Re: Things are looking better all the time [TERROR ALERT: Cerenkov Blue]
At 09:36 AM 3/27/03 -0800, Tim May wrote: On Thursday, March 27, 2003, at 08:41 AM, John Kelsey wrote: ... However, it seems to me it would be very hard for this news not to leak out. If, say, a nuke or serious bioterror weapon had been found in a major city, a lot of agencies would have had knowledge of it. It seems to me that at least one person would have said something, leaked it to the press, etc., for any of the usual reasons. True. I think it would depend on how it was dealt with. My wife used to work for a state environmental regulatory agency, and when their lab truck showed up someplace to collect samples, it always drew a lot of attention. Obviously, if the NEST people show up at some apartment building in Manhattan wearing moon suits, or if dozens of firemen and policemen are involved, it's going to be hard to keep it from slipping out that something interesting has happened. But if it were handled quietly, a single incident like this might not make the news. And if the "incident" was a terrorist nuke that turned out not to go off, the only evidence might be a soon-discounted warning call to a couple of major newspapers. --John Kelsey, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Things are looking better all the time [TERROR ALERT: Cerenkov Blue]
On Tuesday 01 April 2003 08:50 pm, Neil Johnson wrote: > When I went to work for the University I graduated from. I discovered all > sorts of interesting things and even more when my sister enrolled. > . . . Duh ! I forgot the point was that, if things are properly handled, it's not that hard to keep things quiet for a long time. -- Neil Johnson http://www.njohnsn.com PGP key available on request.
Re: Things are looking better all the time
At 02:06 AM 3/28/03 -0800, Sarad AV wrote: hi, That cannot possibly even happen-by mistake.Al-jazeera is qatar based.They might hit a chinese embassy but not AL-Jazeera. I believe we hit the Al Jazeera office in Afghanistan pretty early in our bombing campaign there. (I read an archived BBC story about it when I was looking for the al-jazeera in english website.) This is a bit of a pattern; we hit television stations in Kosovo and Serbia during our campaign there, as well. So we're unlikely to bomb their main office, but hostile media offices (and the embassies of countries that p*ss us off) do seem to come to a bad end when they're in bombing zones. 1500 turkish troops moved into north iraq-US cannot immediately do any thing about it since flying over Turkish air space is important for them. The tragedy for the Kurds is that they're just not important enough to get the kind of backing they'd need to establish their own state, given the large set of countries that this would offend. So, once again, I expect that we'll leave them hanging when they're done being useful. This is lousy, though not any different than most countries' management of foreign affairs. What was that famous quote from Austria-Hungary? Something like "We will astonish the world with our ingratitude." ... Sarath. --John Kelsey, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Things are looking better all the time [TERROR ALERT: Cerenkov Blue]
John Kelsey wrote: > I wasn't thinking of Al Qaida. There are a *lot* of people who might like > to have a last-ditch deterrent against a US invasion or other action. I can think of a few workable deterrents against US invasion: - ICBMS - an army with a reputation of fighting nastily when attacked - a serious US-based political lobby friendly to the country Russian, China, and Britain have all three. France has one and two halves these days. The logic is that Israel should join the permanent membership of the Security Council - and India is a candidate as well. That's all the permanent members are really, a gang of countries who agreed not to fight each other because they had the nukes, so had to be sure to tell the others when they were going to pick on third-party country in case two of them picked on the same victim and ended up fighting each other by accident. The Security Council was nothing to do with the rule of international law (bye-bye Richard-Might-is-Right-Perle, I hope the rest of the warmongers take the pension-reducing plunge soon) and everything to do with the logic of MAD and carving up the world into spheres on influence. (And North Korea is in the Chinese sphere of influence, which is why the US leaves policing their nukes up to China.)
Re: Things are looking better all the time
hi, That cannot possibly even happen-by mistake.Al-jazeera is qatar based.They might hit a chinese embassy but not AL-Jazeera. 1500 turkish troops moved into north iraq-US cannot immediately do any thing about it since flying over Turkish air space is important for them. Sarath. (Before Al Jazeera is > accidentally bombed off the > air.) > __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop! http://platinum.yahoo.com
Re: Things are looking better all the time [TERROR ALERT: Cerenkov Blue]
On Thursday, March 27, 2003, at 08:41 AM, John Kelsey wrote:
At 08:28 AM 3/26/03 -0800, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
At 06:12 PM 3/25/03 -0500, John Kelsey wrote:
...
