U.S. does not believe Cuba is behind sonic attacks on American diplomats | Hacker News Reader

U.S. does not believe Cuba is behind sonic attacks on American diplomats

mcclatchydc.com

127 pointsJerry291 comments

I have a "bucket file" of stories I hope get declassified before I die, and this is definitely in it now.

(I'm the trailing spouse to a US diplomat and know some of the people in Cuba -- if anything, the media coverage is underplaying how weird this is.)

Interesting, what other stories are in the list? I want to read about them!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_of_Silence_(device)

Interesting. Are these people permanently damaged or hurt?

(I should clarify: I know some of the State Department staff in Havana; I don't know any of the injured people.)

My understanding is that nobody is entirely clear whether this is permanent or not. Some people have recovered quickly and others are still having lingering effects. Several suffered a concussion, which just doesn't work -- I work for an audio simulation company (think jets and helicopters) and there's just no way audible sound or even infrasound can do this.

OTOH, there is a theory that guided infrasound can do serious tissue damage, which was possibly the cause of Dyatlov Pass[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident

I think the safer bet is that the cause is not sonic and that the sounds perceived are illusions.

In the good old days, we'd have just gotten Mulder and Scully on the case...Those were simpler times...

Agreed

Has anyone taken a serious look at the possibility that the origin could be biologic?

There are numerous drugs that can cause repetitive auditory hallucinations, mild brain injury, and CNS damage. A sufficiently advanced actor could easily try to sophisticate a new substance that would enable this kind of attack without showing up on toxicology screens.

This is one of the most bizarre developments I've witnessed in my life. If it's an attack, it's an entirely new method as far as I understand. Are there any credible, highly possible theories on how this is happening or is it 100% speculation still?

My money is on some stupid miscommunication between services. Someone is operating a secret microwave link that they won't shut down because information/instructions have not circulated correctly.

right? has everyone forgotten occam's razor??

More appropriately, Hanlon's Razor.

(To be an internet pedant)

:thumbsup:

If it is an attack, the question is 'why?'. It does not make sense. There is not much to gain.

I wouldnt be surprised if this is some sort of self-inflicted infection or poisoning issue.

> If it is an attack, the question is 'why?'.

To sour US-Cuban relations. Russia, Venezuela, China, and some others could plausibly be interested in doing it for that reason.

Why would you harm your own people for that? That would not be easy to do. And it is treason. Just for reverting the relationship with the Cubans? There are other, more effective ways to do that, ways that don't require secrecy and harming anyone.

Edit: One explanation can be that the Trump administration itself wants to harm the Cuban relationship regarding embassy business and the health problems are just faked by a few loyal employees, enough people so the government can close the embassy. But that would only harm the business of this one particular embassy. In the political scheme, this does not make any sense.

Isn't Trump Administration really interesses in this too?

Why? because whoever is doing it sees the opportunity.

Our state department and government are weak right now. They are understaffed, and the chances of serious investigation/prevention on this don't seem high.

Why, if you could test out a brand new technology AND eliminate some key foreign service officers from your main competitor geopolitically, why wouldn't you?

This is a crime of opportunity.

No, it does not make sense because personnel can be replaced and security can be increased. There is no lasting win to be gained.

To screw relations between Cuba and US for example.

If one wished to have some degree of control over USA diplomats, one could send them a secret message saying "I will do something bad in Cuba; my password is XYZ". Then later, one could send them demands with the same password. The State Department is probably more susceptible to this sort of coercion than e.g. the "Defense" Department.

Could be retaliation for dead Russian diplomats[1].

[1].http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-diplom...

How would injuring US diplomats help Putin cover up his murders of his own diplomats?

I'm not sure of anything definitive, but a more credible explanation is that it is some type of sonic monitoring trying to spy upon diplomats via laser microphone or something such, which then happened to actually hurt people.

If we're going to speculate, one could speculate that it was an anti-spying device which inadvertently caused these issues.

If you want privacy you can either try to build isolated structures or rooms, or you can try to overwhelm the listener with noise. The US has employed both techniques previously.

