Michael Hastings Sent Panicked Email Hours Before Car Crash
slate.com
slate.com
The car has stability control, traction control, ABS, EBD, brake assist and three-point pre-tensioning seatbelts. If you've ever driven a modern BMW, Mercedes or any other premium European vehicle than you'd know it's impossible to crash these things unless you honestly wanted to crash them. I am pretty sure it has been standard on most cars in this price bracket for a while now to respond to impacts by shutting off fuel, disconnecting battery terminals and unlocking doors. It varies from model to model, but most premium cars react to emergencies by cutting off as many points of danger as possible. Something doesn't add up here.
Was he drunk? Was he poisoned with a cocktail of drugs that perhaps made him lose concentration and crash into a tree? A new 2013 Mercedes don't just malfunction and crash killing its occupants so easily. They build these cars to withstand a lot of impact, this isn't the movies, new cars don't just crash and explode on impact. You hear of gruesome accidents everyday in vehicles, but you rarely hear of them exploding, mangling in a ball of metal and plastic yes, but rarely exploding. Is there CCTV footage of the minutes before he crashed showing perhaps what happened?
Perhaps a recreation of the accident might help shed some light on what really happened. A computer simulation I am sure would be more than enough, coupled with CCTV footage and you should have a pretty close to accurate simulation of how it all went down and how the car would fare.
If the FBI were interviewing close friends and family, someone needs to come out at least dispelling the suggestion he went crazy or was suffering from paranoia. Because at present, there's nothing to suggest foul play other than speculation. And as usual, we all point fingers and call someone crazy when they claim the FBI is watching them and after all of this PRISM controversy, claims like that don't sound as crazy as they once did...
In this case the alternate reality is that it is "impossible" to crash recent model year Mercedes unless you intend to. This is obviously preposterous since it's not hard to find reports of such crashes with 5 minutes on Google.
I know it's common for cars to slice down the middle and kill their occupants, but exploding and incinerating Hastings inside to the point they have to identify him by his dental records at least warrants a closer look. I'm not saying foul play is to blame here, but some questions need to be answered. As is common in unexplained plane crashes, the debris should be tested for explosive residue just as a precaution.
Another interesting question is why was the engine found over 100 feet away from the car? When a car crashes isn't an engine pushed back into the cabin, not thrown forwards?
What?
1996 Ford Mustang GT 0-60 mph 6.7 Quarter mile 15.1 1999 Ford Mustang GT 0-60 mph 5.4 Quarter mile 13.9 2006 Honda Accord EX (V6) 0-60 mph 5.8 Quarter mile 14.3
Only when they re-designed the GT in the late 90's did it get faster - which isn't really relevant, I was making the general point that modern cars have gotten a ridiculous amount of power, often in a lighter vehicle (e.g. the 2006 honda accord I drive).
> Unfortunately horsepower != speed
Horsepower doesn't give a direct comparison across vehicles, but generally speaking, yes horsepower = speed.
> I have that car and I can attest to it not being incredibly fast.
Perhaps you dont have the v6 manual? Any car that gets to 60mph in under 6 seconds is fast. And again - my comparison with the mustang GT was to paint a picture - we all recognize that as a fast car, and are perhaps surprised that modern sedan's are as fast - and often faster, while typically having a smaller (i.e. lighter) engine. Hell, look at the list of Mercede's on the same site (http://www.zeroto60times.com/Mercedes-Benz-0-60-mph-Times.ht...). There's cars on there coming in the 4 second range.
So - just wanted to point out that without more details, the story isn't complete, and perhaps not as surprising as first-pass suggests.
I am not fuelling conspiracies, I am just trying to say that we should always dig deeper into an unexplained situation like this. Especially one surrounded by controversy. I would actually be interested in hearing what Mercedes has to say about the accident and perhaps even seeing Mercedes trying to replicate the crash using the same car and known data. Because controversy aside, this doesn't bode well for Mercedes' image especially considering Princess Diana suffered a similar fate in a Mercedes at similar speeds, only her Mercedes didn't explode that I am aware of. This is a potential PR disaster for Mercedes, regardless of speeds or safety features of the car perception is what sells car and if a modern Mercedes is perceived as being a moving exploding bomb which isn't a good image for any company to have regardless of what the real facts are.
It certainly can be, but considering that he hit a tree -- a narrow object, not like a wall -- I could imagine that if the impact point was not in the center of the car, the tree might not have been directly in front of the engine, and thus it could come out.
Obviously he had to have been going petty fast, though.
What happens to the engine depends very much on how the impact occurred, and the energies involved. I've seen a handful of wrecks where some substantial piece of the vehicle (engine, transmission, etc) was tossed a long distance. Incidentally, all of those were very high speed collisions, and they all involved at least one fatality. There were all slightly off-axis impacts trees or very solid posts, where the point of impact was about halfway between the midline of the vehicle and one of the front corners.
I don't know how fast you'd have to be going to make that happen, but I would guess 70 or 80 mph.
