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More News And Links On Yesterday's Terrorist Attack
Ian Peon writes: "SF Gate has a short article on how the Internet "proved its mettle as a communications facilitator in a time of crisis." Kudos to all those who kept things running!"
An anonymous reader writes: "The who, what, and how are detailed in this Boston Herald story. The weapons were smuggled in the razor cases. And in order to get to the cockpit, they terrorized the stewardesses, killing a few in order to lure the pilot out. Once the pilot was out, they took control of the plane. They have identified a car driven by 5 arabs had flying instruction in arabic. The men have been traced back to different arab countries."
This WorldTribune.com story claims that Israeli intelligence reports favor the idea that the attacks may have had the backing of Saddam Hussein's Bagdhad government. According to a submission from UberOogie ,Osama bin Ladin denies involvement in the attacks. The claims, speculation and disclaimers will no doubt continue.
Connord D writes: "View the Survivor's Register Please, PLEASE go to the survivor registers, register that your looking for your family, tell your friends, pass the word around and identify those that have survived and those that are missing. Help worried families either confirm the fates of their loved ones so that they can mourn, or help them find those people that are missing." And Brian Mears, LAN Systems Operations Manager for Computer Sciences Corporation, writes: "I have created a forum on my website to allow families and friends of survivors to post messages and communicate with each other concerning this most tragic period." Here's the link: http://www.ntadmin.net/forum/.
It would be a godsend if the various survivor registries would pool their data, or if someone sets up a google-like search engine to reach all of them at once.
oo7 writes: "CNN has a stream of the first plane crash. If you'd like to download it you can from the videos section of this site; it has news updated as fast as I can and streams as fast as I can capture. Please forward any unknown news and links that you may have."
pKa writes: "The last image from WTCs 77th floor webcam is available on a few sites around the net. The original WCTA.org cam-site is dead, but available in Googles cache, where you can see the dark screen (camera already dead, most likely) at 09:52:52, 09/11/01 - just before the buildings crashed. Article (in norwegian) with screenshots available here" The stream of concern that yesterday's events will lead to an illiberal attitude toward privacy is growing into a torrent: vena writes: "CNN reported on television broadcast earlier today that the NSA was now going through volumes of recorded cellular calls for calls made by passengers on the planes. Clear admission."
GothChip writes: "Ananova are reporting that just hours after the terrorist attack on New York, the FBI started approaching ISPs asking for help in installing Carnivore."
mkelley writes: "This is only the beginning folks...looks like the internet is going to be blamed for this...Wired has a story that is sure to cause panic. This is going to be the goverment's way to push wiretapping into your email and web surfing. In this time of crisis, people in high places are going to use this to get their agenda through. "Blame the Internet" is going to be the rallying cry for everything ..." If you're interested in the details of the planes the terrorists chose, a Semi-Anonymous Coward writes: "American Airlines flight 77 confirmed down, crashed into the Pentagon, Washington DC. Flight 77 (Dulles to Los Angeles) is scheduled as a Boeing 757-200:
Boeing 757-200 data and history:
American Airlines Boeing 757-200 photos:
- American Airlines flight 11 confirmed down, crashed into World Trade Center New York. Flight 11 (Boston to Los Angeles) is scheduled as a Boeing 767-200:
- Boeing 767-200 data and history
- American Airlines Boeing 767-200 photos
- United Airlines Boeing 757-200 photos: United Airlines Boeing 757-200 photos"
MSNBC (The TC channel) was saying that two suspects had apparantly attended flight school in Florida last summer. It didn't have any more information on WHO the suspects were however. Here is a related story there.
"You can take our lives, but you can never take our Flerbage!!!!"
Note Iraq's basically unique reaction at http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/09/12/mideas
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
who sacrified himself to save others, on United Flight 93.
Numerous editorials in todays NY Post have advocated ignoring the law and using racist, mob logic to correct the injustice of yesterday's attack. These frothing calls to action are not only irresponsible, they are barbarous.
