Russia Prepares For Internet War Over Malaysian Jet

An anonymous reader writes The investigation of a Malaysian passenger jet shot down over Ukrainian rebel held territory is heating up. U.S. and U.K. news organizations are studiously trying to spread the blame, Russian ITAR, which, just earlier today was celebrating the downing of a large aircraft by rebel missiles in Torez (Google cache) is reporting that the rebels do not have access to the missiles needed for such attacks. The rebel commander who earlier today reported the downing of the aircraft has also issued a correction to earlier reports that they had captured BUK air defense systems with Russian sources now stating that the rebels do not posses such air defenses. The Ukrainian president has been attempting to frame the incident as a "terrorist attack". President Obama made contact with Vladimir Putin and has been instead treating it as an accident, calling it a "terrible tragedy" and saying that the priority is investigating whether U.S. citizens were involved. With control of the black box and its own internet propaganda army Russia may be in a good position to win the propaganda war.

Comments

Black box data streaming

[justcauseisjustthat]

Why haven't all airplanes been upgraded so the black box data is streamed to satellites/ground stations? It's so dumb to have to search for a airplane to find the data, that should be the fallback plan. Hey FAA, you listening?

Re:Black box data streaming

[acoustix]

My guess is cost. Sending data via satellite is very expensive, and there's a lot of data recorded. As for ground stations, I'm not aware of any plane-to-ground data communications currently in use (other than radio for voice) so that would need a completely new infrastructure built.

Re:Black box data streaming

[AHuxley]

Its the decades of “tombstone technology” when there are enough tombstones the cash will the found to stream data to satellites/ground stations.
Until then you hope to get to the data as stored in time. Not too toasty for too long or down too deep.
(tombstone technology may relate to a DC-10 that crashed outside Paris, France in 1974, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... )

Re:Black box data streaming

[justcauseisjustthat]

So we can put Wifi internet on airplanes, but not a virtual black box?

Re:Black box data streaming

[FireFury03]

Why haven't all airplanes been upgraded so the black box data is streamed to satellites/ground stations? It's so dumb to have to search for a airplane to find the data, that should be the fallback plan. Hey FAA, you listening?

Because there's probably way too much data for that to be a reasonable idea. Have you any idea how many planes there are flying at once?

Re:Black box data streaming

[acoustix]

That's a good point, but its a small percentage of flights that have Internet access. Even in the US.

Re:Black box data streaming

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it takes 5000 years to certify a new piece of aviation equipment for use on board a passenger aircraft.

Re:Black box data streaming

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a good point, but its a small percentage of flights that have Internet access. Even in the US.

The US is not always the best indication of what is possible or reasonable (or sane) in regards to mass transportation.

Re:Black box data streaming

[Anonymous Coward]

You ever used that internet? It's not very good.

And you want to put all that data out in the open, as the plane is flying?

Re:Black box data streaming

[dfn5]

Because the pilot union doesn't want that data to be available for anyone to look at outside of an accident situation. Consider if your car had a black box, which it should. But in addition to collecting the data was transmitting that information continuously to the government for them to peruse any time they wanted. One already gets speeding tickets automatically when your fast lane toll pass records you traveling between toll plazas faster than you should be. Imagine if that was all the time.

Re:Black box data streaming

[c]

Why haven't all airplanes been upgraded so the black box data is streamed to satellites/ground stations?

In general, I don't entirely disagree. In this case... I'm not sure how useful the black box would be in the event of a missile strike. I wasn't aware the civilian aircraft had the kind of gear to track a missile, or that the kinds of collision sensors they have would be fast enough to catch it. It's definitely not going to be able to tell who shot the missile or where it came from. Heck, I'd be surprised if the black box could tell the difference betwen a missile strike and a large suitcase bomb in the cargo hold. So unless it actually was an mechanical or aircrew failure (and I highly doubt it), I think the black box is a red herring.