One possibility suggested upthread is that he fell asleep while driving, and given that it was 4:30am I think we have to admit that that is entirely plausible. The weight of his leg could have pressed the accelerator, and in a car like that he could have been doing 70 pretty quickly.
Of course it's not hard to come up with darker possibilities if you want to. He was drugged... his car was tampered with... whatever. I can't rule these out entirely, and under the circumstances I agree that skepticism and further investigation are warranted, but if I had to bet right now, I'd wager he just fell asleep.
You are massively confused over what airbags do. They don't do anything at all to reduce the chances that one will drive one's car into a tree. They only come into play AFTER an accident has begun.
And you are massively confused about why he mentioned the airbags.
Not to point to their assistance of driving a car into a tree, but as items in a large list, pointing to the ridiculous amount of safety measures built into the car.
That said, I've also seen plenty of crazy vehicle accidents, including fires, many of which are hard to explain how they could have happened. For example, a car where the entire drivers side was smashed into the back seat from driving into a telephone pole. The driver's survival story? "Thank god i wasn't wearing a seatbelt and my car had a bench seat"... She moved over at the last second.
Seatbelts don't always save lives...
Personally, I want a 5-point harness if I ever end up driving in a risky fashion.
At one point we got to a streak of 8 or 9 rollovers with no injuries whatsoever. If the occupants were not wearing seat belts I can say for certain that streak would have ended earlier.
On a positive note, the number of automobile fatalities each year has been on a steady decline.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in...
Your suggestion that somehow being a late model Mercedes makes it impervious to collisions is just silly. I could run a report of our wrecks over the last year, but I'm sure there have been at least a dozen that involve late model cars like the one in question (from various manufacturers). Two of those included at least one fatality. None of them caught fire (but given the small sample size, that's not surprising, over the last decade I'd guess something like 1 in 50 wrecks I've seen involved a post-crash fire).
Regarding the explosion... I've seen nothing that indicates to me that there was an explosion. People described a loud noise (crashes are loud), and a fire. The video of that fire is completely consistent with a post-crash vehicle fire.
OTOH, they do absolutely nothing if you are inattentive for a moment at high speed, run off the road, and there is a tree in the way.
http://rt.com/usa/coroner-arsenic-death-breitbart-456/
Namely the fact that both of these men were prominent journalists, living in the US, each with 'big stories' they were working on that have not seen the light of day due to their untimely death shortly after proclaiming they were working on said stories.
To compound the dire possibilities, in February the US Justice Department confirmed the existence of legal justification for the assassination of American citizens:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/us/politics/obama-orders-r...
Not drawing conclusions here, but I think it's important in this day and age to be diligent in connecting dots and evaluating ALL possibilities.
And your disingenuous argument trying to tie drone attacks into that is an utter disservice to truth. To quote from the fine article: "could target a citizen if he was a senior operational leader of Al Qaeda involved in plots against the country and if his capture was not feasible."
Whatever your position on this is, you need to stretch mightily to make this into "the government is indiscriminately killing people it doesn't like".
So please remember that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And try to bring at least the tiniest bit of evidence to a post that's rather light on them.
Thank-you, I will remember that. I will also remember that, on occasion, extraordinary crimes happen in secret. And that there exist criminals in this world who have successfully suppressed, destroyed, or hidden evidence of their crimes; and as a result have not - and may not ever be - brought to justice.
Note that I wasn't making any claims - just pointing out some relevant information to consider.
They have already assassinated a 16 year old US citizen who was not a senior Al Qaeda leader and who wasn't "collateral damage" either: http://boingboing.net/2011/10/21/awlakis.html
Once again, I'm not debating the morality of the drone program, or the ludicrousness of writing off killings as "collateral damage". I debate the deliberate use of misinformation to score a point. We all need to stop distorting the truth to suit our purpose, so we can see what's actually happening - which is bad enough and doesn't require conspiracy theories.
I am all for connecting the dots and considering ALL POSSIBILITIES but it seems that after a certain point you need to eliminate some of the possibilities when they do not match up with reality. The RT story about the coroner and arsenic seems to be fringe conspiracy theory material that does not stand up well to scrutiny. It seems that the coroner mentioned in the RT story was not involved in Breitbart's autopsy:
"Those theories were quickly debunked by both the L.A. police and Deputy Chief Coroner Ed Winter, who told The Daily Beast at the time that Cormier had nothing to do with Breitbart’s autopsy"[3]
"L.A. County Coroner's Assistant Chief Ed Winter tells LA Weekly that Cormier did not conduct Breitbart's autopsy. "Only doctors" ever worked on Breitbart, says Winter, because foul play was not suspected from the beginning."[4]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hastings_%28journalist...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Breitbart
[3] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/30/no-answers-...
[4] http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2012/04/andrew_breitbart_...
[From the PDF:] To be clear, for every vulnerability we demonstrate, we are able to obtain complete control over the vehicle’s systems.
The latest Fast and Furious movie employes magnetically attached exploit devices that lock the ABS system on a single wheel at speed, causing the car to immediately pull hard in that direction. With an available attack vector, it's depressingly easy.
