Havana syndrome: 'directed' radio frequency likely cause of illness | Hacker News Reader

Havana syndrome: 'directed' radio frequency likely cause of illness

theguardian.com

67 pointstomduncalf76 comments

All this CIA money and nobody can find a spectrum analyser? Or just borrow some FCC guys and go listening?

This reminds me of the Gatwick drone hysteria where nobody proved there was ever a drone.

The likelihood that they don't have sigint equipment on site is fairly slim, anything about this that becomes public is because someone finds it useful. It's not impossible no one spotted it, but the kind of technology they had in the 50s and 60s alone makes me doubt it.

It can take years and years for any information to become "definite" even if the evidence is already public.

For example: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16614209 the Russians sat on it for a while IIRC, then the British government took half a decade to acknowledge any funny business.

Re Gatwick, they arrested someone but didn't have enough evidence and they were let go rather publicly...but it's worth saying that the police had only weak evidence in that specific suspect. I don't think they released the evidence but I've been told some of it from someone close to it. To me it seemed weak on its own without a confession which is probably the reason why they arrested them.

Some evidence doesn't mean no proof it's just not enough to be certain.

It's also possible that there was no drone too, but the cops were all working as if there was.

> I don't think they released the evidence but I've been told some of it from someone close to it

Do you have a cop friend that shares information on people released without charge?

Nope, it could well be friend of a friend type of Chinese whispers thing. I can't remember the details now anyhow but I do remember my response as being a kind of "hmmmmm that's not really enough"

Edits: reading the newspapers again it does feel like that it's the same stuff they reported on, nothing really extra or new or unreleased.

I also note that the guardian published an article about the drones 5 days ago!

Guardian longread: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/dec/01/the-mystery-...

Couple awarded £200k for wrongful arrest: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/14/gatwick-dron...

You can go hunting for the case on Bailii if you like, but what that verdict means is not only that the evidence was weak but it was inadequate to even justify an arrest.

The investigation took on a life of its own, and ultimately the police felt they had to arrest someone.

From the report

"The most distinctive clinical aspects of the illnesses were the nature of the onset and the initial features: the sudden onset of a perceived loud sound, a sensation of intense pressure or vibration in the head, and pain in the ear or more diffusely in the head. Most individuals reported that the sound or these other sensations seemed to originate from a particular direction and were perceived only when the individual was in a specific physical location"

The directed radio frequency hypothesis seems quite plausible.

Here's a pair of twitter threads detailing why this seems like unsubstantiated nonsense, one posted after this was announced and one with access to the report.

https://mobile.twitter.com/weinbergersa/status/1335096557079...

https://mobile.twitter.com/weinbergersa/status/1335304431756...

Just a ton of hot air blown for no purpose.

The hypothesis that both China and Cuba used the same weapon targeting US diplomats seems incredibly unlikely.

No but them both using the same physical principle seems reasonable, especially given that the US used this as well. The purpose is to store passive electronics (say, for eavesdropping) with a frequency specific RLC circuit providing power in the walls, when they're built. These cannot be found by spy detector gadgets because except at one frequency there's almost nothing to be found (there is a "passive cavity", which will not easily be identified as a spying device but can be used to eavesdrop, and more modern versions are the size of an rfid tag, 1/4th the size of a grain of rice is quite doable). They need remote power, however. So you need to direct something at them strong enough to power the circuit, which then sends the data back, and you need to do this from a few hundred meters. There's technical reasons (easy availability of generators) why you want(ed) to do this with microwaves.

https://www.eetimes.com/eavesdropping-using-microwaves-adden...

> These cannot be found by spy detector gadgets because except at one frequency there's almost nothing to be found

Doesn't RF spectrum analyzers exist that could be employed for this purpose?