Re:Black box data streaming

[Anonymous Coward]

My guess is cost. Sending data via satellite is very expensive, and there's a lot of data recorded. As for ground stations, I'm not aware of any plane-to-ground data communications currently in use (other than radio for voice) so that would need a completely new infrastructure built.

Nope. Sorry to interrupt your speculation, but the reality is that there is technology available for that. It's been used in corporate private aviation etc. many decades already. It costs some money, it will cost something to install and operate, but it's not too expensive any more. The reasons why it isn't been used in commercial airliners is mainly it's just not been a requirement to install, there have not been accidents which would had it made a requirement and because airline operators are business trying to make money they avoid any extra costs they can.

There is a very good summary of the state of this in Science Friday May 30, 2014 story following previous Malesian Airlines plane case.

ac

Re:Black box data streaming

[wired_parrot]

Black box data wouldn't help in this case. The data from the black box would likely only show you a perfectly normal flight up to the second in which the missile hit. There's enough evidence to show that it was a missile strike, and the question now is who fired it. That evidence may be found in the debris of the missile that hit the aircraft, and in pinpointing the origin of the missile fire. The flight data recorder may provide supporting evidence that it was a missile strike, but it won't tell you who pulled the trigger.

Re:Black box data streaming

[Anonymous Coward]

Consider if your car had a black box, which it should.

It does. It's called an EDR. At least, a lot of cars do have it.

Re:Black box data streaming

[Charliemopps]

That's a good point, but its a small percentage of flights that have Internet access. Even in the US.

Even in the US? I've never seen internet access on a US flight. Flying across Europe, the middle east and Africa, pretty much every plane I got on either had direct internet access or the plane offered streaming data you could pay for (i.e. it had internet, just no wifi) The lack of internet access in the US is entirely due to the FAA being stuck in the 1950s.

Re: Black box data streaming

[Anonymous Coward]

It wouldn't matter in this case. We know where the plane is and what happened to it. The most you would see is a big acceleration or yaw as the missile detonated, might hear the explosion on the voice recorder, or whatever before it stops recording as the plane came apart. The US is reporting their military surveillance saw the missile radar light up as it tracked the plane.

There are now reports of monitored chatter among the separatists where they figured out it was civilian instead of military after the shoot down. There was also the tweet by the separatist general where he celebrated shooting down another Ukrainian plane and then deleted it. It really looks like it was the separatists who did it, using Russian weapons.

This shoot down and the loss of innocent life is the direct result of Vladimir Putin's reckless behavior and fomenting violence in the Ukraine as he injects weapons, advisors, and military to try to take the Ukraine over. This rests squarely on his shoulders. He might as well have killed those 290 people with his own hands.

The black box really won't provide anything not already known. What we need are radar tracking and satellite photos that show the position of the missile launcher before the missile was fired. That is the smoking gun needed to hang that communist megalomaniac bastard.

Re:Black box data streaming

[Charliemopps]

Why haven't all airplanes been upgraded so the black box data is streamed to satellites/ground stations? It's so dumb to have to search for a airplane to find the data, that should be the fallback plan. Hey FAA, you listening?

Because there's probably way too much data for that to be a reasonable idea. Have you any idea how many planes there are flying at once?

And how much data does the flight recorder capture? 56k? and it doesn't even need to send it all. Location and some very low quality audio of radio communications would solve 99% of the problems we're having. It's kind of like the brain implants they've built for the blind in recent years. The first one they put into a guy only had a resolution of about 20 x 20 pixels. When asked how it was to see with such terrible resolution he said "I don't mind. If it stops me from getting hit by a car, I'll worry about being able to see a sunset for another day.

Re:Black box data streaming

[NatasRevol]

That's what QOS & encryption is for.

Re:Black box data streaming

[Charliemopps]

Consider if your car had a black box, which it should.

No it shouldn't. It's my car, go to hell. If I drove a buss or something, that would be different. But you can't preemptively determine that at some point in the future I will break the law, cause an accident and therefor put a surveillance system in my car. By your logic I should be required by law to have video cameras in my home filming me just in case I murder someone so the police can come along later and watch the video.