Are you seriously citing an action movie to support a point about how easy this would be?
To what end?
At a glance:
* These attacks were demonstrated on a "moderately priced late model sedan" which is surely a bit of a different situation than a brand new luxury car.
That could mean more sophisticated systems and likely less time to reverse engineer - assuming you don't believe the manufacturer is complicit.
* On page 5 and 6 they describe the work necessary to pull the exploits off. They dumped over two dozen ECUs, desoldering them where necessary and, if I'm not mistaken - reverse engineered them and injected the code which was necessary to support the follow-on attacks.
Assuming the same type and method of attack, the attacker would have had to succesfully generate attack knowledge for a 2013 model-year car then gain intimate physical access to the vehicle to seed the exploits before eventually remotely exploiting them.
That reads like a tall order to me, but it could be the opposite. I could certainly imagine newer, increasingly connected vehicles being more exploitable.
Car electronics change very little year to year. If you have an unreported exploit, it wouldn't surprise me if it were valid for more than 5 production years. The bigger issue is that the networks in these cars are only secured by physical access, and there are more devices on the bus every year.
A remote exploit must fetch a pretty penny, so I would expect professionals to get to work on pre-production units as soon as they are available in the hope that they don't change substantially.
then gain intimate physical access to the vehicle to seed the exploits before eventually remotely exploiting them
I think you read this wrong - the car was disassembled to explore the systems, but after vulnerability development, physical access to a target was not required. This is suggested by "Sniff MAC address, brute force PIN, buffer overflow" and "Call car, authentication exploit, buffer overflow". If modification was required, executing an exploit would involve a predetermined handshake (which is described later in the paper), not something as crude as buffer overflows.
Anecdotally, most ECUs I've seen change up 1-3 years. I have no idea if later units might be code compatible with prior, but I'd doubt it.
>I think you read this wrong - the car was disassembled to explore the systems, but after vulnerability development, physical access to a target was not required.
Obviously, I'm not certain, but looking at the previous work they reference [0 .p12-13] seems to say that the bridging exploits [1 .p5] are dependent on re-flashing. Perhaps the 2011 Bluetooth overflow is injecting 2010 re-flash equivalent code?
0: http://www.autosec.org/pubs/cars-oakland2010.pdf
"We were able to successfully reprogram our car’s telematics unit from a device connected to the car’s low-speed bus (in our experiments, a laptop running CARSHARK). Once reprogrammed, our telematics unit acts as a bridge, relaying packets from the lowspeed bus onto the high-speed bus."
1: http://www.autosec.org/pubs/cars-usenixsec2011.pdf
"Note, such interbus bridging is critical to many of the attacks we explore since it exposes the attack surface of one set of components to components on a separate bus; we explain briefly here."
Creating a car crash through brake or steering manipulation sounds a bit far fetched. Throttle position on the other hand does not have any type of redundancy in most modern cars (no mechanical means of restoring control). If you have access to change TP, either by GPS coordinates or remote, you could cause a crash pretty easily by sticking the throttle body WFO. The driver always has options to stop the car, but in panic mode...who knows.
I am still withholding judgement and will watch the investigation with interest.
Damn....Damn it all to hell.
I knew the NSA could listen in wherever they wanted, but I thought mass surveillance and storage of all communications was outlandish 1984-like paranoia.. until Edward Snowden.
Now I don't know what to think.
Wanted to share this since there was alot of great opinions about what happened: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5943251
The email doesn't really seem all that panicked to me - I didn't know the guy, so maybe is he being panicked, but it just sounds like a guy who's writing to let people he works with know about possible legal problems.
i am german and i can tell you that a mercedes benz DOES NOT just blow up and spit its engine 100yd down the street. the car wasn't even really against the tree...
sometimes you just need to apply a little grain of common sense, ppl.
I find it interesting that when the Watergate "Conspiracy Theory" was proven, two things happened:
1. The perpetrators were charged with conspiracy (proving it was a conspiracy), and yet:
2. The Watergate Conspiracy was henceforth known as the Watergate Scandal.
In the Iran-Contra "Affair", "Fawn Hall, Oliver North's secretary was given immunity from prosecution on charges of conspiracy and destroying documents in exchange for her testimony."
Again:
1. Perpetrators charged with conspiracy.
2. The conspiracy is henceforth known as The Iran-Contra Affair.
Rinse, repeat.
"Originally a neutral term, since the mid-1960s it has acquired a somewhat derogatory meaning, implying a paranoid tendency to see the influence of some malign covert agency in events.[5] The term is sometimes used to automatically dismiss claims that are deemed ridiculous, misconceived, paranoid, unfounded, outlandish or irrational.[6][page needed] A proven conspiracy theory, such as the notion that United States President Richard Nixon and his aides conspired to cover up Watergate, is usually referred to as something else, such as investigative journalism or historical analysis."
Ironic, isn't it, that since the time when genuine conspiracies at the highest level have come to light, the term has been successfully modified in the general vernacular to mean a ridiculous or paranoid idea.
I'm not falling for the redefinition. You're welcome to.