>Maybe the FBI caught them and disarmed the
>bombs before they went off.
And they didn't claim any credit? This doesn't jibe with the puffery
one observes.
Well, there's puffery, and then there's trying to avoid panic. Though
I'll agree this looks less plausible after the "all Americans should
have duct tape and plastic to wrap their houses" announcements. But
I'm trying to imagine the fallout (sorry) from announcing on CNN that
they'd just found and disarmed a nuke that had been hidden in an
apartment building in Manhattan. ("Officials said the bomb, which had
approximately the same destructive power as the one used at Hiroshima,
would have killed more than a million people if set off. In related
news, the 200-mile-long traffic jam caused by refugees flooding out of
the city continued today, and the NYSE announced that they would be
moving operations to an undisclosed location in New Jersey for the
forseeable future.")
This is a very good analysis. I had not considered that some WMDs might
have been discovered and dealt with, but then not publicized for the
reasons you describe.
However, it seems to me it would be very hard for this news not to leak
out. If, say, a nuke or serious bioterror weapon had been found in a
major city, a lot of agencies would have had knowledge of it. It seems
to me that at least one person would have said something, leaked it to
the press, etc., for any of the usual reasons.
Such a thing could probably be kept secret for a few days, but not for
months, it seems to me.
Still, in this Orwellian era where the invasion of Iraq is called
"Operation Iraqi Freedom," where the fact that the U.N. and most
countries oppose this invasion results in "the Coalition of the
Willing," and where other doublespeak is rampant, I suppose the
authorities will do what they can to not scare the sheeple.
Rumsfield is "promising" that the reasons for the invasion--Iraq's
banned weapons--will still be found. So far, they haven't been, not in
any of the regions yet invaded, and with no signs of them being
used...the rockets launched at COW and COWait have been Al-Fatah
missile, which were not banned. I don't doubt that there are probably
some undestroyed missiles or even some chemical agents somewhere in a
country as large as Iraq...bookkeeping errors alone would probably
guarantee this. But it is so far looking like the U.S. will have some
serious explaining to do if stockpiles of banned weapons are not found.
The DOD and CIA are probably creating them right now.
--Tim May, Occupied America
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759.
RE: Things are looking better all the time [TERROR ALERT: Cerenkov Blue]
At 08:28 AM 3/26/03 -0800, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
At 06:12 PM 3/25/03 -0500, John Kelsey wrote:
...
>Maybe the FBI caught them and disarmed the
>bombs before they went off.
And they didn't claim any credit? This doesn't jibe with the puffery
one observes.
Well, there's puffery, and then there's trying to avoid panic. Though I'll
agree this looks less plausible after the "all Americans should have duct
tape and plastic to wrap their houses" announcements. But I'm trying to
imagine the fallout (sorry) from announcing on CNN that they'd just found
and disarmed a nuke that had been hidden in an apartment building in
Manhattan. ("Officials said the bomb, which had approximately the same
destructive power as the one used at Hiroshima, would have killed more than
a million people if set off. In related news, the 200-mile-long traffic
jam caused by refugees flooding out of the city continued today, and the
NYSE announced that they would be moving operations to an undisclosed
location in New Jersey for the forseeable future.")
>And for a third alternative, it's quite possible (I don't know how
>likely) that one or more groups have smuggled nukes into the US, planted
them
>in US cities, and offered proof to the US government, as a way of
>establishing a nuclear deterrent. (C.f. Ross Anderson's "Guy Fawkes
Protocol.")
But they've *already* declared their goals in numerous fatwas by now,
what do you want, a UN resolution?
I wasn't thinking of Al Qaida. There are a *lot* of people who might like
to have a last-ditch deterrent against a US invasion or other action.
...
Again, the operational risks with extortion, traced communications, the
faith-based motivations and psyop saavy of Al Q indicate Use It or Lose
It.
Probably true for Al Qaida, but not necessarily for everyone.