One already gets speeding tickets automatically when your fast lane toll pass records you traveling between toll plazas faster than you should be. Imagine if that was all the time.

Why does everyone always think "Where I live, things are like X, therefor things are like X everywhere on earth"???
We don't even have TOLLS in my state, much less tickets by toll. In the states that border mine they have tolls and they don't do that.
I think I've only driven through one state where they can legally give you a ticket for speeding based on when you get on and off the tollway. They said I was speeding, I said "No I wasn't" and they said "oh... well be careful" and no ticket.

Re:Black box data streaming

[Anonymous Coward]

I just heard from a concerned internal source that Icarus wings last report for a certification will finally be negative after a test showed possible structural thermal issue.

Re:Black box data streaming

[Motard]

Transponders and other things already send a bunch of data (in the case of MH370, all of these thing had been turned off).

In terms of the black boxes, there's also another consideration; privacy. Remember that all of the cockpit conversations are recorded and are generally only listened to if the plane crashes. I doubt if pilots would put up with a system that broadcast all of their conversations all over the world.

In this case though, I don't think the black boxes are going to be of much value. They'll show that the flight systems went haywire for some reason, and we already know the cause of that. The pilots may or may not have been aware of impending doom, but I don't see how that information would be useful in any event.

Re:Black box data streaming

[Kythe]

It's not a matter of technology. It's a matter of satellite bandwidth, given the number of flights in the air. One possible solution has been developed that predicts imminent disaster and rapidly commences data upload. I'm not sure whether that would work in the case of a missile attack, though.

Re: Black box data streaming

[falcon5768]

You do realize all new cars and a lot of cars 2000+ already have black boxes in them right? You just don't get access to them the law and lawyers do.

Re:Black box data streaming

[fche]

The relevance of flight recorders to a missile attack is ... absent.

Re:Black box data streaming

[Registered Coward v2]

That's a good point, but its a small percentage of flights that have Internet access. Even in the US.

Even in the US? I've never seen internet access on a US flight. Flying across Europe, the middle east and Africa, pretty much every plane I got on either had direct internet access or the plane offered streaming data you could pay for (i.e. it had internet, just no wifi) The lack of internet access in the US is entirely due to the FAA being stuck in the 1950s.

Uh, Delta has been offering pay as you go internet via wifi for a while now on their US flights. It works just fine. Other airlines probably do the same but I only fly Delta so I can't say for sure.

Re:Black box data streaming

[daid303]

We kinda do know how many planes there are flying.
http://www.flightradar24.com/

Right now there are 10365 planes flying over the world. They also perfectly tracked the last few plane crashes up to the moment they disappeared. So position is covered.

Re:Black box data streaming

[Registered Coward v2]

Why haven't all airplanes been upgraded so the black box data is streamed to satellites/ground stations? It's so dumb to have to search for a airplane to find the data, that should be the fallback plan. Hey FAA, you listening?

Because there's probably way too much data for that to be a reasonable idea. Have you any idea how many planes there are flying at once?

And how much data does the flight recorder capture? 56k? and it doesn't even need to send it all. Location and some very low quality audio of radio communications would solve 99% of the problems we're having. It's kind of like the brain implants they've built for the blind in recent years. The first one they put into a guy only had a resolution of about 20 x 20 pixels. When asked how it was to see with such terrible resolution he said "I don't mind. If it stops me from getting hit by a car, I'll worry about being able to see a sunset for another day.

However, how often are black boxes not recovered? Sure, it would be useful in a few rare cases but does the cost justify it? There is already a load of data that gets transmitted during flight to data centers; and in the case of the missing Malaysia flight that data stopped after a while anyway so how can you be sure in those cases where you don't recover a lack box you'd still have useful data. I have no doubt more and more data will be streamed in the future, but you need to weigh the costs of retrofitting with the benefits.