... should be as simple as it is swift - kill the bastards. No, I don't mean hunt them, arrest them, extradite them and prosecute them in a court of law. I mean a far quicker and neater form of retribution for this cabal of cowards. A gunshot between the eyes, blow them to smithereens, poison them if you have to."
"Who is responsible for yesterday's carnage? That's no great mystery."
- editorial 4006
The law of the land is innocent until proven guilty. Until there is concrete evidence pointing to the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks, there can be no action. If the US attacks without evidence, then we are terrorists as well, and would deserve all the condemnation we are piling on our - still unknown - attackers.
"To hell with Bill Clinton's 'gather the evidence and proceed to court' approach."
- editorial 4022
"The response
- Steve Dunleavy editorial 3999
Both of these editorialists call for dismissing the due process on which our justice system is based. They call for the removal of equal treatment under the law. These demands for extreme measures are demands for the creation of a dictatorship, of a police state. Assassinations, executions without trials, condemnation without evidence - these are the hallmarks of regimes like Stalin's Soviet Union, Mao Tse Tung's China and Hitler's Germany.
Consistent and reasoned responses are imperitive in civilized society. Everything else is barbarism.
If some one has a concise report of the damage to the WTC beyound the towers(which buildings, what damage, etc.) it would be of interest to those of use in the hinter lands
I noticed that no TV or radio stations were doing ANY commercials around here yesterday. I was thinking how good it would be for some sites that got a LOT more traffic yesterday to donate some of the profit to the Red Cross or another relief organization.
Slashdot mentioned getting 3x as much traffic..how about donating some of the after-expenses profit?
This is interesting:
I'm a reasonably intelligent person, I know that the NSA is basically admitting to recording all cell phone traffic, I know this will include my private calls...
And I don't care. Maybe I will in a week or two, but right now...
Anyway, I'm usually very pro-privacy, so I found my reaction on this one interesting.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
This is a horrendous situation and I hope most of the people got out of the buildings before the collapse. As a Canadian they might as well have hit Toronto because it feels the same. While the US media has ignored it there have been lines at blood banks across Canada, and every Canadian city has offered to help however they can (and they are actually offering for real. Toronto prepared 15 EMS teams with ambulances and all of the equipment ready to go on NY's request, and our hospitals and air ambulances prepared to take any overflow that might exist).
Having said that it is INCREDIBLY irritating seeing the natural habit of pointing to easy solutions to get the knee jerk solutions : For instance every report has been making a BIG deal about 2 of the people possibly having come from Canada (though strangely apparently they had New Jersey licenses from preliminary reports). Guess what: They flew FROM US airports, and they apparently had UAE passports, so could someone tell me why this "Canadian connection" is given such relevance? Secondly during the attack all attention was immediately placed on international flights despite the fact that the four flights were originating and destined in the US, but of course it's easy to think of foreign airports as lax versus the super secure impenetrable US airports. I just had to get this off my chest because while I would do anything for New York right now, it's hard to tolerate the habit of looking outwards for blame. As a caucasian I really feel for anyone of Middle Eastern descent as all of them are being painted with the same brush and people should remember that not every Muslim is a terrorist, and not every Middle Eastern descended person thinks this is cool: The vast majority are horrified.
It comes down to completely disarmed passengers. If the government has mandated that nobody has a weapon, and you've got something sharp, you're more powerful than everyone else. If guns are allowed on airplanes, brandishing a gun doesn't make you powerful. It makes you a target. Given a sample size of several dozen people, it's very likely that one of them is a better shot than you are. Worse, she knows to shoot you, and you don't know who she is to shoot her.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
If the president chooses to remain on the ground instead of on kneecap (national emergency airborne command post the 747) it's possible that he might relocate here. There would definitely be a crisis team stationed there.
The Internet has no garbage collection
For those that are interested, the Lamont-Doherty Cooperative Seismographic Network (LCSN) has recorded the activity that happened at the World Trade Center so you can realistically feel what was felt there and nearby for the impact and collapse of the buildings.