This also reminded me of a paper I read about some years ago, seems like a great use case for it:

- Drawing inspiration from nature to build a better radio: New radio chip mimics human ear, could enable universal radio

[1] https://news.mit.edu/2009/bio-electronics-0603

Not touching the rest of their comment, but I think they mean "except at one [illumination] frequency": that is to say, they emit nothing until you transmit them energy at a specific (usually microwave) frequency, and then they reflect/modulate it back out, carrying the audio data. They are passive/unpowered otherwise.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)

Any spectrum analyzer with a tracking generator (TG) could be used to find one. Sweep the spectrum with the TG off, save the waveform as a reference. Then turn the TG on, measure the return strength, watch for where it jumps above the reference. I've got a device capable of this as a hobbyist (Siglent SSA3021X-TG). Such bugs are undetectable by cheap equipment, but we've known about them for decades and any competent counterintelligence team will be able to spend the extra 2-3 thousand dollars for a good detector. It's chump change.

Maybe the Chinese diplos in Cuba did

A misconfigured device used by the diplomats might be a bit more likely.

It references a report, yet no link to said report?

https://www.nap.edu/catalog/25889/an-assessment-of-illness-i...

The State department started talking about the report before it was published, which prompted the first twitter thread. The second thread links to the report in the first tweet.

I can possibly believe it, just because similar RFID using high power sources are known about, from the original ‘the thing’ by Theremin in 1945, to stuff exposed by Snowden like https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/01/ctx4000_nsa_e... and https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/03/ragemaster_ns... However, any potential substance to this will always get lost behind the anti-5G tinfoil brigade, let alone propaganda and spycraft, so we’ll never know the truth.

Perhaps because of the tinfoil brigade (people want to put down any threads conclusively, associating them with lunacy is an effective strategy), I haven't been able to conclusively find out if directed or 'strong' radio signals can be simply noticed. I don't mean the signal is harmful, although an unexplained sense causes distraction and stress. I have read the WHO report, but at some point it kind of trails off.

The reason I ask … is I have noticed a sense of pressure and other commonly called out symptoms when turning on new wireless gear. The first time I noticed this, before I was aware of specific concerns, was with a first gen wifi WAP. It still happens, but since I'm now aware of the supposed phenomenon other factors may be prevalent.

Going further down the rabbit hole, different people are measurably sensitive to different things[1]. It could be that some people notice these type of linked low level sensations more.

Then again, I haven't methodically gone further into the rabbit hole and just try to see if I can notice a new device being powered up in a blind test. The most likely cause is, I guess, background tension about powering up a new device (I lived though pre-21st century gear when things rarely "just worked") gets subconsciously amplified into noticing a background physical sensation that was already there (I have mild tinnitus, and in general the body is a dynamic smorgasbord of information).

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olfaction#Genetics

> Then again, I haven't methodically gone further into the rabbit hole and just try to see if I can notice a new device being powered up in a blind test.

There is a well known mechanism by which it might be possible for you to notice a new device being powered up: coil whine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coil_whine). It was very common in the CRT era (some people could instantly tell whenever a television set was powered on), but still persists today (for instance, it's a known problem on some laptop models).

Cheap electronics, particularly with switch mode power supplies can be pretty bad for magnetostriction in transformers/inductors or piezoelectric effect in capacitors leading to these high pitched noises. When optimising for the cheapest borderline in spec components to get the bill of materials down this is even more likely. When these noises are present they can be extremely difficult to track down where they are coming from in a room

> There is a well known mechanism by which it might be possible for you to notice a new device being powered up: coil whine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coil_whine).

There are other known (though less common) mechanisms, notably RF reception through dental fillings or bridgework. While the barrier to actually hearing intelligible radio broadcasts is pretty high, simple awareness of a nearby transmitting device is... less unlikely, and might exhibit as something like referred pain, or a vague sense of pressure, or be mistaken for tinnitus.

I don't have fillings or similar, but something like coil whine could certainly be a factor. The question then becomes, does coil whine have any adverse effects, like loss of sensitivity in its spectrum, or via distraction?

> The reason I ask … is I have noticed a sense of pressure and other commonly called out symptoms when turning on new wireless gear.

As do I. But no one ever wants to believe you. If I am in close proximity of a WiFi router as example: I get block-headed and pulsing-zap feeling above my ears. Hearing deteriorates causing my hearing to go all tinny.

I've mitigated it by turning my WiFi router transmit power to half which helps but doesn't help in office environments where the router is mounted above or if I am round at someones home.