Re:Black box data streaming

[coofercat]

There's a difference between doing something as a service that you're paid for by others and something you do for yourself. Having taxi drivers, or lorry drivers or whatever recorded is different than having private car drivers recorded.

I'm not saying your point is wrong, but it's more complex than you make out. You do make a good point about the data only being accessible in an accident situation, as opposed to in some non-event that the government decides is important enough call an "emergency requiring that we listen in".

Re:Black box data streaming

[TangoMargarine]

I don't really see how it would help at all in the event of a missile attack, either...they already know where it went down. If the plane gets hit by a missile, I would expect that all the data would pretty much immediately go to hell and require sifting with a *very* fine-toothed comb to find anything worthwhile at all.

Re:Black box data streaming

[wooferhound]

My guess is cost. Sending data via satellite is very expensive, and there's a lot of data recorded. As for ground stations, I'm not aware of any plane-to-ground data communications currently in use (other than radio for voice) so that would need a completely new infrastructure built.

The last jet that didappeared had the engines sending data to the satellites continously

Re:Black box data streaming

[TerraFrost]

My guess is cost. Sending data via satellite is very expensive, and there's a lot of data recorded. As for ground stations, I'm not aware of any plane-to-ground data communications currently in use (other than radio for voice) so that would need a completely new infrastructure built.

Quoting wikipedia.org's entry on Gogo Inflight Internet,

Air-To-Ground (ATG) Gogo's ATG network is a cellular based network that has more than 160 towers in the continental U.S., Alaska and soon, Canada. The towers are cellphone towers that have been outfitted to point their signals at the sky rather than along the ground. The aircraft picks up the signal through a receiver installed on its underside. When it reaches the aircraft, the data signal is distributed throughout the cabin via a Wi-Fi system.

Re:Black box data streaming

[wooferhound]

Consider if your car had a black box, which it should.

Black Boxes for cars are coming . . .
http://news.slashdot.org/story...

Re:Black box data streaming

[TerraFrost]

Quoting the American Airlines website,

Domestic Wi-Fi is now available on nearly all flights within the U.S.

The following URL breaks it down even more by the various airlines:

http://lifehacker.com/how-to-find-out-if-your-flight-has-wi-fi-and-how-much-805389211

Sufficient to say, wifi on US flights isn't that uncommon. And unlike you, I've never had wifi on any of my flights over Europe or Asia.

Re:Black box data streaming

[TangoMargarine]

Half the problem is that they *are* still "working." I very much contest that that data would be worthwhile (what are you trying to find out, anyway? Where on the plane the missile hit? The exact time the missile hit down to the second? Who cares?). It's kind of hard for the sensors to give worthwhile readings when the components they monitor are gone because you've got chunks missing out of your plane.

Unless you actually believe that that guy in the Toyota floor mats thing (was he in a Prius?) actually had time to pump the brake thousands of times before he stopped (sensors tripping in software will sometimes report the same condition over and over as fast as they can while the condition still exists).

I'm a programmer by trade so please don't assume I'm a total fucking idiot (in this instance).

Re:Black box data streaming

[DigiShaman]

Even over the ocean? So the ISP is satellite based then.

Re:Black box data streaming

[tlhIngan]

Why haven't all airplanes been upgraded so the black box data is streamed to satellites/ground stations? It's so dumb to have to search for a airplane to find the data, that should be the fallback plan. Hey FAA, you listening?

Politics.

Who do you want to send the data to? If you say use a US satellite network, the US will use it as leverage to get passenger data on all flights (like it already does for all flights that fly over its airspace, even those that don't stop in the US - and there's a not-so-niche market for planes that can fly AROUND the US - Canada to Mexico, for example).

Then who do you want to trust with the data? It streamed to a satellite network, and now it's gotta be stored somewhere. Store it on a US server and be subject through PATRIOT act requests on everything else? You know it's coming.

