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Comment by rdtsc | Hacker News Reader

> As Cuba works to limit damage to its reputation and economy, its government has produced TV specials and an online summit about its own investigation.

I guess if is deliberate, it might be interesting to look who would benefit from it? It hurts American diplomats but it also hurts Cuba's position. Would stand to benefit from Cuba looking bad or from hurting the improved relationship between Cuba and US.

There was talk of using something like a passive listening device, say something embedded in the walls or furniture that's not powered but has to be activated with a ultrasound beam. Something like The Thing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device) but miniaturized?

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What's interesting is that we don't even know if this is a screw-up or intentional (and it could be both since multiple parties are involved). It really doesn't seem like an acoustic effect (as raised in the article) and may well be a modulated microwave since that would correspond both to the locality of the "noise" and brain effects. Or it could simply be very high powered.

http://www.newsweek.com/russia-us-attack-cuba-officials-6495...

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/13/politics/cuba-us-diplomats-aco...

I fully expect a barrage, but based on your question, cui bono... Russia needs to keep the US separate from Cuba. They want the client state that provides a physical base and influence in the US backyard. Why now is another question, but perhaps because they thought they could get away with it now.

The problem with this analysis is: what does Russia gain by doing this with a sonic mystery weapon? If Russia wanted to divide the US and Cuba by attacking diplomats, wouldn't a sniper be simpler and less obvious? Or paying some Cuban Nationals to physically attack diplomatic staff? Or just use of any known weapon/tool.

Mystery weapons allow for all sorts of deniability. With snipers and stuff there's always a pretty clear starting point for investigators to (attempt to) trace back to the source. That's much harder with this mystery weapon. It's possible that whoever is using has determined that keeping US/Cuba relations frosty is high enough priority to use their 'secret' weapon.

Russia definitely comes to mind as a country who'd benefit from this.

It could be that these were unintended side effects of something else they were trying to do.

Perh they were testing some new surveillance or countersurveillance tech but things didn't work out as planned, snafus and of course they got outed by the obvious effects or side effects.

It would be hard to believe the resulting effects were deliberate. The actions yes, but not how they worked out.

Venezuela, China and the Russia come to mind.

Cuba is an incredibly undervalued asset. They have a well educated population, resources and are a political gateway to Latin America, which is an incredibly valuable, undervalued market. When Cuba finally opens up the economy, they are going to be an incredibly strategic target for all of the global power blocs.

North Korea seems to be more likely. If you want to make a statement you can attack an embassy from a country that is both communist and also sanctioned. The implication of the demonstration is that this could be deployed within the US. NK can’t wage a conventional war, but they can wage a guerrilla war against US citizens around the world.

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