LCSN Link: http://www.ldgo.columbia.edu/lcn.html
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
Rebuild them taller. That's the only thing to do. Show the cowards that we'll just get bigger when they hit. And, I say we increase our support of Israel ten-fold. And send a message that every attack they carry out on us will result in more increases in support and bigger buildings.
I'm so full of rage and anger.
I was in a building just south of the Pentagon yesterday when everything happened; our building shook when the collapse occurred and smoke was everywhere. It was frightening to then see the F-16's overhead providing air cover (the plane that crashed in PA was headed for DC).
I was sick to my stomach all day yesterday coming down off the adrenaline. What a tragedy.
--- witty signature
Janes has made info from their All the World's Aircraft data available online for the 767 and 757.
Your password has expired, please login to change it.
This corresponds to the date of the demonstrations done against the World Economic Forum on September 11 a year ago.
After searching on the Internet (google.com) a site turned up: www.s11.org. After going to the site I saw pages talking about plans in the future to go up against global coporations. S11 appears to be a group that harbors a strong hatred for global corporations and governments.
One thing that struck me as unusual was one of the index pages had something written to the effect of "On September 11, 2000 at 9am we were successful in stopping the World Economic Forum." I found this unusual because on September 11, 2001 around 9am (NYT) the 2 planes crashed into the World Trade Center.
Yesterday I did a whois (Internet) lookup of s11.org. There were a couple of unusual things about the whois record for s11.org. The record (at the time I looked at it) was created on September 11, 2000. The other unusual thing about the record was the expire date was set to September 11, 2001.
I remember the contact for the whois record having a California address. A Los something city I cannot remember the name for.
A few hours ago I attempted to go back to the s11.org site but was getting time out errors. After that I did a whois lookup on the same domain but the domain records had been changed. The whois record now shows a Last Update date of September 12, 2001 and is owned by a domain name squatter.
It is quite unusal that the whois record for this domain name changed so suddenly at this point in time and is now owned by a different organization.
Even though the site has disappeared, you can still see some cached pages of the original s11.org site by going to google.com and searching for s11.
You can also see a graphic of the same 'global justice' graphics used on the S11 site at another site:
www.channel6000.com
One other set of unusual information that seems to indicate a well-planned attack are the relationship easily found between flight numbers of the hijacked planes and the date:
The flights that were hijacked, from United and AA, were numbered as follows:
11, 93, 175, and 77 11 = Yesterday 9+3 = 12 = Today 1+7+5 = 13 = Thursday 7+7 = 14 = Friday
Do you personally feel that we should forget about what happened? I think we should all be reminded every day about what these cowards did to the United States, in hopes of rallying the troops, so to speak, against the perpetraitors.
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
Over at nancies.org, we made a Red Cross banner and put it into rotation, which is (IMHO) even better than donating whatever paltry income that sites make from advertising these days.
f
http://www.nancies.org/images/banners/redcross.gi
Anybody is welcome to use it, of course. We linked it to redcross.org, but the Amazon.com thing may be better.
-Waldo
In the aftermath of yesterday's gruesome terrorist attack, I'd like to recommend that we fly black ad banners on our sites for a few days in memory of the victims and their families.
Our hearts and prayers are with them.
GET FREE APPLE STUFF!
Check here for Nasa images of the smoke plume from MODIS.
Krispy Cream is people
America: The Good Neighbor.
Widespread but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television commentator. What follows is the full text of his trenchant remarks as printed in the Congressional Record:
"This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the earth.
Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.
When France was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.
When earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the United States that hurries in to help. This spring, 59 American communities were flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped.
The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans.
I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplane. Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas DC10? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all the International lines except Russia fly American Planes?
Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or woman on the moon? You talk about Japanese technocracy, and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy, and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy, and you find men on the moon - not once, but several times and safely home again.
You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at. Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from ma and pa at home to spend here.
When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke.
I can name you 5000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even
during the San Francisco earthquake.
Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of those."
Stand proud, America!