Satellite bandwidth is cheap, and we already have the technology to stream it. In fact, we have deployable black boxes - FDRs and CVRs that are mounted on the outside of the fuselage, so on impact, they detach from the aircraft. If the aircraft sinks, the recorders conveniently float (add in 408MHz locators with GPS making it easy to find). If it's on land, the recorders are separate from the wreckage so they're not subject to the potential data-destroying fire, water, heat, impact, or crush damage. Again, trackers make it easier to locate.

And it's been tested technology - the military almost exclusively uses it on all their planes (including fighter jets).

Re:Black box data streaming

[Sobrique]

Unless the aircraft is destroyed out right by the explosion, it'll be damaged and start to crash. I would hope that the onboard monitoring would notice that damage and start warning the pilots, which is a really good cue to start uploading your black box data. Anything where the black box actually survives, there's something to notice 'things going wrong'.

Re:Black box data streaming

[phantomfive]

Even in the US? I've never seen internet access on a US flight.

Every US flight I've been on in the last six months had internet access.

Re:Black box data streaming

[budgenator]

Consider if your car had a black box, which it should. But in addition to collecting the data was transmitting that information continuously to the government for them to peruse any time they wanted.

Consider your car does a black box, but in addition to collecting the data was transmitting that information continuously to your auto insurance company for them to peruse any time they wanted.

Re:Black box data streaming

[budgenator]

You do realise that US satelite scrutiny of the area is extremely intense, we saw the heat signatures of the launch, we have radar tracks of the missile trajectories, It's just a matter of analysing the data, figuring out who in the area, and putting everything together in a way that doesn't reveal classified capabilities.

Re:Black box data streaming

[BasilBrush]

Why haven't all airplanes been upgraded so the black box data is streamed to satellites/ground stations? It's so dumb to have to search for a airplane to find the data, that should be the fallback plan. Hey FAA, you listening?

It's happening. It'll get rolled out over the next few years.

http://globalnews.ca/news/1314...

Re:Black box data streaming

[Talderas]

Sequence of events may make it possible to identify where the missile struck the plane. If that is the case that may be able to limit the trajectories from which the missile could have approached the plane. All sides are denying culpability right now.

Re:Black box data streaming

[Kythe]

I work in this field (aeronautical communications, including satellite systems), and specifically with FAA personnel who are tasked with knowing and regulating such systems (spectrum managers). What I'm saying comes directly as an answer from them in response to a query about why we don't do exactly as you suggest. It's not merely a question of the total satellite bandwidth available. Satellite bandwidth is used for a lot of things, remember -- and only a small subset is used for protected aeronautical satellite (AMS(R)S) assignments. It's not as simple as you suggest.

Re:Black box data streaming

[Kythe]

While true, many satellite earth stations require dishes that track satellites in order to provide an uplink (depends upon the band and the satellite system used). Within reason, a system can maintain a lock under a variety of circumstances. A hit from a missile and the resultant, immediate aircraft disintegration probably presents a situation that would make such a lock exceedingly difficult to maintain.

Re:Black box data streaming

[TangoMargarine]

Software in theory differs a lot from software in practice. From what I've seen, assuming that black boxes have Good(tm) software just because they're an extremely important component is not a valid assumption to make. I'll give you the 28 years bit (from an AC perhaps not the wisest move), but from the couple years I've seen I'm a bit surprised you aren't more cynical about the process.

That black boxes could be designed to record crashes well seems reasonable. To think that civilian airliners' are designed to handle well a missile strike at any arbitrary location on the lower half of the plane and still record everything reliably isn't, to me.

Re:Black box data streaming

[Anonymous Coward]

Flight telemetry is low bandwidth data in most cases (a few kB ADS-B messages at a rate of 250 hz at worst as a real world reference), so there's not a huge bandwidth requirement for this sort of data. I seriously doubt that modern satellite networks will even cough at the added traffic.

Re:Black box data streaming

[itsenrique]

But you only need to hold it for a limited amount of time, if you stream all except the audio feeds it wouldn't be that much at all. And anyway, the amount of data transmitted could be scaled to the capability of the network. It seems very possible. Just encrypt over WiFi. Phase in over 10 years so its not a cost shock, though it seems many planes already have WiFi.