Yes, I notice the tinny hearing effect, and something specific to the sensitive nasal membranes (basically my nostrils feel like they've dried up). I have also turned down the power of any transmitters that are close to where I sit. But I'm also a nerd so am surrounded by equipment, with at least eight pieces of wireless equipment in my office.

A part of me wonders if by denying this sensitivity, I'm shutting that sense out, regardless it still has a background effect. If it exists at all, which is the other problem (I can at least claim to be a critical neurotic).

I am strongly reminded of The Thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_%28listening_device%...

The book "Spycatcher" by Peter Wright documents fairly intensely the battle to both analyse and counteract the thing, and generally combat Soviet signals intelligence.

The latter parts of the book are very interesting too, e.g. Wright questioned Anthony Blunt intensely. An insight into the game of psychological cat and mouse played between an aristocratic traitor and a working class intelligence officer cleaning up the mess.

The veracity of his allegations about Roger Hollis is uncertain to this day, however the official line taken by MI5-approved sources is fundamentally flawed. I'm about 70% convinced, personally.

From a linked article:

Acoustic waves have never been shown to alter the brain’s white matter tracts, said Elisa Konofagou, a biomedical engineering professor at Columbia University who is not involved in the government’s investigation.

“I would be very surprised,” Konofagou said, adding that ultrasound in the brain is used frequently in modern medicine. “We never see white matter tract problems.”

It could be environmental and maybe other locals are affected as well. But since the U.S. does this to other countries all the time, they suspect foul play.

While acoustic energy has been floated as a possibility in prior reports, the article here is talking about RF.

>In addition to directed radio frequency, Saturday’s report left open “the possibility of multiple causal factors including psychological and social factors”.

The report remains inconclusive.

Wouldnt it be trivial to detect? Trying to link the reported symptoms to this instead of actually measuring it seems like guesswork

Perhaps not if it were a single, directed pulse. It's hard to detect one off events that happen at unpredictable times.

An attack on country's ambassador, is an act of war...

This is being downvoted, but yes, absolutely. If you could prove that country x had pointed an energy weapon at your diplomats you’d have a pretty unassailable _casus belli_. Assuming the source of this is an unfriendly state, they’re playing with fire.

Not to mention open season on their own diplos. I thought certain things, like psychical harm, was off the limits for spy agencies. The rest fair game.

Makes zero sense that a rational country would do this. A large country risks tit-for-tat, a smaller risks the Pentagon testing hundreds of cruise missiles and bombs on them. Plus sanctions.

Maybe this is too cynical, but I think the only thing spy agencies consider off limits is getting caught. There are plenty of assassinations, torturings, etc that have been attributed to spy agencies. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods

> The proposals called for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or other U.S. government operatives to both stage and actually commit acts of terrorism against American military and civilian targets,[2] blaming them on the Cuban government, and using it to justify a war against Cuba. The possibilities detailed in the document included the possible assassination of Cuban immigrants, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas,[2] hijacking planes to be shot down or given the appearance of being shot down,[2] blowing up a U.S. ship, and orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities.[3] The proposals were rejected by President John F. Kennedy.[4][5][6]

I don't get it. What frequencies are we talking about and what power are capable to interact at this level with human bodies? And wouldn't these impulses interact with electronic equipment first and foremost?

I would guess ultrasonics or low frequency radio waves that are projected from multiple directions to converge on a location where the individual waves amplify each other, likely generating a dissonant lower frequency that resonates with the sensory structures of the human inner ear.

Ultrasonic has a wavelength of 100 m - 1 km. Even if there were multiple sources, the peak area should be large.

Also, neat frequencies are only made from mixing: a nonlinear operation. Most natural nonlinearities come from exciting resonant modes in objects in the path that absorb/retransmit.

I think you are off about 3-4 order of magnitude. 30kHz is about 1cm in air.

In free space:

lambda = c / f

lambda = 3E8 [m/s] / 10E3 [1/s] = 3E5 [m]

You’d be right for acoustic waves, but we’re not talking about those.