Technoli
Any country that supports or harbors terrorists on any scale had better sit down and take a long, hard look at what they are doing today, they probably won't last the next decade if they continue. The people that did this must be exterminated including any who support them.
...) own methods.
If (not the *if*) the actions came from Bin Laden, the U.S. has to realize that it is a "country that supports or harbors terrorists" in that it is the CIA that "made" Bin Laden, so he could fight the russians in Afganistan. The U.S. DOES support terrorism, as long as it is against other nations. Now that a U.S. sponsored terrorist turns against the U.S. suddently it becomes someone else's fault. Of course bombing Afganistan is much simpler that rethinking your (US agancies,
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
The first targets were clearly chosen to take out buildings that had as many people as possible in them, were world renowned, and were supposedly indestructable/impenatrable. (The WTC towers were actually designed to withstand having a jet flown directly into them. I bet whoever signed off on that was sure it would never happen)
So why then would Camp David, or any of the other theorized targets make any sense at all?
It seems rather obvious to me, especially from a systems design view, that the 4th plane was headed for the Pentagon as well. Full redundancy. Two targets, two attacks on each. Something is bound to get through. Everything else about this was clearly well planned, and if in fact some courageous passenger on the downed plane was responsible for saving the day, the attack was still succesful.
But of course, that's just more speculation to throw on top of the dogpile.
"I got a half gallon of Jack, and 2 dozen Ant Traps. I'm about to get wild." -me
Yes, but just because they were guilty before doesn't mean they're guilty now.
That said, I think the situation is something like this: the Taliban probably would never have signed off on something like this (they have their hands full oppressing their own people -- to those who didn't manage to pick out the news stories going on between the WTC/Pentagon coverage, Kabul is burning even as we speak), know they don't have what it takes to take on the US, and are probably wishing this whole mess just goes away. They are scared, and are probably seriously reconsidering the wisdom of harboring bin Laden.
Osama bin Laden, on the other hand... well, he *claims* he had nothing to do with it, but certainly approved of what happened. I don't know if it is necessarily fair to *blame* him per se for what happened (it could be that it was just a handful of his followers doing something they think the boss would like -- this was not a particularly sophisticated attack by my estimation), but we've certainly got more than enough reason to haul his ass in for questioning.
I think that the Taliban will turn him over eventually, especially if the little internal rebellion thing (could be CIA-inspired, you never know, but...) they're dealing with proves a bit too much for them. They're talking the talk right now, but I can guarandamntee you that they're scared shitless.
People thinking we should start bombing now are missing the point. There are nuclear powers in the region, particularly Pakistan and Israel and very possibly Iraq. The people celebrating this act of terror in the streets of the Middle East are as much decieved about us (if not more so) as many of us are about them, for many of the same reasons, and can't be held culpable because their governments try to prevent them from knowing any better. The thing to do is to twist the arms of the Taliban without getting violent, have them turn over bin Laden by convincing them that he's a liability, and let the man rot for the rest of his life in solitary in Colorado.
/Brian
I don't know -- is it a troll if the information is just a little off?
"Fly-by-wire" means the controls are connected by an electronic connection to the control surfaces instead of a physical connection, no more, no less. The system you are referring to is a warning system, not a control system, and I suspect it was probably going crazy in the cockpit when it hit.
As for the rest of it, I really don't think this was a sophisticated attack at all; even a dozen militia rednecks from Kentucky could have pulled this one off. Granted, we know the hijackers were of Middle Eastern descent -- a few could have been American citizens, but that's sort of irrelevant -- but I'm saying that it *could* have been a domestic operation. All that was needed was a sufficient number of people willing to be duped and die for a cause. Give them innocuous weapons (box cutters) and a connection to get the (rumored) mace on board and you're all set. Some smarts are required, but only on the parts of a couple of the conspirators.
In a world where politics has become so polarized, I don't think that would be too tough for anyone.
/Brian
You're polite and sound sensible, but it seems to me that you have a very lop-sided view of the world.
Consider the possibility that American media contains more effective propoganda and distortion than Pravda ever managed.