--John Kelsey, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Things are looking better all the time
At 09:09 PM 3/26/03 -0600, Neil Johnson wrote: >In a news conference on Tuesday, some general claimed they had located and >"taken out" six sites where GPS jammers were being used. > >He claimed one site had been taken out with a GPS guided weapon. > >"Kind of Ironic" I beleive he said. Well, the satellites were *above* and the jammers *below* so its not that tricky. There's descriptions of the Mk-3 Tomahawk's antijamming ability out there. The proper use of a GPS jammer is *not* CW when you're fighting the US. The proper use is to switch them on when a spotter lets you know about incoming. Preferably you are in a nonbombable area (mosque, hospital, etc) when you switch on, and you promptly move after the incoming goes off. The goal being to increase bad PR, ie collateral damage aka civvy corpses. (Before Al Jazeera is accidentally bombed off the air.)
Re: Things are looking better all the time
Bill Stewart wrote: > > At 04:14 PM 03/26/2003 +1200, Peter Gutmann wrote: > >The RAF used an EFP in 1989 to assassinate the chairman of Deutsche Bank > > I assume that's some Italian or German group's acronym > and not Britain's Royal Air Force? :-) > (Besides, I thought assassinations were usually an SAS > (Special Air Service, not Scandinavian Airlines) thing...) Red Army Fraction (As Germans I suppose it would be something like Rote Armee Fraktion?) Most people called them "faction" in English but they preferred "fraction" as it was meant to imply that they were only a small part of a vast army of workers et.c They weren't, of course. Bloody heck, they even have a web site: http://www.rafinfo.de/ More often called "Baader Meinhof Gang" presumably because Ulrike Meinbhof looked sexier than most terrorists. And yes, http://www.baader-meinhof.com/ exists - though it seems to be a fan site. So now we have assasination groupies.
Re: Things are looking better all the time
hi, They are not working very well or US since the iraqi's are using gps jammers and US are already in a row with russians claiming that they sold it to iraq. Regards Sarath. --- Tim May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Tuesday, March 25, 2003, at 03:30 AM, Ken Brown > wrote: > > > Declan McCullagh wrote: > > > >>> Or perhaps we'll see someone take a > GPS-controlled small plane, which > >>> can carry 1,000 lbs, and turn it into a flying > bomb or delivery > >>> system > >>> for something quite noxious. These planes can be > rented by the hour > >>> at > >>> hundreds of small to medium sized airports > around the U.S. Though I > >>> don't know if the autopilot is configurable > enough to let an attacker > >>> program it to head to a certain altitude at a > certain location and > >>> then bail out via parachute. > > > > Another novel that came out with the idea - and > the first one to > > explicitly mention GPS AFAIR - was "The Moon > Goddess and the Son" by > > Donald Kingsbury from 1987 (incorporating parts > from stories in Analog > > back in the 1970s) which has an Afghan refugee > studying aero > > engineering in the US and setting up light planes > to autopilot an > > attack on the Kremlin. (To be honest when I first > heard the news about > > 9/11 that's what I thought might have happened - > until I saw a TV > > screen I didn't realise they were passenger > planes) > > And of course it was in 1987 that the German > teenager Matthias Rust > flew a Cessna over the border into the USSR and > buzzed Red Square, so > it's not clear who had the idea first. > > (I remember the name but not the year, so I used > Google to find it.) > > The general idea of using "asymmetric warfare," via > RC planes, bombs, > etc., is really not very new. Torching an enemy's > village in the middle > of the night is a time-honored form of asymmetric > warfare, though the > War Lawyers have been trying to force armies to wear > Official Uniforms > and march in Official Patterns. > > > --Tim May > "That the said Constitution shall never be construed > to authorize > Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press > or the rights of > conscience; or to prevent the people of the United > States who are > peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." > --Samuel Adams > __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop! http://platinum.yahoo.com
Re: Things are looking better all the time
At 04:14 PM 03/26/2003 +1200, Peter Gutmann wrote: The RAF used an EFP in 1989 to assassinate the chairman of Deutsche Bank I assume that's some Italian or German group's acronym and not Britain's Royal Air Force? :-) (Besides, I thought assassinations were usually an SAS (Special Air Service, not Scandinavian Airlines) thing...)
Re: Things are looking better all the time
Bill Stewart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >At 04:14 PM 03/26/2003 +1200, Peter Gutmann wrote: >>The RAF used an EFP in 1989 to assassinate the chairman of Deutsche Bank > >I assume that's some Italian or German group's acronym and not Britain's >Royal Air Force? :-) Red Army Faction, a German terrorist group active mostly in the 1970s, now disbanded. Peter.
