Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Delays, Torpedos, Revitalization
The (cryptographic) wheels of government grind slowly. JOEL-V writes: "In August 2000, the United States Patent Office issued patent #6097812 to the National Security Agency, for 'Cryptographic System.' The patent application was filed in the year 1933, and this invention and patent are actually one version of the famous Enigma machine."
On a similar note, Paul Maud'Dib writes: "The Slashdot crew might be interested in checking out Enigmatic. They have java emulators for the Purple, Sigaba, Enigma, Russian Espionage Cipher and a public domain Bombe. They also have rather lucid descriptions of the various systems used. Interesting reads all."
That which does not kill him makes him stronger. You may recall that some maladjusted script kiddies threw a spanner in the works of the excellent kuro5hin a little while ago. Emmett told you more about the attack and its aftermath shortly thereafter. Looks like it's time for the (all volunteer, cool-content, graphically appealing) kuro5hin to emerge from a quick breather.
pope nihil writes: "kuro5hin.org has an update on their page. things should be back up (according to the update) by Sept 15 or so. check it out." Yes, Go there! Congratulations, guys.
88 bottles of bits on the wall, 88 bottles of bits ... NoWhere Man writes "The bankrupt Iridium venture has received another bid to save the wireless phone company's $5 billion satellite system from being pulled from space and destroyed. A California-based organization named CMC International is offering to pay $30 million to acquire Iridium's 88 satellites and other assets, according to a court filing submitted Friday."
It certainly would be nice if someone could eke out (even a meager) connection from Iridium rather than incinerating the satellites in the atmosphere, but honestly, the Will Burn / Will Fly status of these birds flip-flops enough to put a politician to shame. I'd like them to stay up, if only not to spook other folks from putting data-bouncing satellites up for our browsing pleasure.
In a nutshell, this is the problem with carrying around cavitation weapons. aleclee writes "It now appears that the Kursk was indeed carrying cavitation weapons and that she was sunk by a misfiring rocket. Supposedly, the rocket/torpedo can travel at 200 knots! Details can be found here."
Update: any port in a storm, and this one sounds nice. Patrick Ryan wrote: " Hello, I wanted you to know that CDSA [as mentioned in this slashdot story] has been updated at Intel and now includes a Linux port." Visit http://developer.intel.com/ial/security/ for more information about CDSA, and then the download site for your free-downloading pleasure.
The facts about this case (from sources that all have something to hide)
1) The Kursk didn't have any nukes on board.
This is damn rare. The only time you don't have a nuke sub armed is if you think it might sink in your backyard. Things like inital testing and say testing a new weapon that your not sure about.
2) New stuff tends to be added to flagships first. This sub was the about the same as the US Navy sees the USS Enterprise, its a flagship being the first in its class. The flag ship also tends to play with all the cool new stuff. (Enterprise, Bismark, Titanic). Its amazing how many didn't work out so well.
3) The Russian Navy was hunting for another sub in the area. It had been spotted a short distance from the Kursk just after the accident. There were 3 US subs in the area according to the US Navy.
4) The Russian goverment as well as the US goverment only did the rescue thing in a half assed PR way. I think the US govt knew there was no one alive very quicly. A sub a few hundred meters away can hear the water leaking into another sub. We heard reports about the morse code but what did they say? No one is talking. I suspect it was something like "compartments 1-4 full, leaks into 5,6,7. reactor locked down".
5) In a case where a sub is not going to come back up, the sub crew will distory all sensitve things. This includes codebooks and the like. They use termite which makes it very hard to breath.
6) Don't underestimate a sub crews willingness to go down with the ship. These people are selected for that ability. Its very difficult to find someone smart enough to understand a sub and be willing to die for a patrotic cause at the drop of the hat.
First off, the Kursk was a flight II Oscar (NATO-designation) SSGN. Check Jane's for more info. In other words, it was the same type of submarine as later-mode US Los Angeles and UK Trafalgar submarines. It was an ANTI-SHIP submarine. The Oscars Don't Carry Nuclear Missiles. Although technically possible, both SALT I and SALT II forbid nuclear weapons on attack submarine cruise missiles, and generally frowed on nuclear ASW weapons such as SUBROC (this was an area of contention, but both sides generally didn't carry anti-submarine nukes).