What if they were trialing a new defensive (anti-spying) technology that went wrong? The US government has certainly gone strangely quiet on this incident.

If it was a laser microphone (or any microphone that used EM energy to monitor someone) it would require so much energy that you would not only melt whatever you pointed it at but also probably break it.

Why, you only need to measure distance precisely to get the vibrations of a surface which is totally possible with a laser. Laser microphones do exist.

They do exist but the point raised is that for the laser microphone to induce the effects reported the laser would have to contain enough energy such that the laser would instead be so powerful that it vaporized any glass surface it was pointed at and overheat the laser source.

If this is true, why does the count of injured diplomats keep rising? Can’t they just shut the malfunctioning devices off?

...boosting the number of Americans affected this “sonic device” to 25 from 21, with reports of cases occurring in the last several weeks, according to two sources.

Should be pretty easy to prove if these sonic attacks are real + when they happen with the assistance of a device that can record sound. A simple laptop would probably suffice.

Seems like 99% sure this was not the intended outcome of whatever was originally done in that general region by whomever entity was the original author.

I'm decidedly _not_ a conspiracist (being a firm believer in Occam's razor and all), but this does lend credence to some of the "it was a friendly operation gone wrong" and "we already know who did it but have our reasons not to say anything" lines of thought.

The "we already know who did it" is, at this stage, more speculative. Naming parties without full understanding of what's going on can cause it's own damage, and make a diplomatic solution harder to obtain.

The evidence gathered to date (including what they think it might be) has the potential to disclose, or at least insinuate, what capabilities the U.S. has to determine what's going on.

Infuriating as it is, handling it carefully is probably the best course of action here. Often that means having to be coy with what's known until there's a certain degree of certainty.

I think something like this is one of the more plausible explanations... wonder why they're removing embassy staff if they know who did it then. If it's a friendly party, couldn't they just get them to stop? Or maybe it was Cubans spying on us, they stopped after we confronted them, and reducing embassy staff is our way of reducing danger and also letting them know we don't appreciate what they did.

What do you think the purpose of Occam's razor is? Sometimes conspiracy _is_ the most simple and consistent explanation.

Sometimes, but in most cases it's not.

That's a pretty meaningless statement. In most cases of what? Nuclear phenomena? Sure, there is probably no conspiracy to manipulate the laws of physics. But international relations? Are you kidding? Conspiracy is as likely as any other explanation in that case, and shouldn't be discounted as nutjob territory.

Conspiracy by whom, for what benefit?

Once again, meaningless statement. Depends on the situation. For example, a situation with conflicts of interest or other incentives for doing shady things behind the scenes, which is a pretty common scenario in politics and corporate affairs.

Point is that Occam's razor isn't a blunt instrument that eliminates entire classes of theories from all phenomena. Each one must be evaluated individually as to which theories are contextual and consistent. Some call for evaluating conspiracies, some don't.

Some do. But the overwhelming majority of cases don't.

Conspiracy theories are almost never right.

Sadly often neither are official explanations. Which is probably why we get "conspiracy theories".

This might be especially true when the source of the official explanation has skin in the game.

Politics is a hairy business.

You're just repeating yourself without addressing what he said.

Yes I am. The point of contention here is whether Occam's Razor means that you can generally discount conspiracy theories. My argument is that conspiracy theories are almost never right, so you can generally discount them as a whole unless there's specific evidence that makes a conspiracy a plausible answer. And in the specific case of this article, I asked who's supposed to be behind the conspiracy and why, with no answer. colordrops claims that Occam's Razor doesn't mean you should discount conspiracies and that you need to evaluate each one, which is why I reminded everyone that conspiracies are almost never right, with the implication that this means you generally can and should discount them (unless presented with specific evidence implicating a conspiracy).

