would be, there's some interesting background on previous public research on the topic of microwaves, but what was completely new to me was the fact that such cases go back decades.

Slight off topic, but I do see a bit of a parallel between medical teams claiming that those are psychogenic illnesses and the way "long covid" has been considered by some practicians. There's a bit of "if we can't measure it, you must be (unconsciously) making it up". It's rationally convenient.

In the "Havana Syndrome" case, the article claims that some blood markers have been found recently that correlate with brain damage (as long as measurements are done immediately), which certainly helps. But the mix of secrecy inherent to diplomacy and classical governmental bureaucracy makes considering it psychogenic a very satisfying solution to push the problem aside for years.

Re: ‘Havana syndrome’ and the mystery of the microwaves

#13
post #5
post #4

The biggest mystery to me is why the hell someone would do this. What are they gaining? Are they trying to frame someone else? Just disrupt operations? For the spy vs spy lulz? Second biggest mystery is how they haven't just triangulated these. Someone in signals intelligence told me once that signal jamming is not a big problem on the battlefield because a signal jammer is also a bright RF beacon that says "shoot mi…

Many possible reasons. If Russia is behind this, it's a great proof of concept test of low traceable weapon that can target and disable high value targets of relatively high profile.

Testing new weapons on people whose job is to be paranoid is not a very smart thing to do.

Re: ‘Havana syndrome’ and the mystery of the microwaves

#14
post #5
post #4

The biggest mystery to me is why the hell someone would do this. What are they gaining? Are they trying to frame someone else? Just disrupt operations? For the spy vs spy lulz? Second biggest mystery is how they haven't just triangulated these. Someone in signals intelligence told me once that signal jamming is not a big problem on the battlefield because a signal jammer is also a bright RF beacon that says "shoot mi…

Many possible reasons. If Russia is behind this, it's a great proof of concept test of low traceable weapon that can target and disable high value targets of relatively high profile.

There are only stupid reasons to test a secret weapon in the exact place you want to secretly use it later.

So these aren't intended as tests, they are either intended as attacks or else just something that USG employees get for other reasons.

Re: ‘Havana syndrome’ and the mystery of the microwaves

#16
post #4

The biggest mystery to me is why the hell someone would do this. What are they gaining? Are they trying to frame someone else? Just disrupt operations? For the spy vs spy lulz? Second biggest mystery is how they haven't just triangulated these. Someone in signals intelligence told me once that signal jamming is not a big problem on the battlefield because a signal jammer is also a bright RF beacon that says "shoot mi…

Maybe it’s currently just a test to see if it works & can be gotten away with. Does anyone know how powerful it would have to be and therefore how mobile it could be?

Why would you test it this way? And to be clear, "this way" means all over the world in many different places but always from afar and usually without any obvious way for the distant operators to know what the effects are.

Surely you could either test it domestically or against low profile targets in situations where you could closely study the effects.

Re: ‘Havana syndrome’ and the mystery of the microwaves

#19
Maybe somebody was playing with the current or future generation of the portable continuous wave generator we know the NSA has...Things got out of hand? Surely there is one deployed in each Embassy?

See as of 57 min and 32 sec:

https://cdn.media.ccc.de/congress/2013/mp4-web/30c3-5713-en-...

Edit: In case you missed the detail...From the slide shown at 58 min and 35 sec notice it says up to...1 Kilowatt

Re: ‘Havana syndrome’ and the mystery of the microwaves

#20

Where’s the part where they send a device to detect microwaves or sonic waves, and find them? How come it doesn’t occur to journalists to ask this? As per the article, they found the signal in Moscow, and there weren’t even symptoms to prompt them to do so. Another commenter mentioned “triangulation”. It’s less than that. There is no reported observation of a signal of any kind. History Channel “ghost hunters” are mo…

Yep, detecing microwaves is easy, and the equipment cheap and available to everyone (relatively cheap, compared to other stuff embassys buy). Depending on the frequency, it should be detectable even with $10 rtl-sdr sticks with direct sampling. I'm fairly sure that most electrical engineering students could find out if their dorm rooms were targeted by microwaves, so why not the embassy of one of the richest and most powerfull countries in the world?
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