Secondly, how reliable is the Sunday Times for stuff like this? They might be better than the Times-Mirror, but then again, I don't exactly trust people like CNN and CBS to get it right either. Smells like a reporter is making this a sensationalist story from nothing.
Another technical detail here: there were two explosions: one of about 100kg TNT force, and one about 15 times stronger 2:15 later. The first is in line with an explosion of a torpedo propeller propulsion system or a compressed-air torpedo launch system (or collision, or whatever). The second is in line with either a rocket motor or warhead cook off. A couple of things to think about:
By far the most likely scenario to date is a malfunctioned torpedo launch (regardless of what type of torpedo) which blew out the torp tube and either started a fire in the forward torpedo room or short-circuited a bunch of stuff that led to either a warhead cookoff or rocket fuel explosion in one of the SS-N-19s.
While testing a new cavitation torpedo might be the immediate cause, I wouldn't point to them as being the general problem until a lot more info comes to light (which is unlikely until they raise the Kursk, and probably not even then). Indeed, if what Jane's and others are saying, it could easily have been a bad launch system itself, and whether shooting a Cav Torp, SS-N-16, or torpedo wouldn't make a difference.
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
'"The weapon is very clever; it uses propellers to boost it out of the sub, then a rocket kicks in at a safe distance, burning liquid propellant," said one British expert.'
Clever? sounds like a Roadrunner cartoon to me...
AdFuel
The Kursk was an SSGN, which means it's a Guided Missile submarine. Its function in life was not to destroy other submarines (attack boat) or to hide and launch ICBMs (ballistic missile boat, "boomer"), but rather to launch its SS-N-19 "Shipwreck" cruise missiles at American aircraft carriers. The USA does not operate SSGN's, due to the lack of a foreign carrier threat, which is probably why Americans have such a problem understanding that the Kursk was not a ballistic missile submarine. The SS-N-19 missiles don't have the range to reach targets deep within the USA like the ones on the Delta-III and IV do.
The patent office did not take 66 years to issue this (or any) patent. With a patent on an invention that is classified, patent is issued in the eyes of the patent office once that invention is declassified.
The number of full-length CDs manufacturers shipped to the U.S. market is at an all-time high, growing 6.0% from this time last year, totaling an impressive 420 million units in just the first six months of 2000. ...Moreover, market momentum continues to climb as the dollar value of CD product grew 9.9% from this time last year to nearly $5.7 billion which suggests once again, that consumer demand for music in the form of a CD remains the mainstay.
Shipments of singles in all formats dropped sharply in the first half of 2000 as speculation over competing music sources continues to swirl. Singles shipments dropped 45.2% from 41.5 million units in midyear 1999 to 22.7 million in '00. Dollar value of singles shipments went from $165.5 million in midyear 1999 to $93.3 million this year.
By the way, you can contribute to a fund for the families of the crew at the Russian Embassy. Some of these folks scraped together the cash to pay for milk-run train tickets to get to the Kursk's home port, while Putin was on vacation. Only now are the authorities trying to help out, but in Russia as well private charity seems to be taking over where the bureaucrats can't seem to do the right thing.
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
A torpedo that moves by wiggling?l
My mind must be fried, because that statement struck me as absolutely hysterical. I guess the mental picture was too much for me.
Anyway, I found this article that was actualy linked to by Slashdot a while back.
www.newscientist.com/features/features_224813.htm
pretty cool stuff!
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
I found it a little humorous that they made that comment about the Americans being hush-hush about it. If it's true that they do have a cavitation weapon of that nature (even money on that I figure) then the Americans are probably scared shitless and adopting their normal "Uh.. we can neither confirm nor deny any knowledge about the existence of that sort of weapon being owned by us or the Russians." (Did that sound bitter?) And of course the Russians aren't going to admit to having one. They may not be the Soviet Union anymore but old habits die hard. Plus there's no one else in the ocean to play with. =)
I seriously doubt it was a collision. The only ones who'd have an observation sub in the area would be the Americans. And having known a few sub captains, paranoid bunch that they are, I'm sure they stayed well away from everything.
I for one mourn the loss of the crew of the Kursk. Crewing a submarine is not easy and I respect anyone that can tough it out. Especially knowing that the consequences are like what happened.