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Comment by themafia | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure having a microbiologist on to talk about RF energy weapons was a good choice. I also have significant doubts about this "black market Russian RF weapon" storyline. Just because you found an item on the black market doesn't mean it exists in general, is a viable weapon, or can be used to explain "Havanna Syndrome."

There's almost no data with which to draw any conclusions about this.

It seems convenient that this pops up right at the moment the government could use a distraction.

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> Just because you found an item on the black market doesn't mean it exists in general

RF based energy weapons have been a thing since (at least) 2010 [1]. According to folklore, the initial "microwave" cooking appliance was a side effect from some radar researcher noticing either his testicles or some chocolate got warmer than expected.

The interesting thing is, the rumors about the Russians using RF weapons have been circulating for well over a decade. Why has no one gone ahead and installed RF spectrometers and radio direction finding gear in and around sites with suspicious activity?

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

Yeah. For comparison, Novichok makes total sense, it's just a multi-component poison designed to avoid detection and used on dissidents and spies, and there were multiple insider leaks, starting with its creator literally giving interviews and other scientists publishing the research in the open. It's chemically sound, it's not something extraordinary, it's a known quantity. This story, on the other hand, says that for 30 years (including completely different times, the 90's) they arbitrarily targeted the CIA in particular with a weapon of unknown and pretty dubious nature, which was never replicated or even possibility investigated, in what could be described as James Bond-level operations (hilarious given their level of competence), CIA themselves helping cover it, and this incredibly secret clandestine weapon of unknown nature is casually sold in the black market. This is an extraordinary amount of extraordinary things that need to be true at the same time, and the story suddenly re-emerges in a pretty convenient moment.

I'm not necessarily saying this is a lie, but they certainly need extraordinary evidence for all this to be believable.

It's a lot of coincidences falling to place at the same time. Which is very suspicious. And doesn't seem to be well supported outside government agencies or controlled organizations like CBS either. Does feel like someone is jingling the keys.

Tbf, when was the last time the government didn't need a distraction?

I'd apply the same level of skepticism to the bit at the end - the government seems to always be in the state of having use for a distraction so is it really surprising most stories can be labeled as "convenient" when the only alternative is reporting on nothing but what the government is up to today?

The government needs different levels of distractions at different times. For example, when they're stuck in a boondoggle of a war with Iran that's not going nearly as well as they hoped or projected.

I'm sure RF weapons exist. They would need a pretty hefty power supply and heat sinks since microwave transmitters are often inefficient at high gain.

Saying "the russian black market" pretends to have one does not obviate from you the requirement to explain how this implementation is different or unique and overcomes the obvious challenges implied by _basic_ physics.

Much like one still needs to be able to explain how these would actually work instead of just say "it's on the Russian black market" one also needs to be able to explain how the timings are actually related rather than just say "the government does happen to be in yet another boondoggle at the moment".

Otherwise each is just speculation.

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