Re: Things are looking better all the time
On Tuesday, March 25, 2003, at 09:22 PM, Bill Stewart wrote: At 04:14 PM 03/26/2003 +1200, Peter Gutmann wrote: The RAF used an EFP in 1989 to assassinate the chairman of Deutsche Bank I assume that's some Italian or German group's acronym and not Britain's Royal Air Force? :-) (Besides, I thought assassinations were usually an SAS (Special Air Service, not Scandinavian Airlines) thing...) Red Army Faction. --Tim May
Re: Things are looking better all the time
Steve Schear <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >I seem to recall that with sufficient knowledge and commonly available >detonators shaped explosive charges can be configured to hurl heavy >explosive payloads, much like a mortar, with fair accuracy, great distance >or very high velocity. I can't seem to find the reference on-line but I >vaguely recall that a 50kg payload could be accelerated to multi-mach >speeds with a device that could be placed in a car trunk. A poor man's >howitzer. It sounds like you're talking about explosively formed projectiles (EFPs), which are a means of creating high-velocity (several km/s) light projectiles, chiefly useful for armour penetration. Because of the way it works, it can't "hurl heavy explosive payloads" (neither heavy, not explosive). It's been around for awhile, but the first technology demonstrators didn't surface until the 1980s (Germany and France), and it's only starting to be adopted now (very tricky technology to get right). The RAF used an EFP in 1989 to assassinate the chairman of Deutsche Bank (it's typically reported as being "a car bomb", but was actually done by parking a pushbike with a small bag on the back next to the road where the car was to pass. The projectile punched through the side of his armoured limo and killed him, but left everyone else alive. This is one of those feats which, if you had asked experts in 1989, would have told you was impossible to do). Peter.
RE: Things are looking better all the time
At 04:37 AM 3/25/03 +0100, Lucky Green wrote: ... If any terrorists had nukes, why have they not used them so far? Suppose you only have one, it was really hard to get, and you're not sure how much of your US network has been turned, or at least placed under heavy surveilance? Maybe you wait until you are really sure you can succeed before you use it. Alternatively, we have no way of knowing how often terrorists have tried to use nukes, but been stopped one way or another. Maybe the Russians sold them very convincing duds. Maybe the FBI caught them and disarmed the bombs before they went off. And for a third alternative, it's quite possible (I don't know how likely) that one or more groups have smuggled nukes into the US, planted them in US cities, and offered proof to the US government, as a way of establishing a nuclear deterrent. (C.f. Ross Anderson's "Guy Fawkes Protocol.") There are pretty obvious reasons why the US government might not announce either of the last two cases, and why the terrorist group of your choice wouldn't announce "we have a bomb" until they had the thing planted where they wanted it. --Lucky --John Kelsey, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Things are looking better all the time
On Tuesday, March 25, 2003, at 03:30 AM, Ken Brown wrote: Declan McCullagh wrote: Or perhaps we'll see someone take a GPS-controlled small plane, which can carry 1,000 lbs, and turn it into a flying bomb or delivery system for something quite noxious. These planes can be rented by the hour at hundreds of small to medium sized airports around the U.S. Though I don't know if the autopilot is configurable enough to let an attacker program it to head to a certain altitude at a certain location and then bail out via parachute. Another novel that came out with the idea - and the first one to explicitly mention GPS AFAIR - was "The Moon Goddess and the Son" by Donald Kingsbury from 1987 (incorporating parts from stories in Analog back in the 1970s) which has an Afghan refugee studying aero engineering in the US and setting up light planes to autopilot an attack on the Kremlin. (To be honest when I first heard the news about 9/11 that's what I thought might have happened - until I saw a TV screen I didn't realise they were passenger planes) And of course it was in 1987 that the German teenager Matthias Rust flew a Cessna over the border into the USSR and buzzed Red Square, so it's not clear who had the idea first. (I remember the name but not the year, so I used Google to find it.) The general idea of using "asymmetric warfare," via RC planes, bombs, etc., is really not very new. Torching an enemy's village in the middle of the night is a time-honored form of asymmetric warfare, though the War Lawyers have been trying to force armies to wear Official Uniforms and march in Official Patterns. --Tim May "That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." --Samuel Adams
RE: Things are looking better all the time
hi, for every bomb that explodes in U.S,civil liberties will keep comming down.This is not the case in other countries were more bombs are hurled or exploded daily.Though they are less concerned about their citizens,they are concerned of their civil liberties(atleast to some extent). Regards Sarath. --- Bill Stewart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > At 04:37 AM 03/25/2003 +0100, Lucky Green wrote: But no, it's back > to the same old same old, > and so much for civil liberties in America as well. > __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop! http://platinum.yahoo.com
RE: Things are looking better all the time
At 04:37 AM 03/25/2003 +0100, Lucky Green wrote: If any terrorists had nukes, why have they not used them so far? Because they've been able to achieve "Shock and Awe" without them and keep most of the rabble in line by threatening to blow up other nuclear-armed terrorists in mutually assured destruction. Oh, wait, those weren't the terrorists you were talking about One of the things that really frustrated me about 9/11 was that after 45 years of nuclear terrorism and cold war, we'd had close to a decade without anybody threatening to destroy the world, except for occasional small patches of it just to remind everybody to pay their military-industrial-complex dues, and we'd had this nice economic boom (though it was obviously winding down), and while the Bush League was trying to do everything they wanted, even so, things were starting to look like maybe our species could act somewhat civilized for a while. But no, it's back to the same old same old, and so much for civil liberties in America as well.
