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Area 51 Hackers Map Buried Surveillance Network

Posted by timothy on from the damned-if-you-do dept.

advair writes "There's a story on SecurityFocus about a pair of Area 51 'hackers' who discovered a buried network of wireless motion sensors on the public land surrounding the "operating location near Groom Lake, Nevada." Using a frequency counter and a GPS receiver, they tracked down and logged 30 - 40 of the sensors, before the FBI and Air Force raided one of them, and questioned the other. Now one of the guys has been charged with a federal crime for allegedly removing one of the devices that was protecting a base that doesn't officially exist."

8 of 876 comments (clear)

  1. Area 51 is a hoax by the goverment by mpost4 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My bet is area 51 is just a deco, think about you set up a "base" you plant a few "good" stories for the conspiracy theorist to love, you play the whole thing up. you have a real base some where else. Every one will flock to area 51, then you do your real work at area 52 (or what ever they might call it) I also doubt there are any extra terrestrial research going on in the government, think about it you need the best of the best to even think of starting it, and the government well its the government what other insult do I need to lob at it.

    Area 51 is probably just a few buildings there to keep the amount of people to perpetuate the image that area 51 is real.

    This people probably have fallen for it, and the government might have just planted the motion sensors to keep them busy, they the person steal one I don't know, but either way the government sorta unofficial clams it, and the conspiracy theorists will go wild.

    1. Re:Area 51 is a hoax by the goverment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Wait, this is the same U.S. government that gave us Amtrak and the USPS?

      Don't go blaming the government because Americans prefer travelling cross-country in their own personal conveyances rather than using more efficient means of transportation.

      As for the USPS it works just fine. I'd like to hear how much you'd charge to pick-up, transport and deliver a letter from one coast to the other, let alone millions of letters and packages on a daily basis.

    2. Re:Area 51 is a hoax by the goverment by jedrek · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I live in Warsaw, Poland.

      My friend sent me a letter from Germany on friday morning, via DHL (private company), paid 38euro (about 45-50US) for it. I got it on tuesday morning.

      Another friend sent me a package on thursday afternoon from Missouri, via USPS. It was a Muvo2 MP3 player in its original box, with all the manuals, power supplies, etc. He paid $20US for it, and I got it on... tuesday morning.

      Don't knock the USPS.

    3. Re:Area 51 is a hoax by the goverment by Deekin_Scalesinger · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Begging your pardon, but White Sands is in New Mexico. I have driven through the base (they have a highway that runs through the middle of it). The terrain is as you would expect - lotsa desert. They also have warm welcoming signs such as "exiting your car in this area is a Federal Crime" One needs little incentive to loiter however, as they have other signs proclaiming the area to be a live fire exercise area.

      This was on my way to Roswell, NM, home of the purported UFO crash site. I was living in San Diego and this girl I was seeing somehow got tickets to a place called the "corn ranch" (think that was it) - they looked like concert tickets. Anyway, once a year (this was July 4th weekend), they open up the ranch to interested parties. When I went in 97, a couple had bought the ranch without knowing what occured there (according to the couple, who led the field trip). Once they found out the legend, they opened it up as a tourist trap.

      The crash site itself was aganist a small cliff - seems the saucer came down, impacted just at the bottom of the cliff, and bounced - 15 miles according to local legend. The Federales came and investigated and started to shush things up - they apparently drove the 15 miles to its final resting place, grabbed the saucer, and then the veil of mystery begins. How true or not this is is anyone's guess. I offer my own impressions merely because I don't think a lot of people have been there. BTW - Roswell is a largish town, but certainly not a city. Mebbe comparable in size to Winchester, VA for those who have been there. They of course have alien tourist crap as far as the eye can see, and it's fair share of alien nutjobs.

      --
      "As the intrepid kobold companion continues his journey, he begins to wonder... if priests raises dead, why anybody die?
  2. Area 51 does now exist by LokiSteve · · Score: 5, Interesting

    During the Clinton era it was acknowledged that Area 51 (Dreamland, Groom Lake, etc) existed. This was about the same time that Area 51 buffs reported a dramatic decrease in activity at and around the base. It was acknowledged in a very generic manner, but was acknowledged none the less.

    Supposedly, the reason for the abandoning of the base was because the radiation from atomic tests wasn't going the "China Syndrome" way, back into the earth, but coming back up (area 51 was the 51st grid on a map used for nuke testing).

    I haven't followed it for a while, but last I heard, the experts were pointing at Arizona and New Mexico as the new locations for many, mini, Area 51s.

    --
    END OF LINE.
  3. Television Special by wls · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There was a television special recently about this. What I found even more interesting was a different security compromise.

    A private investigator was hired to watch the airport in Las Vegas and he observed which cars came and went on a frequent basis. He was eventually able to deduce which cars' owner were spending the day at Area 51.

    At that point, it became a simple matter of just following the cars to a plush neighborhood. When he went to knock on the door and asked about Area 51, they said "no comment" and shut the door in his face. One would think that just mentioning Area 51 would be enough to inspire curosity from the non-involved.

    An once-insider agreed to secretly meet with them doing the whole inside-a-hotel with blured-face and altered-voice routine. He examined maps and photos and said they were accurate. He also said that there were no UFOs at Area 51, and that the big secret was the abusive politics and unsafe worker conditions.

    Guess Area 51 scooby gang missed the television special on S4, where the anti-gravity from borrowed UFOs go on.

  4. Re:... or so the aliens would have you believe! by Mike+Farooki · · Score: 5, Interesting

    For several years, whoever happens to be President of the US at the time has made an annual Presidential Determination to prevent "disclosure to unauthorized persons of classified information concerning that operating location." Here is Bush's Determination from last year :

    http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/09/20 030916-4.html

  5. Sensors nothing new or unusual by dsrtegl · · Score: 5, Interesting
    When I was in the Coast Guard, stationed at a LORAN station (in Nevada), we couldn't put up a fence around the station because it would interfere with the signal. We had a gate across the road, and underground pressure sensors along with beam sensors above ground to detect intruders. Since LORAN isn't sexy, we didn't have many trespassers but I did have to go out and shoo off the free range cattle that wandered in from time to time.

    I would have been pissed if some yahoo started messing with them, too. After all, they are there to ensure that no one vandalizes the equipment or gets fried by the 21,500 volts that exist across the base insulator of the antenna. We were most afraid of some BASE jumper getting killed while trying to climb the tower. In LORAN the whole tower is "hot" instead of a small radiator at the top.

    And if they broke one, I'd have to fix it.