Maybe it was at hearing frequencies, but then it would have made electronic circuits emit sounds. I just can't figure this out in any reasonable way. There was another theory about ultrasound sounds used as rats repellent which would have created lower frequency sounds due to distortion. I find that one more credible.

Acoustic infrasound also seems like a good candidate. There are actual studies about its effect on humans. Not everyone is affected, but the symptoms of sensitive people are similar. It’s even been weaponized by the US DoD!

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/china-turns-ladakh-battle...

dunno, but some sources are saying it's being used more widely, and recently.

That's a very different frequency tho!

Finally the tinfoil hat comes to good use. But would it even help?

Apparent (can't find the reference now) it would attenuate the signals, make them stronger. You'd need to build a Faraday cage around yourself. Add some filtration and you're ready for the 21st century.

I thought this was proven to be caused by insecticides they applied too close to humans. Whatever happened To that story?

Good question, the working theory that the pesticides being used nearby were acting as a cholinesterase inhibitor in the victims. Occam's razor pulls me towards this theory.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191003111753.h...

Isn’t this what they thought it was ages ago? Still seems to be just as much of a mystery as when I first read about it.

Would be interesting to know how much energy is used. Especially to debunk the wireless skeptics. I mean a tap on the back is something different than a baseball bat to the back and I assume that's a similar ratio at play here.

But, but... But hacker news already told us years ago it was cicadas not directed frequency used by Russians on US diplomats.

Stop ascribing sentience to a hetrogenous grouping of individuals. I'm sure if we went back to the threads you're referring to, we'd see a similar multiplicity of views to those displayed here. You make yourself sound like you have a victim complex.

Maybe they just have nothing interesting to say?

But yeah, it's annoying on a lot of levels, one that you mentioned and secondly, this matter is far from settled. I would think sarcastic gloating would be bad form.

I hate this trope on Reddit and I hate it even more here.

It's be good to block people who believe stories like this but then think 5G conspiracies are crazy.

Crazy people are interesting at least.

Inconsistent people are just boring.

It's CIA UFOs or Mass Hysteria. Chose one.

I'm genuinely curious if your comment is implying you disbelieve this or do believe in 5G conspiracies. If you disbelieve this then it would be great to hear your alternative theory, or at the very least your reasoning on why you don't believe this one.

Maybe the commenter simply believes that it might not be crazy to exhibit concern for something that's known to be dangerous enough weaponise, is invisible, silent and being deployed in concentration all over the world including throughout your own neighbourhood and living complex.

Sure, similar things could be said for electricity, and many other beneficial things - even water. But the same can also be said for things that were said to be safe - by the same sources; industry and media - and yet ended up causing great harm.

The difference is that we know what power 5G is used at, think about it for more than a second.

Your WiFi doesn't microwave you does it.

^ The comment history on this one is an interesting read.

How bizarre, I'd been led to believe wireless energy was completely harmless; safe to use in the home, upon ones person daily and even distribute randomly in concentrated areas en masse without coordination.

And further, I thought I was in the right that anyone claiming otherwise was paranoid and misinformed.

Oh, look, this information is even coming from the same news services that previously told me it was completely safe.

It's almost like the X-ray thing all over again. Or smoking. Or DDT. Or...

No, it's the scientists who are wrong!

Wireless "energy" worldwide doesn't even get close to exposure limits, let alone be medically harmful in any measurable way.

Are you serious? Do you know the difference between a milliwatt and a megawatt?

Yes, and do you know the difference between science and conjecture? Practice and theory?

Done any research into people who are medically hyper-sensitive, sometimes at the milliwatt level, to RF energy?

Is it possible that the cumulative effects of compounded milliwatts could potentially have harmful effects, that have yet to be sufficiently studied or understood?

Maybe.

I'm not at all suggesting there is a massive conspiracy to do whatever to everyone by deploying 5G or Wifi or whatever else. But I am saying that "move fast and break things" is an irresponsible modus operandi when the things might be us.

The race for faster and make more money does NOT have a good history of safety for us, nor the planet. Proceed with caution, and value those who doubt. What have you got to lose? Your Netflix buffering 2 seconds faster?

And you think I'm crazy?

research into people who are medically hyper-sensitive

There has been research - these people don't exist.

https://www.who.int/teams/environment-climate-change-and-hea...

> research into people who are medically hyper-sensitive

> There has been research - these people don't exist.

OTOH, RF reception through dental fillings or bridgework is a bit more plausible.

Or they do, are rare, and haven't yet been reliably identified: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31640707/

The fact that the "new name" (IEI) seems to ignore/discredit the primary claims of the sufferers at the outset, and that a multi-billion (trillion?) dollar industry would somewhat prefer these people don't exist, I remain skeptical of recent studies. (A view no doubt also biased by personal experience.)

That older studies show the effect, and newer ones don't isn't a smoking gun, but it is a cause for skepticism.

At least, one thing almost all studies agree on is "more research is required".

Your link does not support that - whilst it admits the possibility that the effects "must be very weak or affect only few individuals" it does not suggest that "more research is required", and suggests that other environmental factors or the nocebo effect is to blame. I read the last sentence of the conclusion as suggesting that researchers stop wasting their time with false reports due to poor experimental setup.

You have the need for scepticism round the wrong way. Scepticism is needed when dealing with claims that some humans can detect radio frequencies, despite no single human that has been tested being able to demonstrate such a skill, and no proposed mechanism for how this should be possible.

As I explained, most of the research indicating positive results is old (meaning before the 70's). Though there were some in the 90's (eg, William Rea et al. https://eloverkanslig.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/William... )

But set that aside that for a moment. Consider that it's well-established that EMF can and does affect human tissue, and it's also well-established that some humans are extraordinarily sensitive and susceptible to harm from tiny doses of just about anything you can name (versus "normal" people who aren't).

Therefore, I have no idea why ordinarily intelligent people will readily believe EMF/RF hypersensitivity to be completely impossible.

For often-overlooked background in EMF research and health effects, here is a comprehensive list of 2300 (pre-70's) studies: https://www.emfanalysis.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Naval...

You might also consider US NTP's study on cellphone radiation.

> Is it possible that the cumulative effects of compounded milliwatts could potentially have harmful effects, that have yet to be sufficiently studied or understood?

Yes. It's possible but isn't the general understanding that it's extremely unlikely?

Many, many things are possible but some criteria has to be applied to decide which ones we can spend time on investigating. Werewolf research is currently massively underfunded for good reason.

Yes, I would generally agree. But I think it's fine, and justified to investigate the (many) claims of EMF sensitivity. People having a seizure because they walked past someone eating peanuts may have seemed insane when it first came about, and while I have no idea of the history, it's easy to imagine that nut may have been cracked only finally by someone crazy enough to hypothesize such a thing. I have a friend who will die if their partner kisses them after drinking a glass of milk - the human body can at times decide to do extremely counterproductive things based on things ordinarily considered "safe".

(I love the werewolf research line, definitely stealing that for when I'm on the other side of this argument.)

My mother claimed to be sensitive to WiFi and feel sick when it’s on. She would often power it off and claim she felt better. My sister lived with her at the time and when I visited, complained she could not use the Internet most of the time. So I hid the station ID but left it on. Told mom the WiFi is off on the router.

Guess what? She stopped complaining about feeling it or feeling sick from it. I don’t know if she eventually found out it was on the whole time (from my sister), but she now uses WiFi herself and has even asked me to help fix it when it was down.

Perhaps some people are just sensitive to SSID broadcasting? ;)

I can well understand this being true. Without discounting it, I've also had roughly equivalent, but opposite experiences, with flight mode and sleep.

How did you get to this site without some basic understanding of wireless technology?

I agree, most people dismiss claims of harm because they themselves are not personally affected by it ( example perfumes, allergies). Or do not see the immediate effects of it. ( eg. DDT ). Greed,ignorance and mostly stupidity plays a role here. Further they turn the tables and ask for proof of harm of the technology in question, instead of having to prove proof of harmlessness (which can be done but they do not do it).

>It's almost like the X-ray thing all over again. Or smoking. Or DDT

History repeats very reliably.

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