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Area 51 Hackers Map Buried Surveillance Network
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."
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.
a pair ... discovered a buried network of wireless motion sensors on the public land surrounding the "operating location near Groom Lake, Nevada."
:)
Upon their arrival, hundreds of vents opened up and millions of alien-virus infected bees immediately started swarming around them...
Oops, wait, sorry... wrong movie.
If there ever was anything at Groom Lake, it won't be there now. The SECOND anyone knew that UFO nuts had got wind of it, anything interesting would have been moved somewhere else.
At a tangent - whatever happened to Bob Lazar?
The base exists. Clinton signed it into existance when the workers sued for being exposed to pollutants which the goverment didnt want to disclose. As of 2002 all of the John Doe's are now dead and the foverment still didnt explain what materials they were exposed too.
* Large playing area
:)
* GPS coordinates are mapped
* Public land (hey, the taxpayers _pay_ for it)
* Who knows what goodies are at each site to be traded
Sounds like a good place for some geocaching to me!
Oh wait, it was just /. ed ...
Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.
There's no such thing as "public land" -- the government owns every single bit of land in the country that's not owned privately (and even then -- there's property tax)
It also doesn't matter if the DOD name was on it or not, it doesn't belong to you, so why take it? Basic theft.
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.
"If you or I accidentally kick one of these hidden transmitters, should the feds be able to seize our Macintosh and photos of Aunt Betty?"
They took his Macintosh?!? Those bastards!
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Lot's of military bases have perimeter security and sensors. Try getting into Camp Peary in Virginia. Or any one of a number of other places.
oooo....But it's Area51! Obviously they are hiding something behind those sensors.
Ha. If there ever was anything alien there (highly doubtful), it's long since been moved. Hangar 18, maybe?
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.
Now, granted he did rebury the devices, and granted, they were in the public park, not Area 51 itself, but it's not hard for the average person to see why this is a bad idea. There's a lot of stuff in "public" areas you're not allowed to monkey with. If a public park provided restrooms with those annoying motion-sensor faucets, does anyone think they would be within their rights to repeatedly take them apart?
Sure, there is a worry in this case about the government monitoring private citizens in a public place, but "approach" sensors invade privacy a lot less than swarms of armed guards peering through binoculars from the fenceline 24x7.
In short, this guy crossed the line. I understand being intrigued, and even outraged by these devices, but making a map is one thing, and once he figured out what the devices were he never should have touched them.
(Just had a scary thought on preview: what if the odd buried device he found had turned out to be a errant landmine? Of course it's massively criminal for it to be there, but there is a reason you don't got poking unknown military hardware...)
Area 51 is probably just another detention camp where alien terrorists are being tortured^Wquestioned. Govt. denies the existence of this camp to protect the red cross inspectors from the awful sight of ugly aliens nursing their greenish wounds. Ever seen an alien with sleep deprivation? Uh oh...
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
I don't know if it is or isn't in use, but if you do some research, you will find that they will probably be guarding it for quite some time.
There were several civilian employees that worked there and they became ill. They sued the government due to what they said were illnesses resulting from EPA violations (burning toxic chemicals). Apparently all the experimental stuff they have been doing has some nasty bi-products. They were running out of storage room so naturally they just burnt it. Apparently if a base doesn't exist, it is free from abiding by EPA regulations. That is a whole topic for another discussion though.
To make a long story short, they weren't allowed to sue because officially the base didn't exist. I do not know the final outcome of the case since the base has been acknowledged.
If they were handling toxic stuff there, it is possible that they will continue to guard it even if it isn't used anymore to prevent hapless curious seekers from exposing themselves to lethal substances.
Now one of the guys has been charged with a federal crime...
If you absolutely, positively must be raided today - illegally enter a restricted area.
I mean, come on, you know they're motion sensors - what did you think would happen?
-Adam
Innocent until proven guilty disappeared a few years ago. Due process is up next.
The Federation of American Scientists has a nice description of what is on Area 51, as well as many links to provide more info.
There is no denying that there is much about the place kept under wraps, but the crazy UFO stories need to come to an end.
Sunny Dubey
President Bush gave the area an exemption from EPA regulations on waste disposal in 2002:0 020918-9.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/2
Read any good sonnets lately?
For added excitement:
*Armed patrols
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
In this post on the Area 51 site linked to from the article, Joerg Arnu (one of the "hackers" in the article) claims that Poulsen lured him into the interview under false pretenses, then refused his requests not to use the interview, hung up on him, and didn't return any further messages. I haven't read much of Poulsen's stuff, but is this typical of him?
Juiced? Or Not?
Area 51 is real and is used everyday. There are planes that take off everyday from McCarran Airport in Las Vegas bringing employees to Groom Lake.
"Another area of interest is the EG&G terminal on the Northwest corner of McCarran International Airport. Every weekday morning, about 500 people arrive at the guarded terminal with one destination, Groom Lake. When I was in Las Vegas observing the activity of the EG&G terminal, I counted six EG&G owned 737-200s. The aircraft are easily identifiable; they are white with a red strip running the total length of the plane. They fly out to Groom Lake about every half hour in the morning but things slow down in the afternoon with about two to three aircraft always sitting outside. Starting in the late afternoon (I noticed one coming in at 2:30 PM), the 737s start coming back to Las Vegas. At about 6:00, all of the aircraft (6 of which I counted, there could be more) were back to the EG&G facility for the night. Below are the photos that I took when I was out to Groom Lake and observing the EG&G terminal." From sr-71.org, and a picture here.