Re:Black box data streaming

[Motard]

I don't think the trajectory can tell us anything. These missiles turn and chase their targets. The point of impact will say nothing about from where the missile was launched.

The good data will likely come from radar signals. The U.S. has already indicate that they know the missile was launched from a rebel controlled area.

Re: Black box data streaming

[HornWumpus]

I thought OBD3 was a tight spec that had not yet made market.

Re:Black box data streaming

[Talderas]

Did they? Last I had heard the US was confirming the launch but not from where.

Re:Black box data streaming

[nctritech]

Not anymore.

Re:Black box data streaming

[Max_W]

Or why it is still one large black box, but not, say, 20 orange 64GB flash drives, which fall all over the place?
An aircraft costs hundreds of millions and 20 flash drives cost peanuts. And it is not a problem at all to write to several flash drives simultaneously.

Re:Black box data streaming

[tipo159]

If you are referring to MH370, no, it didn't. There were roughly hourly handshakes initiated by the ground station and a final handshake initiated by the aircraft (likely when it ran out of fuel).

Here is a report on flight MH370 done by the Australian Transportation Safety Board that describes how the search area was established - ATSB Search Area report. The analysis of the satellite communications starts on page 17.

Re:Black box data streaming

[tipo159]

However, how often are black boxes not recovered?

After the AF447 crash, there was a push for real-time flight data. However, the people who argued "the flight data recorder was recovered 90+% of the time, so it is unnecessary" ultimately won the argument. I had a link to a story about this from back then, but I can't find it.

Meanwhile, I found this link to a NY Times article that was written before the post-AF447 real-time flight data discussion was settled. It seems that we keep having the same discussion over and over again.

Re: Black box data streaming

[tipo159]

It really looks like it was the separatists who did it, using Russian weapons.

Or captured Ukrainian weapons ...

Re:Black box data streaming

[ray-auch]

Or why it is still one large black box, but not, say, 20 orange 64GB flash drives, which fall all over the place?

An aircraft costs hundreds of millions and 20 flash drives cost peanuts. And it is not a problem at all to write to several flash drives simultaneously.

There are obviously going to be problems wiring data (or certifying a wireless solution) and, more importantly, power to 20+ disparate locations (you want them spread out, right) on the plane, but the big one, IMO is the survivability standards.

Every "black box" is required to have a certain amount of fire, impact / shock, water-pressure etc. resistance. They are also required to have a ULB (pinger, for underwater location) with 30 days battery life (maybe soon going up to 90). All the casing to do that, and the pinger, and the chassis that is supposed to keep them together under the same test conditions, ends up weighing quite a lot (for an aircraft component). Inside it all, these days, is basically a small flash drive - bit higher than consumer spec for survivability, and hence more expensive, but that is all it is.

20 black boxes to meet current regs is too heavy and too expensive, so your problem is changing the regulations. 20 slightly less survivable black boxes that could therefore be much smaller lighter and cheaper sounds great - except for the risk that you then find them easily but the data hasn't survived.

That brings us to the biggest issue - the current standard black boxes are almost always found, so where exactly is the problem you are trying to solve. Real-time data streaming would solve a problem by eliminating the search for the wreckage entirely - arguably saving a lot of money in some cases. Except that not every insight comes from the black box, investigators conclude a lot directly from the wreckage - so I reckon you need to find it anyway.

Real time _location_ streaming (doesn't take much data) plus fully survivable black box is probably the best compromise, significantly shorten some search times - and that is what is going to happen.

Re:Black box data streaming

[Motard]

They did.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07...

Re: Black box data streaming

[Blaskowicz]

Why is there that talk that it's all Putin fault.. The whole thing started with the US backing national-socialists to make a putsch. Ukrainian nazis did atrocious crimes like torching buildings with the people inside and preventing them from escaping. So by your rhetoric, it's like Barack Obama and Victoria Nuland personnally suffocated and burnt to death dozens of people while grinning and laughing.