That's a tautology. The phrase "conspiracy theory" intends something only a fool or a fanatic would believe—that's why it's always accompanied by ridiculing language. Cases shown to be real are not called "conspiracy theories" but "history".
You're right that the term "conspiracy theory" is dismissive. Is it wrong to be dismissive of the theory that Hastings was killed using his car?
One piece of evidence for this security-blanket interpretation of "conspiracy theory" is that we're much more likely to invoke the term about things that happen close to home, and much less likely to resort to it about things that happen abroad. Also, the ridiculing language that invariably accompanies the term is a social ritual. It has no content; its function is to enforce consensus belief. The human need for consensus belief is profound and we're largely unconscious of its influence on us, which makes it that much stronger.
I think this phenomenon is fascinating and I wish it were possible to study it at a more-than-anecdotal level, but I don't know of anything like that.
p.s. I think it's cool that this thread contains comments from not just an actual firefighter, but (if I'm reading correctly) a firefighter-programmer. As my sister-in-law likes to say: you barely ever get that!
It was great.
But because of the nature of HN, all it takes is for the same story to get posted again and again, and eventually we get a thread that makes it to the top of the front page without all that high-quality debunking.
Incidentally: another group of people using conspiracy-theoretic putdowns to dismiss the notion that Hastings was murdered: journalists. Google [hastings conspiracy theory]. Or [ambinder hastings]. Or [hastings truthers].
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/07/01/mark-...
that said, politicians are usually not as much a threat to tyranny as journalists.
The car didn't blow up, it caught fire. That's not common, but it does happen. Same with the engine getting tossed... Not common, but it happens.
I've seen both scenarios a handful of times (and surprisingly enough, they have a high correlation with fatalities).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/26/michael-hastings-ji...
I won't pretend I read all of his work, but whenever I saw his name attached to something I was impressed. For example:
As the my own paranoia, I am not thrilled about even talking about this incident. I'm definetly more concerned about privacy since the NSA reporting. I am also using DuckDuckGo, but it's horrid right now.
In fact, these discussions usually amount to amateur physicists insisting that somewhat unusual phenomena are physically impossible (usually citing retired fire chiefs, their uncle who is a mechanic, and 'common sense'), and a bunch of authoritarians replying with "Oh, please - tinfoil hat!"
I'm surprised that people don't know how eager cars are to burn esp in light of this recent fire: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-05-06/news/chi-calif...
There wasn't even a crash and five women burned to death during the time it took to notice the fire, communicate that to the driver, pull over, and open the back door.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/23/1218189/-HBGary-Pal...
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/la-coroner-ids-body-journalis...
Obviously I'm not saying that's the case, but the extremely irrational driving goes fits a theory of paranoid delusions (brought on by any number of mechanisms), just as the hacked car system goes with about to uncover something big.
I remember reading this article when it came out; does anyone know if there have been any further developments in the case?
We can't rule out foul play but I'm not ready, personally, to rule it in either. There's just not enough there.
Of course they were; that's how the NSA found out.
"Of course they were; that's how the NSA found out."
Right. Yet to our knowledge the NSA does not have delete privileges to the data centers, meaning that copies of his notes most likely still survive on either local or cloud based storage.
Plus, it's not as large of a leap as you think, it goes hand in hand. Everyone is familiar with journalists disappearing in countries like Turkey.
The US sent helicopters full of Navy Seals into a foreign country, supposedly an ally, without their permission to kill someone, and then went on TV the next day to brag about it. George W Bush threw hundreds of people into a not-very-secret off-shore prison and then tortured them for a few years and no one did a damn thing about it. When Bradley Manning leaked diplomatic cables, we threw him in a prison and tortured him for a year or three, depending on how you count.
Governments don't have to come in the night and fake your accidental death. They can come for you in broad daylight and beat you to death in the street and no one will stop them.
I don't think you can ever legitimately accuse someone of a logical fallacy who isn't making an argument.
So, no one has proven what happened. That cuts both ways. And that's the point: there are unanswered questions. No one is stating for a fact that foul play was involved. People are merely asking questions. And, given the plausibility of foul play and the incredibly mind-blowing implications if there was foul play, it is much more rational to ask questions than to summarily dismiss out of hand that it is worth asking questions, or to ridicule those who do.
Your post doesn't come off as clever. It just seems thoughtless and unserious.
I didn't say that. Go back and read my post.
In fact, it's the opposite. We have many trying to claim the illegitimacy of asking questions, because there is no direct evidence. The parent went so far as to ridicule those asking questions.
So, it is they who are making claims about which is more likely, given a lack of evidence in either direction. That is exactly what my post was about.
Though actually, you're close to saying it here:
"[I]t is they who are making claims about which is more likely, given a lack of evidence in either direction."
If you lack evidence in either direction, your estimate of likelihood should be at your priors. If your mental model assigns the same prior probability to assassination as to car accidents, it's likely broken.
I recommend reading through http://lesswrong.com/lw/19m/privileging_the_hypothesis
But granted, I stand corrected.