Re: Things are looking better all the time
Declan McCullagh wrote: > >Or perhaps we'll see someone take a GPS-controlled small plane, which > >can carry 1,000 lbs, and turn it into a flying bomb or delivery system > >for something quite noxious. These planes can be rented by the hour at > >hundreds of small to medium sized airports around the U.S. Though I > >don't know if the autopilot is configurable enough to let an attacker > >program it to head to a certain altitude at a certain location and > >then bail out via parachute. Another novel that came out with the idea - and the first one to explicitly mention GPS AFAIR - was "The Moon Goddess and the Son" by Donald Kingsbury from 1987 (incorporating parts from stories in Analog back in the 1970s) which has an Afghan refugee studying aero engineering in the US and setting up light planes to autopilot an attack on the Kremlin. (To be honest when I first heard the news about 9/11 that's what I thought might have happened - until I saw a TV screen I didn't realise they were passenger planes) A good book which got less attention than it deserved. Contains a brilliant idea for what should have been done in LEO after Mir. I suppose it has been eclipsed in the memory of sf fans both by really happened to the Soviet Union and perhaps also by Mary Jane Engh's "Arslan" (AKA "The Wind from Bukhara") which overlaps in subject matter a little. "Rumsfeld, Blix Barada Nikto!"
RE: Things are looking better all the time
On Tue, 25 Mar 2003, Lucky Green wrote: > If any terrorists had nukes, why have they not used them so far? I don't think they have nukes. Not yet. But now they're seeing plenty of reasons to get them. We're lucky they're poor, low-tech people in general.
Re: Things are looking better all the time
-- On 24 Mar 2003 at 22:05, Declan McCullagh wrote: > I fear that's right. We have substantially increased our > number of enemies capable of causing us serious damage (and > have the requiste means, motive, and opportunity) Observe the marked decline in terrorist acts. Recollect that 9/11 was the second attempt to bring down the two towers and one of many large scale terrorist acts directed at Americans. Since Afghanistan, there have been no comparable attempts. The Australians got a bit of terror for their actions in East Timor, whereupon they threatened the Indonesians that if they did not clean up Indonesia, the Australians would do it for them. Since then, they have had no further significant problems either. All of the terrorists, and most of the protestors, think that if one do not kill innocents, it is a sign of weakness, and they strike at weakness. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG SKftD3iO5jEjgK/DD7/KHtmYPRg6AxRM6VoCCMVd 4EwomPyztP4ywyl/PXmpq8ssvNutxjj3lMHHPmEb2
Re: Things are looking better all the time
At 12:03 AM 3/25/2003 -0500, Declan McCullagh wrote: Someone else pointed out that this has been discussed in a novel (wasn't aware). I hardly mean to say my prediction is unique. It's just one response to the question that the counterterrorism folks must ask themselves all the time: How to delivery a deadly payload of sufficient size to a target that's primarily defended against car bombs? I seem to recall that with sufficient knowledge and commonly available detonators shaped explosive charges can be configured to hurl heavy explosive payloads, much like a mortar, with fair accuracy, great distance or very high velocity. I can't seem to find the reference on-line but I vaguely recall that a 50kg payload could be accelerated to multi-mach speeds with a device that could be placed in a car trunk. A poor man's howitzer. steve "War is just a racket ... something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small group knows what its about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses." --- Major General Smedley Butler, 1933
Re: Things are looking better all the time
On Mon, Mar 24, 2003 at 07:28:41PM -0800, Bill Frantz wrote: > The simplest autopilots just keep the wings level. Almost equally common > are ones that can follow a radio location signal (VHF Onmi-Range (VOR) > usually). Altitude hold is less common, as are autopilots that can follow > an Instrument Landing System (ILS) in both azimuth and elevation. Just got a private off-list note -- or at least that's what it seems to be, since the list wasn't copied and it hasn't shown up here. It made two points: * High end aircraft avionics can be programmed to fly an entire flight from GPS waypoint to GPS waypoint at arbitrary altitudes for each leg. * Fancy interfaces could allow someone to enter data into the autopilot via a radio link (possibly cell phone or wide area pager) for updates on the fly. The defenses against this would seem to be primarily radar and air traffic control. I can't see them being very effective if the target is a civilian government complex or non-governmental building in America's heartland, where general aviation is commonplace and airports would probably be in the close vicinity. As for something like Washington, DC? Well, security measures at College Park airport (inside the Beltway to the northeast) are strict. I couldn't quickly find a map on faa.gov, but I'd guess there are other general aviation airports within 20 miles of attractive targets in the heart of DC, much less if you count suburban ones like Langley or Fort George. If you assume that a plane can fly 200 mph, and the distance to travel is 20 miles, that's not much time for a military response. This is a different question from whether a 1,000 lb payload would be sufficiently dangerous as to cause a catastrophe, of course. Someone else pointed out that this has been discussed in a novel (wasn't aware). I hardly mean to say my prediction is unique. It's just one response to the question that the counterterrorism folks must ask themselves all the time: How to delivery a deadly payload of sufficient size to a target that's primarily defended against car bombs? Yet another reason to move out of DC. -Declan
Re: Things are looking better all the time
Declan McCullagh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Or perhaps we'll see someone take a GPS-controlled small plane, which > can carry 1,000 lbs, and turn it into a flying bomb or delivery system > for something quite noxious. These planes can be rented by the hour at > hundreds of small to medium sized airports around the U.S. Though I > don't know if the autopilot is configurable enough to let an attacker > program it to head to a certain altitude at a certain location and > then bail out via parachute. Or for that matter, it would be extremely easy to outfit a model RC control unit with bigger servos to fly a real plane. And small planes are quite easy to steal as well.
Re: Things are looking better all the time
On Monday, March 24, 2003, at 08:11 PM, Bill O'Hanlon wrote: Both of these ideas get used in Martin Caidin's book "Deathmate"... (If you're old enough, you might remember the "Six Million Dollar Man" TV series. Caidin was the author of the book that was used for that series.) It's a bit old, but Deathmate is quite violent and somewhat topical. It's sure to please some folks on this list. Yep, I'm old enough to have read the novel, circa 1969-71, except that it was called "Cyborg." I know I read it a few years before the TV series, which I only saw a few episodes of (I was in college, and TV was not common for student back then). Joe Poyer was another military/thriller writer of the era. I've been seeing novels by another Poyer lately...I've been assuming it's his son. Walter Wager was another good novelist of the era. Amazon will have details on all of them. --Tim May "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the Public Treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the Public Treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy always followed by dictatorship." --Alexander Fraser Tyler
Re: Things are looking better all the time
On Mon, Mar 24, 2003 at 10:05:24PM -0500, Declan McCullagh wrote: > > I'm still > predicting radio-controlled helicopters (or RC planes, which could carry > a far greater load). > > Or perhaps we'll see someone take a GPS-controlled small plane, which > can carry 1,000 lbs, and turn it into a flying bomb or delivery system > for something quite noxious. These planes can be rented by the hour at > hundreds of small to medium sized airports around the U.S. Though I > don't know if the autopilot is configurable enough to let an attacker > program it to head to a certain altitude at a certain location and > then bail out via parachute. Both of these ideas get used in Martin Caidin's book "Deathmate"... (If you're old enough, you might remember the "Six Million Dollar Man" TV series. Caidin was the author of the book that was used for that series.) It's a bit old, but Deathmate is quite violent and somewhat topical. It's sure to please some folks on this list. -Bill
Re: Things are looking better all the time