Also for the "new" Area 51, Popular Mechanics had an article a long time ago that is located here.
Ever heard of this concept? The simplest explanation is probably the best one. Let's start out with Area 51 being a "secret military base" that "doesn't officially exist". Area 51 exists, is acknowledged to exist, and is generally known as an Air Force base. So what could their motivation here be?
Probably that they're tired of a bunch of crazy conspiracy theorists trying to get a photo of the "aliens" on the base. The idea that Area 51 is a government hoax is ridiculous. Anyone who works or has worked for the US Federal Gov't knows the insane levels of bureacracy that you have to deal with on a daily basis, and you don't get thinking anywhere near that creative from the federal government.
Let's stop making such a hugely asinine deal about this. Get out of your basement and stop wearing your x-files t-shirts around.
-- K
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 :
0 030916-4.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/09/2
While I know that often plea deals are important in order to garner testimony about organized crime or other criminal activities this sort of case illustrates (or at least might illustrate since I don't actually know who is telling the truth) the potential dangers. Bizarelly I find myself in agreement with Ashcroft, plea bargains should be *only* be offered in return for becoming an informant, it should be banned (legally and not just by the AGs rules) otherwise.
For instance in this case the government has *every* encouragment to file suit against this guy even if they have no evidence. The threat of prison time is scary enough that any normal person will take a plea agreement accomplishing what the government really wants, stopping them from investigating area 51 (it would not surprise me at all if part of his probhation is not to even passively map the sensors, or even go close to area 51). The plea bargain allows the government to exercise considerable power by the threat of legal action without any real chance of court review.
Moreover, as far as I'm concerned giving someone a deal for pleading guilty should be a violation of the 5th ammendment. After all a plea bargain is a reduced sentence in return for not insisting on your innocence. Or put another way in the presence of a plea offer there is a penalty for insisting on your innocence. Sure it isn't technically punishing someone for refusing to incriminate themselves but this is certainly within the spirit of the ammendment, if the implicit privacy argument is considered a valid constitutional principle than this sort of broad interpratation of the 5th is perfectly reasonable as well. I really can't see any pragmatic difference between a law which penalizes someone for not testifying to their guilt (which presumably could only apply if the individual was convicted) and a general practice of giving significantly reduced sentences in return for the admisson of guilt.
Some people will protest that my position would rob the judicial system of discretion. Not at all, judges would still have plenty of discretion to give a light sentence. The change would just stop penalizing individuals for insisting on innocence. I also think it is only because upper class white kids always recieve plea bargains in drug cases (while poor black ones often don't) that the public is willing to stand for things like mandatory minimums and extreme drug sentences. I doubt most of the prosecutors are overtly racist but many people's gut reaction to seeing a well dressed white kid busted for drugs is a good kid who screwed up while a black kid in baggy pants and so forth is far more likely to be thought of as a bad person. Sure, the problem will still exist in sentencing but at least the system will be a little better and more open (it is easier to see that a judge is racially biased in his deciscions because everything is public record while often the surrounding facts to a plea bargain aren't so publicly accesible).
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
All those people being flown in an out are CmdrTaco's chefs.
As for President Bush signing an excemption for waste disposal.......well, I'll leave that to your imagination.
And if you thought that was boring you obviously havn't read my Journal ;-)
Apparently if a base doesn't exist, it is free from abiding by EPA regulations.
Actually, whether a base officially exists or not, it is usually exempt from EPA regulations. That's one of the problems that some cities (San Antonio, Austin, etc...) are having redeveloping old military bases into high-tech centers, airports, and whatnot. After the military closes the base, and the civilians go in to redevlop, there's all sorts of nasty crap left over in the ground because the military is exempt from many EPA regulations.
But don't blame the military, blame your representatives in Congress. They love exemptions, and have even exempted themselves from many federal laws, like labor laws, ADA, and others.
World's tallest building rises in the desert
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.
It is easy to argue that the govnt employs common people, who cannot handle some info. The truth is, that the secret stuff gives the feds an advantage over spooks in other countries. If you can keep the fact that you have a fleet of F-117s on hand, you get the advantage of Saddam Hussein not buying the latest anti-stealth shoulder launched rockets from Serbia at $zillion a pop for a few more years. Simple. Military advantage. I can handle knowing that the USAF has rocket powered toilets just as well as the next guy, but may be in USAF's advantage not to let ANYONE know about it.
It's logical that if they publish this in the USA, then Osama is going to read all bout it the same day. It's not that regular people like us can't know about it, it's that us not knowing about it is the only way to guarantee that Osama won't know either.
They have full right to do this in the name of security, and it is also their duty to judge what information may be released. Remember, if they release something which allows Osama to level New York tomorrow (i.e. "suitcase thermonuclear bomb for $100 HOWTO"), it's THEIR ass on the line.
And just to drive the argument home: Foreign spies would be out of work if stuff like that was public. What's the harm? Why do you think other countries spend so much money on intelligence, if this info isn't crucial to security?