Try reading some alternative viewpoints such as http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/ . I'm not saying this stuff is more accurate than the mainstream media, judge for yourself, but at the very least it will give you a better understanding of where some people are coming from.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
Do you personally feel that we should forget about what happened? I think we should all be reminded every day about what these cowards did to the United States, in hopes of rallying the troops, so to speak, against the perpetraitors.
I'm glad to see another viewpoint in the same vein as mine.
After the emotional rollercoaster that was yesterday, a group of us went out en masse to unwind over beer. Our first stop, an Atlanta restaurant/lounge called Mumbo Jumbo, sported not a single television. This was something of a respite, having spent our morning and days surrounded by streaming video on large screens. Six hundred dollars of bar tab later, we moved on to a brewhouse up the street, which had multiple TVs. For a while, a group of us sat outside. After a bit, most of us migrated back in to commune and discuss. Occasionally someone would grab someone else's chin, turn the head, and say "Let it go," but it's a horribly unsimple task. The historic cry of 'Remember the Alamo' crawls to the surface, horribly apropo.
The first few days, we as a country will take the time to save those who were wounded, free those who are trapped, and pray for those who have died.
When the smoke has settled, we as a country will mourn. I myself will be wearing a black armband during this period, and I hope others will do the same. The injured and families of the fallen need to see and know that we support them, and that we care. It may not speed the healing, and it will not erase the scars, but the repairs will be stronger for it.
When the mourning is done, things will change. As a country, we've gotten lax. I travel pretty regularly, and I have no doubt that several of my standard carry on items (such as my Gerber Multitool) will be moved to my luggage. Security inspections will be tougher. Time to travel will be increased.
The coming months will be difficult as things are sorted out. There will be arguments about privacy, and increased pushes for surveillance technologies that could have prevented this. There are many facets to this that will be examined and fought over.
With recently uncovered facts, we now know how these deeds were perpetrated. No guns, no explosions. Simple hand implements and the knowledge of how to use them. Airline staff aren't combat trained, but what if they were? How could things have happened differently if people were better equipped, mentally and physically, to handle a hand to hand attack? Could you defend yourself against someone with a knife? Having studied some martial arts and sword fighting techniques, I'm glad I can say I could hold my own against an untrained attacker or even a slightly capable one.
What about support? How many people reading this are experienced enough to perform first aid or CPR? We have first hand amateur video of a brave doctor rushing into the dense dust and smoke to assist injured people at serious risk to his own life. In his running narrative, he mentions going to assist those who need help, because "he's not one of them." Finding yourself unhurt in a disaster environment, what would you do? What CAN you do?
An interview on CNN yesterday with a security expert who investigated the previous WTC bombing pointed out that this was a 'high concept' attack, as opposed to 'high tech'. We as a country are dependant upon technology to make things easier for us, to take the hard work out life. If not for the macabre aspect of the notion, I'd almost think the Amish were laughing at us now.
To paraphrase a piece of David Eddings fiction (and poorly), the United States reels from crisis to crisis like a drunken sailor. Everything is fine as long as the party is still going, and no one gets hurt. Now, in the wake of tragedy, the entire nation is galvanized into awareness of the world around them. Our populace, as a whole, has likely learned more about foreign policy and U.S. world involvement in the past two days than it has been aware of over the past two years.
Many people have likened this incident to the imfamous day of Pearl Harbor, and it's fitting only in that we are now a united people in the sister causes of mourning and vengeance. Many people I've spoken with take small comfort in knowing there will be a reprisal, and that it will be strong and it will not be forgotten.
Even now, other countries and world organizations are moving their pieces and formulating strategy to insure this doesn't happen again. When the reprisals are done, and justice is delivered, then what? What lessons will be learned and how will we apply them?
- billn
If one bullet through the fuselage could bring down an airplane, why do terrorists bother with bombs? In any case, it's possible to design bullets with less impulse than existing ammunition. The fact that nobody has yet done so is simply because nobody would bother to buy it, because you are prevented from carrying a gun on board an airplane.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist