Geolocating WSJ's "Failed Rocket" | Hacker News Reader

Geolocating WSJ's "Failed Rocket"

github.com

44 pointssam15820920 comments

Now if you install a few Raspberry Pi's with a cheap GPS and a cheap microphone you could likely use my sound localization project and perform very accurate localization and know for sure in future incidents:

https://github.com/hcfman/sbts-aru

Nice to see you using sound calculations if your analysis. I don't know how hot it was at the time but a simple heuristic to adjust the speed of sound might make a (very slight) difference.

Speed approx = 331.3 + 0.6 * temp_in_celsius

But if you can place at least 3 (Technically 4x, but the best of two solutions will be chosen if you only have 3x) mics around the place, I'm pretty sure that the sound of the explosions could be heard for miles and your should have pretty darn good localization accuracy and be independant from webcam from solely relying on webcam images.

And while you are at it, sync your webcams from this stratum #1 time source to make it more accurate as well.

Easy installation with just one command :) Up in the air within 20 minutes.

The sbts-aru project can also be run on batteries, it doesn't need a network and quickly converges to sub-microsecond time accuracy. A Pi zero would run for 24 hours on a 15000 mAh power bank.

Reporters could deploy a few of these around Gaza and be more able to independantly check the facts.

I think it's really cool that access to tech, services like github, and social media lets individuals create and publicize analyses like this one while showing their work. Independent of the politics surrounding this particular situation and the accuracy of this analysis, it's good that more people from backgrounds outside of defense, government, and journalism have the ability to analyze information and try to get at the truth.

I don't trust sound, it's easily manipulated. Luckily the photos and videos from all sides are identical. Thus it is much easier to compare the crater, visually.

Every documented Israeli crater is deep and wide, a total distraction of all nearby objects. Every documented Hamas rocket crater is shallow and narrow, with minimal distraction of nearby objects.

Hospital's parking lot crater is shallow and narrow. Photos and videos show very little damage to cars near the crater.

And photos can't be manipulated?

If you use sound, the sound timing can come from multiple independant sources and any outliers, i.e. manipulated ones, can be left out. It would be a lot easier to have multiple sound sources for future analysis because line of sight is not needed. It would be pretty easy to deploy a dozen sound recorders around the place and then have many sources of timing data for future analysis. Because it's all TDOA analysis it's maybe a little harder to manipulate, it would need a combined conspiracy.

There are thousands of photos and videos, from many different sources like Hamas, Israel, UK, US, global satellites, etc.

They are all identical. Not even NSA can manipulate this.

Hey don't knock it till you've tried it. I'm not saying don't use photos, what I'm saying is for future events like these there is a tool that can with the greatest of ease provide really valuable insights.

Great post by OP. Particularly sad (and freaked out) that WSJ gets this wrong after having read Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky. (The main premise being the US Gov't manipulates media to spin various narratives to maintain public support).

Of course, Hanlon's Razor (never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity) could also explain this discrepancy.

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