I'm aware of the general mode of privileging the hypothesis, though I've never heard that term. I'm not sure that there's anything new or groundbreaking in that post, however. For instance, criminal law is set up to avoid railroading suspects and it's a pretty easily identifiable fallacy, in general.
In any event, your conclusion that I come close to claiming them equally likely rests on its own fallacy. That is, this statement is so general as to be misleading:
"If your mental model assigns the same prior probability to assassination as to car accidents, it's likely broken"
First, I didn't assign a probability. I said we should be asking questions.
But what makes your argument fallacious is that details matter. It is not just any car accident. It is a fiery, one car, high speed accident, under unexplained circumstances. And, he is not just a random person, but a prominent reporter who brought down a powerful person and was working on a "big" story involving, presumably, other powerful people. Ignoring this information, and simply relying on the percentage of the general population who are in car accidents vs assassinated (i.e. relying on the priors) is misguided to say the least.
And while there is a lack of concrete evidence in either direction at this point, the circumstances and information we do have point to the fact that we should be asking questions, not drawing conclusions on any side. Again, that is what my posts are about. Questions.
OTOH, I'm not sure what you are actually trying to say, short of providing an off-topic and somewhat faulty explanation of how we should estimate likliehoods.
"First, I didn't assign a probability. I said we should be asking questions."
"We should be asking questions about X" is a claim that probabilities are sufficiently high that it's not a complete waste of time to be asking questions about X. You also said it was plausible, which is assigning some bounds on probability. Neither of those were what I was objecting to, however.
I was objecting to what I saw as your rejection of the sort of argument skwirl was making ("This is sufficiently unlikely that it doesn't make sense to be talking about it") in the face of lack of evidence, rather than simple rejection of the particular claim skwirl made (which I reject as well).
Very possible. I think those "ifs" got me again.
>You also said it was plausible, which is assigning some bounds on probability.
A fair enough interpretation, but I was thinking of it in the more subjective sense vs. mathematical.
>I was objecting to what I saw as your rejection of the sort of argument skwirl was making
OK! Understood. LOL! I wasn't objecting to or even addressing whether the sort of argument skwirl was making could ever be valid in any scenario. My point was with regard to this particular discussion. That is, in this context it is not valid to dismiss the need for questions out-of-hand. I tried to be specific and narrow in my explanation.
I think the confusion came in because you broadened what was a very concrete discussion, then began introducing hypotheticals: "well, if you believe this or that, then the other".
I didn't make that turn. Wasn't sure what your position was or what you were attributing to me.
All of this to say, that we appear to be in agreement on the substance. That is, the circumstances merit questions.
I agree that foul play doesn't seem like the most likely cause, and I don't expect it is systemic if so, but seeing "he was on to a pocket of more explicit corruption and they offed him" as outside the realm of possibility seems odd.
Well, there was Putin being all concerned about Snowden hurting his American friends, so there's that :P
Seriously though, the US government killed plenty more people for minding them a lot less. So where exactly does this huge leap come into play? That it would be hard to do? Why, just look at what random comment is floating atop this discussion, completely unfounded speculation about drug abuse or nervous breakdowns, with zero argument for them given, except that it's technically possible, however unlikely.
Are you denying that it's "technically possible" that the US government "goes around killing journalists" (which is NOT what the comment you replied to said by the way, that's all yours), however unlikely? If not, why not react with the same rigour to the original comment?
This is all kinda disgusting. Yes, we don't know either way, and maybe it's pointless to speculate. But if it's okay to speculate some utter bullshit like the top comment, then it's allowed to point something out in response without that being utterly twisted into something childish, and then being patronizing about your own fucking strawman.
Really how? How is it out of order for a government that goes around jailing foreign citizens without trial abroad to avoid local laws?
having lots of secret activities != operating largely in secret.
If you haven't seen that PDF, ill to find the link.
I say "some are speculating" because there are a bunch on Reddit, I.e. some people, who I do not know personally, and have handles as opposed to real-names, so I cannot say "Bill, John and Mary speculate"
So, as I am not using the weasel word in the way you describe (as if I were to say "a source close to the crash victim") -- the terminology is still valid in common dialogue.
Check this out and look at the source as well as take some time to critically think about the technical resources a group like the NSA has vs. the researchers of this paper...
You think that "It's hard to imagine any remotely competent government group or organized crime group" choosing it" is an informed position?
I would HOPE you are aware of Stucnet, as well as Duqu...
Do you recall this: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/01/20121116284...
This was supposedly the work of the USG/Mossad in Iran. If you think that they would use lowly tactics like a magnetic car bomb -- but would be "too competent" to employ remote hijacking of a late model car, then I simply cannot agree with you on this matter.
This guy's car crashed into a tree. He was doing national security reporting. That's all the factual information you have right now. But peoples' cars crash into trees all the time. Contrary to message board opinion, many of those cars do indeed catch fire. Weigh against that the silliness of this particular means of assassinating someone. Occam's Razor kicks in.
With Stuxnet, Duqu and Mossad car bombings of scientists in Iran, my point was that I would not put the ability past them to be able to hijack a car in a method similar to the one described in the PDF.