On Monday, March 24, 2003, at 07:28 PM, Bill Frantz wrote: At 7:05 PM -0800 3/24/03, Declan McCullagh wrote: Or perhaps we'll see someone take a GPS-controlled small plane, which can carry 1,000 lbs, and turn it into a flying bomb or delivery system for something quite noxious. These planes can be rented by the hour at hundreds of small to medium sized airports around the U.S. Though I don't know if the autopilot is configurable enough to let an attacker program it to head to a certain altitude at a certain location and then bail out via parachute. The simplest autopilots just keep the wings level. Almost equally common are ones that can follow a radio location signal (VHF Onmi-Range (VOR) usually). Altitude hold is less common, as are autopilots that can follow an Instrument Landing System (ILS) in both azimuth and elevation. In theory, one could set up an attack where the plane follows a VOR to the target. If the payload is chemical or biological, dispersing it at altitude might be what is wanted. Otherwise additional equipment will be needed to crash the plane into the ground. I remember hearing that airliners will eventually be equipped with autopilots able to land the planes, with perhaps some assistance from ground controllers. If memory serves, a 767 pilot claimed during a television interview just after 911 that the autopilot on the 767 (and being retrofitted to 747 and 757 planes) is precise enough to actually land the plane at an airport like JFK. To check what's available for small planes, I just risked having GoogleNarc report me to the Thought Police and did a search on "autopilot cessna." It appears that the autopilots available today are capable of doing altitude changes, though not dives into the ground (not suprisingly). This would make it possible for a Cessna owner to bail out at a safe altitude and then have the plane drop in altitude and fly into buildings or a sports stadium. (With obvious variations: detonating a large nail bomb at 300 feet, using a GPS system to trigger the release of a 400-pound jet fuel bomb with impact detonator, and so on.) I'm glad I don't travel much, and not by air for nearly 3 years (with no plans short of a major family emergency to get me in the air). I don't think most of the world cares for our Pax Americana brand of invading and occupying and seizing oilfields, all based on crudely forged CIA documents and splutterings from the inept Colin Powell about how we have to invade Iraq in order to save Iraqis. And I don't think the world is a very safe place. Sure, the chance of being caught in a nail bomb attack or a sarin release is less than the chance of having the Reich Security Forces do a "stop and frisk" and find some banned literature in luggagewhich is exactly why I don't travel. A lot of other people are also choosing to stay closer to home, too. And this is why Mrs. Tom Daschle wants a massive bailout of her airline clients. As Benito Mussolini said, "fascism _is_ corporatism." But as Cathy Young, former libertarian, would put it, "in foxholes there are no believers in free enterprise." --Tim May
RE: Things are looking better all the time
Eugen wrote: > This is dire lunacy. Currently US is perceived as an agressor > by the majority of the world, including the so-called ally > U.K. which has lent more than just its name. You will see an > unprecedented surge in terrorism in the heart of homeland > soon after this campaign is over. These attacks could well be > nuclear, or at the very least result in heavy casualities, > far eclipsing 9/11. Resulting nuclear strike on a random city > somewhere will result in a world wide nuclear arms race. Soon > after we're at the threshold of WWIII, a Gdeath event. If any terrorists had nukes, why have they not used them so far? --Lucky
Re: Things are looking better all the time
At 7:05 PM -0800 3/24/03, Declan McCullagh wrote: >Or perhaps we'll see someone take a GPS-controlled small plane, which >can carry 1,000 lbs, and turn it into a flying bomb or delivery system >for something quite noxious. These planes can be rented by the hour at >hundreds of small to medium sized airports around the U.S. Though I >don't know if the autopilot is configurable enough to let an attacker >program it to head to a certain altitude at a certain location and >then bail out via parachute. The simplest autopilots just keep the wings level. Almost equally common are ones that can follow a radio location signal (VHF Onmi-Range (VOR) usually). Altitude hold is less common, as are autopilots that can follow an Instrument Landing System (ILS) in both azimuth and elevation. In theory, one could set up an attack where the plane follows a VOR to the target. If the payload is chemical or biological, dispersing it at altitude might be what is wanted. Otherwise additional equipment will be needed to crash the plane into the ground. Cheers - Bill - Bill Frantz | Due process for all| Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | used to be the | 16345 Englewood Ave. [EMAIL PROTECTED] | American way. | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA
Re: Things are looking better all the time