I like how the article title is "U.S. does not believe Cuba is behind sonic attacks on American diplomats"

Yet the article <title> is "Trump to pull diplomats out of Cuba, but think Havana is behind attacks"

> I like how the article title is "U.S. does not believe Cuba is behind sonic attacks on American diplomats" > Yet the article <title> is "Trump to pull diplomats out of Cuba, but think Havana is behind attacks"

I'm guessing a "does not" is missing from the <title> because the verb "think" isn't conjugated correctly:

"Trump to pull diplomats out of Cuba, but DOES NOT think Havana is behind attacks"

Seems like the article also has problems with negating verbs:

"The Cubans, who called for the meeting, promised they were taking the matter seriously, but raised their own concerns that two Cuban diplomats had been kicked out of Washington despite more proof that the government was [NOT] involved."

Or it's just missing an "s"

> … thinks Havana …

That theory doesn't make sense if you read the article.

Granted. I'm just looking at minimal difference.

Heh, since when does Trump have any clue what’s going on.

I think in this case (and many others), he's being attributed to decisions that weren't made by him. These courses of action are presented to him, if at all.

Administrations are massive things.

I'd suggest since sometime before he entered politics and immediately ran a successful campaign to become president despite no prior political experience. Probably before he went into television and became highly highly successful there without prior experience. I'd probably go all the way back to sometime before he became a billionaire in real estate.

Success does not imply awareness of why it happened, or in fact much of anything. I mean, it’s a joke that he never wanted the job to begin with, instead aiming at inflating his own ego. It’s not even clear he reads memos his own staff writes him. If the man appears to act rationally, it seems to be incidental rather than by design.

Trump is amazing at convincing people to keep treating him seriously, I’ll give him that. What exactly are these assets of his worth billions? What successes has he had? The only thing he’s sold since the 80s is his face. That doesn’t mean there’s anything happening behind it—being the president is more than looking in the mirror.

Last I checked, he’s only avoided being in deep debt to the IRS due to flexible accounting. Of course, when you base your brand on your face, it’s hard to speak confidently about its value at all.... something he continually exploits to inflate his image.

This is basically the conclusion I figured they'd reach. Cuba has too much to gain from a good economic relationship with us to be making "dick moves" like this and we have basically nothing to gain from not having a good economic relationship with them.

My guess: your own spies were monitoring your own diplomats, not dissimilar to what happened to the Senate Intelligence Committee [1], just with injuries this time. I wonder if the CIA disagreed or were concerned with what seemed like a Pope Francis/Obama led initiative to mend relations with Cuba, given the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion, and wanted to see how things were progressing at the diplomatic level.

Would explain why the US has remained quiet and why relations with Cuba haven't soured, at least openly. In a country lacking internet infrastructure, a passive surveillance method makes sense - even if it comes with risks.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/31/cia-admits-spy...

Relevant Snopes article: http://www.snopes.com/do-sonic-weapons-explain-the-health-di...

While it probably isn't a "sonic weapon," I'm not sure how Snopes has authority to disprove it when they have no classified information on the topic or know much about what is going on there in general outside of reports the media has. It doesn't seem anyone but the U.S. government and who ever is perpetrating this (if anyone) has any idea what or why this is happening.

>trust by verify

Snopes has been around as long as I have been on the internet. Their DNS whois is protected. Who are they?

The links/sources in this article don't really prove that Sonic weapons are ineffective. They go back to non-weapons research.(the US government has created such weapons have been proven effective[1])

I want to trust but I cannot verify that their claims are true(that these claims are false)

[1] https://gizmodo.com/what-is-the-lrad-sound-cannon-5860592

WIRED published an article about Snopes (mainly focusing on conflict between the founders) just a few days ago: https://www.wired.com/story/snopes-and-the-search-for-facts-...

Thank you! I never knew.

> Snopes has been around as long as I have been on the internet. Their DNS whois is protected. Who are they?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snopes.com

> who are they?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2016/12/22/the-dai...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4042194/Facebook-fac...

Curiously, Snopes does not offer HTTPS:

https://www.snopes.com/

Some Canadian diplomats have been affected too, which makes it even weirder. Surprised the article didn't mention it.