Personally, I have no clue/opinion on if they actually killed Hastings.
Maybe in 10 years some whistleblower will come out and admit, but probably not. The way Snowden is being treated you'd have to be crazy to do it now...
Since about three months ago:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/07/01/197669...
The whole NSA story is disturbing but I don't get how it is connected to a journalist dying in a car crash like 30k or so people do every year do in the USA. The NSA violating peoples internet/phone privacy is a far cry from killing journalists.
It is baffling that a story where there is so little evidence of foul play has popped up on HN multiple times and has received such wild speculation. I get that there are a lot of people who are very upset at the US government right now (I'm one of them) and that there is very title trust towards the US government (for good reason), but it is crazy that such wild speculation is going on in a community that is supposedly made up of highly educated, intelligent, logical, tech people.
1. Why is it practically impossible to crash this car? Its well engineered, yeah so what? Accidents still happen no matter how good the safety tech is.
2. Why is it impossible for a car to catch fire after it has been in a high speed crash? It is filled with a highly combustible liquid for Christ sake.
3. Why would his car get hacked into and forced to crash? There has to be about a million easier ways to make a death look like an accident. It also doesn't seem like something that could be done at the spur of the moment. If "they" had time to plan all of this out, why wouldn't they kill him some easier, safer, more efficient way?
4. Why are people saying he may have been drugged with something that causes a psychotic episode etc. I mean really WTF, this is straight up crazy conspiracy nonsense. Of all the crazy conclusions to jump to, why is that more likely than him being drunk, having a psychotic breakdown, insomnia, or using drugs voluntarily (I believe he was even a drug addict in the past, lots of addicts fall of the wagon).
5. Why do people automatically assume that he was actually being investigated by some government organization? Don't all we have is his word?
Your points are well organized and I tend to agree (especially that there would be an easier way to get rid of him), but I don't think you'll stop those that see a conspiracy around every corner.
I tend to see our government (today) as a very mismanaged large corporation. There are people over-reaching and those above them are trying to hide the damage and spin the conversation.
I don't know, I think the US government seems pretty ruthlessly efficient at toppling Middle Eastern governments, transferring wealth from taxpayers to big banks and large corporations, increasingly centralizing power into the federal government and large corporations, and breaking down families and increasing reliance on the state. And spying on it's own citizens.
I suppose, if you automatically dismissed any such thoughts to the contrary as "ridiculous conspiracy theories", it could look like it is all a problem of mismanagement. Maybe.
What matters is what happens after Mr. Hastings' death. If the FBI is to be trusted, they will deny involvement on the low and the high: a trustworthy organization does not want to create even the slightest perception that they would kill a journalist. A trustworthy organization does not wish to instill fear in Hastings' colleagues. If, however, the FBI is not to be trusted, they will spread rumors that they are responsible: even if they did not kill him, it benefits them that journalists would be nervous to investigate them. This was the tactic of the KGB in the Soviet Union: they would stoke rumors of their ferocity by claiming responsibility for the otherwise-natural deaths of political contrarians.
What is truly to be feared is not that the FBI killed Michael Hastings, but that the FBI would like people to believe they killed Michael Hastings. Therefore, a rational yet paranoid individual might suspect sage_joch of being an NSA provocateur, but not Taylorious. That is the sort of corruption that will send a country into the dark ages for a century.
Uh, name a few?
[citation needed]
I only say this because people often talk about that as if the reporter had done deep black ops to gain covert information, thus making enemies throughout the establishment, when in reality he simply reported quotes directly fed to him, and in some ways acting on behalf of the establishment.
If you do a search for Economic Hitman Perkins, he was former NSA type who went around the global trying to get political leaders to do oil contracts and such that benefitted the west, if they didn't play ball, CIA Jackals were sent in to assassinate the people, Perkins said the only reason he decided to expose this later on was because he didn't want his daughter growing up in that kind of society where people are murdered for thier beliefs and trying to help thier citizens. Maybe like the comments below, Perkins is just a plant trying to "enhance" the fear of the CIA/NSA to get more people to respect them and they never killed anyone or very few of the deaths that are attributed to them. In the end, what does any of it all really matter? We all have a limited time to exist, and my friend Weev says to have fun, get lots of LULZ, face the madness of this world with Absurdity. Frank Sinatra said to leave them laughing when you go, take us out Frankie...
I also laugh at people who believe in flying saucers and so on. But I'd probably stop if an actual flying saucer landed on the highway and started blowing things up.
I've seriously thought about moving to New Zealand. Beautiful country, no software patents, universal healthcare, good schools. I think maybe the era of the US being the best place to be (or at least many people thinking that) is over.
His friends describe him as a "grandma diver" so why was he driving so fast and blowing red lights on a residential street? Did he ever display this type of behaviour before?
Another question is.. how does a well made car burst into flames so quickly.
I always wonder about this, it's not like a car fire is anything like hollywood makes it out to be.
See also: Ryan Dunn's 911, post-tree.