On Mon, Mar 24, 2003 at 05:41:09PM +0100, Eugen Leitl wrote: > This is dire lunacy. Currently US is perceived as an agressor by the > majority of the world, including the so-called ally U.K. which has lent > more than just its name. You will see an unprecedented surge in terrorism > in the heart of homeland soon after this campaign is over. I fear that's right. We have substantially increased our number of enemies capable of causing us serious damage (and have the requiste means, motive, and opportunity), while arguably decreasing the number of our allies. Moreover, some of the intrusive laws we have adopted since 9-11 and expansions in government power have increased the danger of attacks on, say, Washington, DC by domestic malcontents. Given that the U.S. has experienced relatively little homeland terrorism so far, compared to other countries like the U.K., it wouldn't take much to mark an "unprecedented surge." That said, I fear you're right -- and it'll take a far more distributed form. I'm still predicting radio-controlled helicopters (or RC planes, which could carry a far greater load). Or perhaps we'll see someone take a GPS-controlled small plane, which can carry 1,000 lbs, and turn it into a flying bomb or delivery system for something quite noxious. These planes can be rented by the hour at hundreds of small to medium sized airports around the U.S. Though I don't know if the autopilot is configurable enough to let an attacker program it to head to a certain altitude at a certain location and then bail out via parachute. -Declan
Re: Things are looking better all the time
On Mon, 24 Mar 2003, James A. Donald wrote: > If the US trys to avoid civilian casualties, this is not out of > fear and weakness. Indeed, when we observe the recent past, it > seems that it is failure to commit sufficient murder that > provokes these attacks. The US does not suffer bad This is dire lunacy. Currently US is perceived as an agressor by the majority of the world, including the so-called ally U.K. which has lent more than just its name. You will see an unprecedented surge in terrorism in the heart of homeland soon after this campaign is over. These attacks could well be nuclear, or at the very least result in heavy casualities, far eclipsing 9/11. Resulting nuclear strike on a random city somewhere will result in a world wide nuclear arms race. Soon after we're at the threshold of WWIII, a Gdeath event. You probably don't want to go there. > consequences from killing innocents, but from its failure to > kill sufficient innocents.
Re: Things are looking better all the time
James Donald wrote... "perhaps the most effectual thing the US could do to prevent future random terror attacks is to round up one hundred million. innocents and slaughter the lot. Everyone loved the commies for doing that, so if the US wants to be loved, perhaps it needs to do the same." What the hell are you talking about? "Everybody"? What "everybody"? You mean a couple of your fellow kooks on some obscure newsgroup? Both Stalin and Mao are now just about universally derided for their butchery. (Did they have a strength or two? Sure...what Dictator wasn't good at SOMETHING?) Stop getting your facts from TV an internet posts, and go read a bunch of primary and secondary sources. Better yet, take a step outside your house every now and then. -TD _ Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
Re: Things are looking better all the time
-- Harmon Seaver: > > > Not inside the cities they can't, not without tons of > > > collateral damage, which will crucify Dubbya and Blair. James A. Donald: > > No one (except the US military which hopes to rule an > > intact Iraq) least of all the protestors, care how many > > Iraqis get killed. Who recollects how many Iraqis were > > killed the last time around? On 23 Mar 2003 at 23:36, Bill Stewart wrote: > I got thrown off of Federal property for holding a sign about > it near the entrance when there was a pro-war rally going on. OK, you recollect how many Iraqis were killed the last time around. However "tons of collateral damage" is not going to crucify Bush and Blair, and to suggest that it would is to treat virtue as weakness. I am enraged whenever I see people speaking as if the US desire to avoid civilian casualties was a form of weakness, a manifestation of weakness and fear This view, this interpretation of US behavior, is so widespread that perhaps the most effectual thing the US could do to prevent future random terror attacks is to round up one hundred million. innocents and slaughter the lot. Everyone loved the commies for doing that, so if the US wants to be loved, perhaps it needs to do the same. If the US trys to avoid civilian casualties, this is not out of fear and weakness. Indeed, when we observe the recent past, it seems that it is failure to commit sufficient murder that provokes these attacks. The US does not suffer bad consequences from killing innocents, but from its failure to kill sufficient innocents. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG Hu6ELr3jUIu3oEIpUP+J4+eT2MmE73JlaP2gGpR3 4KKD7h+egCTl5Lbm/b7SZ67vmhXn3fpWObKHp2b2Y
