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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

#61

Post by tediousdemise »

During Obama’s term, US-Cuba relations dramatically improved, with fewer travel restrictions and other dealings. Cuba was on track to having the embargo removed.

The “microwave attack” story came out in mid-2017 when Trump was in office. Travel restrictions came back and foreign relations languished. It’s trivially easy to blame a nation state for an attack, and then use it as excuse to end political support, agreements, or funding.

Cuba has been the repeated target of bullying by the United States for the better half of the last century, despite no recent transgressions other than most-likely-fabricated ones such as these “microwave attacks.”

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

#62

Post by thepasswordis »

tediousdemise wrote: post #61

During Obama’s term, US-Cuba relations dramatically improved, with fewer travel restrictions and other dealings. Cuba was on track to having the embargo removed. The “microwave attack” story came out in mid-2017 when Trump was in office. Travel restrictions came back and foreign relations languished. It’s trivially easy to blame a nation state for an attack, and then use it as excuse to end political support, agreeme…

1) These things started in 2016, before Trump was in office.

2) The US isn’t the only country claiming this is happening.

3) It is still happening, now, in 2021.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana_syndrome

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

#63

Post by nabla9 »

jeltz wrote: post #60
nabla9 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using the same frequency range as your home microwave does.

Which would be very painful when it heats the skin.

Have you noticed how microwave cooking is not warming up the skin any faster than the insides? The wavelength is selected so that it penetrates and warms water molecules. It would cook your insides according to their water content.

Surface of the skin has less water than tissue inside, so you would feel pain beneath the skin.

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

#64

Post by tediousdemise »

thepasswordis wrote: post #62
tediousdemise wrote: post #61

During Obama’s term, US-Cuba relations dramatically improved, with fewer travel restrictions and other dealings. Cuba was on track to having the embargo removed. The “microwave attack” story came out in mid-2017 when Trump was in office. Travel restrictions came back and foreign relations languished. It’s trivially easy to blame a nation state for an attack, and then use it as excuse to end political support, agreeme…

1) These things started in 2016, before Trump was in office. 2) The US isn’t the only country claiming this is happening. 3) It is still happening, now, in 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana_syndrome

> In 2017, President Donald Trump accused Cuba of perpetrating unspecified attacks causing these symptoms.

Although the attacks were hearsay, immediate political actions were taken against Cuban diplomats who were likely working to lift the embargo:

> In August 2017, the United States expelled two Cuban diplomats in response to the illnesses.

Despite zero evidence, Cuba was rapidly blamed in gross political fashion:

> In October 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump said that "I do believe Cuba's responsible. I do believe that", going on to say "And it's a very unusual attack, as you know. But I do believe Cuba is responsible."

Why would Cuba jeopardize its warming relationship with the US? This is textbook propaganda.

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

#65

Post by fzzzy »

vermilingua wrote: post #52
bmicraft wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using longer wavelengths should do exactly that.

But do longer wavelengths act on water in the same way as microwave?

They act on systems of distributed induction and capacitance which are resonant to that longer wavelength.

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

#66

Post by lolc »

tyingq wrote: post #31
Google234 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it actually looks like you can buy them on Amazon for about 30$. I don’t want to doubt but this seems so simple to test that the lack of any direct evidence makes me suspicious. https://www.amazon.com/Electromagnetic-Radiation-5HZ-3500MHz...

The descriptions of the attacks seem to indicate a pretty narrow beamwidth, so you'd probably have to wear it on a helmet :)

At intensities that would injure, you light up the whole neighbourhood with scattered radiation. There's no hiding this attack from a sensor in the vicinity.

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

#67

Post by swiley »

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've honestly thought about keeping one of these in my apartment, I worry a bit about people doing stupid things with microwave ovens.

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

#68

Post by matthewdgreen »

jchook wrote: post #30

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/

I just finished "The Spy in Moscow Station" which talks about these signals. Although this isn't a direct response to your point about mortality, an interesting feature of the Moscow (Microwave) Signal is that it -- considered as a surveillance threat, rather than a health threat -- also received a lot of the same skepticism I'm seeing in this thread.

The TL;DR is that various agencies strongly resisted attempts to dig into why the USSR was directing microwaves at the embassy, despite the fact that the USSR had already been caught placing microwave-powered listening devices inside the building. The book describes an argument between State, CIA and NSA in which the former two mostly wanted to ignore the signals. The belief was (1) that no technology had been demonstrated that these signals could exploit, and (2) even after the NSA cooked up some examples, people refused to believe that the USSR was sophisticated enough to exploit them. (I won't spoil the book by giving away the resolution.)

I'm not offering this as any kind of proof that the current batch of Havana syndrome cases is real: just pointing out that while "we've never seen it before so it probably doesn't exist" can be a reasonable heuristic in day-to-day life, it's not necessarily a great one in the world of spying.

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

#69

Post by dv_dt »

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…

Wouldn’t it be ironic if this was some secret comm equipment that the US is installing in its own embassies

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

#70

Post by jjcon »

tediousdemise wrote: post #64
thepasswordis wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) These things started in 2016, before Trump was in office. 2) The US isn’t the only country claiming this is happening. 3) It is still happening, now, in 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havana_syndrome

> In 2017, President Donald Trump accused Cuba of perpetrating unspecified attacks causing these symptoms. Although the attacks were hearsay, immediate political actions were taken against Cuban diplomats who were likely working to lift the embargo: > In August 2017, the United States expelled two Cuban diplomats in response to the illnesses. Despite zero evidence, Cuba was rapidly blamed in gross political fashion:…

> So, we only began hearing reports when Trump was in office, allowing for a significant planning period.

You are alleging a massive intergovernmental conspiracy, created up by Trump just so he can have some cover to strengthen restrictions on Cuba? No, the US doesn’t need a conspiracy to do that, they can just do it unilaterally.

There are dozens of families that have been affected by these attacks, with varying levels of government experience, from multiple countries, investigated by multiple governments, independent panels, contractors and health professionals. It would take conspiracy on a massive scale to get everyone on the same page… all to do something that can be done without conspiracy and at the snap of a finger. That is hilariously ridiculous, not a single chance that is the case.

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