Hollywood may exaggerate the rate at which that happens, but not much more.
Of course, if you are so inclined (either way), you can explain away any coincidence.
We had the "conspiracy theorists", not we have the "coincidence theorists".
Why would they need the little folding umbrella on the plane if they weren't worried about exposure to the chemicals in the black drums?
This is why I've asked the orderlies to let me skip recreation hour in the yard!
Note the umbrella in my other reply: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5981867
There is no such thing as a coincidence.
There was a lot of discussion about various aspects of how cars behave when they crash, in a previous thread. But, speaking as a former firefighter, the tl/dr; is "cars do sometimes catch fire and burn when they crash". Hollywood style explosions don't normally happen, and car fires resulting from wrecks don't always happen, or even happen terribly often at all in my experience, but they are far from unheard of.
Here's a report of a Mercedes crashed at Nurburgring by a test driver: http://www.automotto.com/2014-mercedes-benz-sls-amg-black-se...
Both the test driver and the passenger walked away unharmed. Do note that this was on the track, where the cars are supposedly driven at much higher speeds than on regular roads.
No, scarcity isn't proof against, but it is evidence. A lot of people are talking nonstop about the rarity of cars bursting into flames as evidence against that interpretation, while ignoring the even greater rarity of journalists being murdered by the US government.
If an investigative journalist "mysteriously vanished" in a Latin American dictatorship, for example, one would not even raise an eyebrow if told it was government work. Even if lots of people also vanished without foul play there.
It's another to make friendly with a tree at a 100 mph lower speed.
It's not speed that kills, it's the sudden deceleration at the end.
A fuel line is torn in the crash... a few milliliters of gasoline seep onto the ground, while the heat from the catalytic converter ignites some grass that has gotten a little long. The small amount of gasoline and brush cause a fire that is able to quickly spread through the damaged structure of the car, igniting the carpet, fabric, and seat cushions.
Within a minute the fire is well on its way. Within 3 minutes, the car is fully involved.
Obviously I don't know what happened in this case, but I've seen the exact scenario described happen more than once (the gas leak was only confirmed in one case, in two other cases, it was just the brush and debris under the car).
I'm so glad that these kind of pieces are being upvoted here so we can finally stop talking about all that technology bullshit.
Upvote on the left if you agree.
Literally is metaphorically literally?
I hate it when people abuse language like that, even though usage dictates conventions.
In most totalitarian states, life goes on like it usually does. It's just the power distribution that changes. This should scare people a lot more than it does.
Third Reich did not start the day they invade Poland and kick off the World War 2. IT didn't start with profiling Jews and putting people in camps. It started much earlier than that with elements of dictatorships here and there. US is not far from it; it just that times have changed. What before could be called "work camps" because of lack of means of information transportation so most people didn't know (there was no Youtube or Twitter ok?), needs to be called FEMA camps or other 1981-ish words of care and wisdom now. But the system is ready. Billions of bullets bought by DHS, tanks located across major cities, militaries of different countries training together and putting unified system in place, its all ready to go. What we are "missing" is that spark of fire to crank the engine. Like firing up the Reichtag. Some say, "hopefully" that Zimmerman's trial of founding him not guilty could cause a civil unrest and off we go from there. But in a case of emergency, like in Boston Bombing, Boston did look like Nazi Germany: armed forces of an official government "lawfully" but forcibly pulled innocent unarmed citizens out of their safe houses in the name of searching for one fugitive. Guns were pointed at them, regardless if they were guilty or not (they were not). Plus you have more and more check points on the streets, TSA start training with dogs on the airports (Germans loved them didnt they?), you have all communication scooped all the time, plus major monetary abuse in gov entities like IRS (noone held accountable), major huge abuse in security (Bengatzi) and noone held accountable, yep, we are getting close to a tipping point and things speed up rapidly!
Now, if you live on the US soil and understand US constitution, please tell me this is not disturbing to you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MezLoczjfY
Do you really think so?
I think it might be best to sit this one out boss
Side Note: Please don't ask people to upvote you.
http://boston.cbslocal.com/2012/01/03/sources-lt-gov-murray-... http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2... http://sandra.visionsmartnews.com/randolph-county-nc-school-...
Also, I have seen multiple references to some paranoia that Mr. Hastings supposedly had. When I read his email, I see anything but paranoia. He seems very matter-of-fact and even jokes about the investigation. Also, here is a man who had already broken a massive story about a powerful figure and who was in the business of going after such massive stories. Sudden bouts of paranoia wouldn't seem consistent or productive in his line of work.
I take exception to that word because it's dismissive. It seeks to paint him as somehow irrational or the cause of his own demise, while simultaneously waiving the notion that there could be outside involvement. It asserts that of course every element of the government is always good in every situation, such that any concerns to the contrary must be paranoia. It is a very insidious use of language.
And beyond that, it just makes no sense.
We're all mostly adults here. We can rationally discuss that there are many possible scenarios. This is not and will hopefully never be a site where people who try to create a reality in their own perception dominate.
