Slashback: Delays, Torpedos, Revitalization

More below on what is surely one of the slowest patents ever granted (to our inquisitive friends with the radar domes, no less), and smidgeons of news on such various and sundry as Napster (perhaps you've heard of it?) and Iridium (perhaps you wish you'd never heard of it?), not to mention more on the destruction of the submarine Kursk.

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.

Comments

Re:Torpedoes; Help the Family

[thogard]

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.

Things about the Kursk...

[trims]

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:

• If the entire damage is due to the cavitation torp, why the 2 minute gap between explositions? The Cav Torp is shot out like a normal torp (ie via compressed air). Any explosition in the torpedo lauch tube would almost certainly set off the rocket motor in the Cav Torp immediately. This goes for torp-launched missiles, too (like the SS-N-15/16 that the Oscar has).
• Typical compressed-air torpedo launch systems have more than enough high-pressure air in them to look like a 100kg TNT explosion if something goes wrong.
• Torpedoes have 100-150kg warheads. Only the SS-N-19 cruise missiles have the size warhead for the 2nd explosion.
• Similarly, the rocket motor in a Cav Torp or one of the SS-N-15/16s is not big enough for a 1.5T explosion. The SS-N-19's rocket is definately big enough, though.
• The 100kg initial blast would almost certainly not be enough to sink the Kursk. It wouldn't even fill the torpedo compartment with water instantly (probably take a couple of minute, minimum).

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

ACME weapons company

[romco]

'"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...

Re:Torpedoes; Help the Family

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Torpedoes; Help the Family

[sulli]

I guess it's no surprise that the Russian navy was hiding something, given that they kept the rescue crews away. But it's really sad that they seem to have sacrificed the lives of the crew to preserve the secret torpedo design, if that's why they kept the rescuers away from the damaged torpedo section.

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