The assumption I've seen is that this was some sort of eaves-dropping attempt gone awry but why would it occur during the target's sleep when eavesdropping is likely useless unless all the targets talk in their sleep about state secrets?

What if the intent was a false-flag attack to disrupt relations between Cuba and the US?

>What if the intent was a false-flag attack to disrupt relations between Cuba and the US?

Possible, but why make it so weird? Everyone is talking about the "sonic attacks" and no one is talking about damage to US/Cuban relations.

>no one is talking about damage to US/Cuban relations.

You say this but the US authorities have made a specific point of stating they don't believe it to be the fault of Cuba or its government.

For the average American (which is neither you nor I whatever our nationalities) they hear "Americans attacked in Cuba."

Did you read the article? There are specific examples of souring relations. Calls to dismiss Cuban diplomats.

Let the mutual face-saving begin!... in other words. I’m still siding with microwaves in any case.

Interesting. Seems to indirectly confirm the government somewhere believes the attacks happened / are happening. They have refrained to comment that, as far as I know.

I wish they'd stop referring to them as sonic attacks--I think the perception of sonic disturbance is a side effect of something else.

Is uBeam beta testing their prototype in Cuba?

I wonder if there are any already deaf diplomats that would be willing to serve there. That said if they're willing to harm people this way it probably wouldn't be much of a step for them to find other ways to harm US diplomats.

It may be that hearing impairment is only one, and/or the first noticeable, effect of whatever is happening in Cuba.

In analogy to the way damage due to CTE can manifest long after the injury, I'd be concerned about problems that might take longer to surface. The whole thing is quite weird.

(edit to add: It's not clear that ability to hear is a necessary condition for the observed damage. It might simply be a consequence, not a prerequisite for damage.)

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

And the fact that sound was (is?) used to torture prisoners in the Guantanamo complex in Cuba makes this somewhat ironic.

What is the nature of these "attacks"? The symptoms? The circumstances? This article gives very little context.

Prolly some old relic of a spy device thats effected by new cell tech. Hmmm

Russian operatives will be my guess. Just for the record.

Clearly not sonic, most likely microwave

It's because they are witches!

As long as we find a albino and cut them up and eat them all good.

Or we could all learn the term 'mass hysteria' and move along..... perhaps throw in 'moral panic' to the google search while we are there, it wouldn't hurt.

Has anyone considered that this attack could have been done by the large and extreme group of anti-comunist Cubans in order to damage closer relationships between communist Cuba and the US?

Cuban exiles have attacked Cuba before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion

I think that the down-votes with no actual counterarguments kind of go to show that I might be right.

No, it shows that you don't provide any proof for your "theory" (there is not much theory to begin with), and therefore its one of the many conspiracy theories floating around. Occam's razor, please.

Well, there are plenty of people here guessing at who might have done it. I cannot provide any proof. I didn't say that I think they did it. I was just pointing out that the current list of parties to consider: The Chinese, the Russians, the CIA, is incomplete without including anti-communist Cuban ex-patriots. I don't need to provide proof in order to consider a possibility.

Agreed, it is an option to explore.

What I disagree with is the fact you're being downvoted means you are being right. If anything, its more likely a sign you're being wrong (or that your comment is otherwise not welcome). I suggest you don't worry too much about up- or downvotes.

Just a meta though.

Given this is 'false' via Snopes (as expected).... And lets say you buy into the term fake news... Well you don't get much faker than this.

I get people are easily fooled for a short period. Read a news site, it takes a hour or two to think it over. But this story is > days old. It's past mob mentality level.

And if it's happening on this story what other HN stories would it effect..... Stories on morality I guess. This is in part a 'evil Cubans' meme. SciFi, we all want cool tech that breaks the laws of physics. Appeal to authority? We're trusting in the US government officials to not be incompetent? Mysterious... maybe is actually poison seems the next step in the meme's evolution....

As mentioned in the comments Canadians have caught this meme as well. It travels well in the populous, how does one create spaces were these memes are fire walled off?

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