In your second paragraph you opine about us all being adults, capable of rational discussion, yet you made no substantive contribution to that discussion. You just kind of made the observation that this is a great place to do it. If one were so inclined. I guess. Then, you go on to lament about some imaginary future date wherein people use the site to create their own realities or something.
What is all this meta-talk? If you want the site to be about discussion of various ideas, then discuss yours! Make your counter-point and defend your position vs. whining about someone disagreeing with you. Do you really not see the irony in passing on opportunities to make your point, and instead using them to express your worry that someday you won't be able to make your point?
Good grief. As it is, your entire post was a NOOP.
And, I plainly I didn't "shoot the mesenger". I specifically questioned your message. In fact, you acknowledged this in your previous reply when you "found it remarkable how thouroughly I have tried to refute your simple statement of an alternative scenario". See that? You acknowledged that I was attacking the statement (i.e. message).
And again with the meta-talk. You have still said nothing in defense of your actual post (calling mine "noisy nonsense" doesn't qualify). Instead, you appear to just be saying things that you hope will get you upvotes.
Contrary to what you have declared HN to be in your quest for karma as its self-appointed keeper, I believe what makes it special is the many bright people here who speak a common language, and who sometimes disagree (even vehemently). But, they are able to construct logic-based, thoughtful arguments, which challenge their adversaries and make them think. I have learned much in this way, as I am sure have others.
Here, however, this is not the case. Sadly.
Meantime, work on defending your position and constructing logical responses. I should warn you however, that constructing arguments may require that your word volume increases.
Ah, but that spin is highly unlikely to generate buzz among moronic internet detectives, and therefore no responsible journalist will deal with such a trite story.
On the contrary. Every "respected" news outlet will play this story. After all, it's the place where this happened: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird (and still goes on, of course).
may be wise to immediately request legal counsel before any conversations or interviews about our news-gathering practices or related journalism issues.
"Obviously I'm not saying that's the case,"
Even saying it's likely takes sheer powers of rationalization I can't even fathom. And bringing up just that is what it is. This is like saying "no offense, but" and then saying something offensive.
Even saying it's likely
I didn't say it was likely, I said it was possible (given that the outright acceptance of incredibly conspiracy theories are by far the most commonly discussed possibility). The difference is profound.
But really I think there are some people who seriously flunked basic probabilities. When considering the possibility that he a) was assassinated by rogue government agents who apparently both hacked his car and improvised explosives, or b) who had personal issues that led to irrational behavior, you are seriously saying that the former is more probable? Give me a break -- that is a seriously broken mental model.
Further the legend of this reporter has exploded into something completely detached from reality. His legacy is that he wrote an article for Rolling Stone magazine where a shooting-from-the-hip general who was a loudmouthed braggart (almost certainly because he was talking to a Rolling Stone reporter and wanted to be cool) got taken down for it. If you read the narrative on here, this reporter went deep in the NSA and hacked the special mainframe.
Perhaps you can start by identifying all of the variables that you considered in assessing the probability of each scenario, then move on to providing us with the statistical probability that you calculated for each of those variables.
In other words, claiming to have uncovered a plot is a sign for a mental health issue? Just like being angry is a sign of rabies, huh? Before you dive into probabilities, check out some logic, I hear it helps. And maybe history, since you seem to think a "plot" is something like an elf or pink elephants.
are seriously saying that the former is more probable
Nope, that's the beauty of it, I'm not even speculating either way. I am dealing with your comment only. When I read that email, I don't see any signs of madness. To the contrary, that bit about legal advice seems a bit too coolheaded for even drug use.
Which you said takes "sheer powers of rationalization I can't even fathom". Which really is an extraordinary and ridiculous statement (which I'm learning is the modus operandi among the theorists -- feigned outrage that any other scenario outside of the most conspiratorial could even be contemplated): Such fits of irrational behavior happen to countless people yearly, often under the influence of alcohol, drugs, or simply intense stress. Sometimes it's even a tactic for the suicidal.
The simple possibility that he was on a bender or had an episode simply defies reason in your imagination, which leaves the gamut of the possible rather narrowed, despite your absurd protests to the contrary.
Something very plausible and easy to think -- even in cases where it is not the case. Which reminds me: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137363/
He was a seasoned journalist. Working on a very dangerous case (as he has done in the past, annoying many).
He might have feared and feel intimidated -- and that might have led to erratic driving and crash.
But he sure knew when and if the FBI talked to his friends and colleagues. And it's not like it's the first time a journalist is crashed (either literally or figuratively) for his work. Gary Webb comes to mind. Ruben Salazar too. And those were more innocent times.
So - who was interviewed? What questions were asked?
I read it wasn't about Jill Kelly... doesn't really narrow it down.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/26/michael-hastings-ji...
It doesn't say "an electronically signed email" using Hastings' PGP key, it doesn't say it was DKIM signed.
telnet hotmail.com 25
MAIL FROM: micheal.hastings@domain.com
RCPT TO: wikileakseditor@hotmail.com
Subject: I'm going out for a walk
I might be some time. Don't come looking for me.
.
^D