That said I'm not saying that to downplay Putin's cynicism and duplicity or what atrocity the russian Ukrainians have made themselves guilty of.

Re: Black box data streaming

[aaaaaaargh!]

You've got the facts all wrong. Like Russian TV?

Re:Black box data streaming

[the_other_chewey]

My guess is cost. Sending data via satellite is very expensive, and there's a lot of data recorded. As for ground stations, I'm not aware of any plane-to-ground data communications currently in use (other than radio for voice) so that would need a completely new infrastructure built.

ACARS. Already built.
It's rather low-bandwidth though.

Re:Black box data streaming

[FatLittleMonkey]

I don't really see how it would help at all in the event of a missile attack, either.

By showing that it wasn't anything else.

By ensuring the data is recovered even if people who want to cover up the crime control the site and take black boxes.

Re: Black box data streaming

[Blaskowicz]

I lost all respect for the Putin regime when it was caught doing inflammatory warmongering propaganda that Cheney, Rumsfeld etc. would be proud of (fake footage of syrian rebels firing chemical warheads).
Reports and TV footage of the burning building with nazis blocking the entrances seemed real enough to me though. Yes, I don't know if they're nazi enough to be called nazis and they only form a large minority. Maybe they just like their nice logo, Hitler portraits and roaming the streets to beat up people.

Re: Black box data streaming

[Areyoukiddingme]

There are now reports of monitored chatter among the separatists where they figured out it was civilian instead of military after the shoot down.

Yup. And you can listen to it yourself here, complete with subtitles.

Slashdot readers who speak English and Russian are invited to comment on the quality of the translation.

Re:Black box data streaming

[CaptnZilog]

Air-To-Ground (ATG) Gogo's ATG network is a cellular based network that has more than 160 towers in the continental U.S., Alaska and soon, Canada. The towers are cellphone towers that have been outfitted to point their signals at the sky rather than along the ground. The aircraft picks up the signal through a receiver installed on its underside. When it reaches the aircraft, the data signal is distributed throughout the cabin via a Wi-Fi system.

Great, so while you're busy coming up with a plan to put up cell towers in the middle of the Atlantic & Pacific oceans, as well as across the other countries/continents besides the US, we'll keep using black boxes ok?

Re:Black box data streaming

[CaptnZilog]

You only have to the data until it lands...

I'm pretty sure it landing is the idea, and once it's landed you really don't need the black box data.
The black box is there so there's some record of what happened when it *doesn't* land again (or, well, not in the 'intended controlled manner' at any rate).

Re: Black box data streaming

[CaptnZilog]

I presume you mean unlike the US's own inflammatory warmongering propaganda?
Not like it stopped just because "Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc" aren't around.
So are you implying it's "ok for us but not for them"? Or neither is acceptable?
And, if the latter, well, living in the US I can't do anything about *them*, but in theory I have a voice about *us* doing it (and yes, you can start laughing at that idea now, because we really don't anymore do we?)

Re: Black box data streaming

[CaptnZilog]

There are now reports of monitored chatter among the separatists where they figured out it was civilian instead of military after the shoot down.

Yup. And you can listen to it yourself here, complete with subtitles.

Slashdot readers who speak English and Russian are invited to comment on the quality of the translation.

Or it could just be a few hired CIA foreign language specialists reading from a script... but hey, we wouldn't do that, would we?

Re: Black box data streaming

[jrumney]

There is some sort of regulation though. Flying Singapore to LA earlier this year, WiFi was available from the gate at Singapore until the seatbelt sign came on approaching Narita, then from when the seatbelt sign went off after leaving Narita until we started to approach the coast of Alaska, and while flying over Canada. Basically the only places it was not available was takeoff and landing in Japan, and flying over US airspace.

Re: Black box data streaming

[Stoutlimb]

Streaming black boxes would have solved both Malaysian Air flight mysteries.

Re:Black box data streaming

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Which makes perfect sense. it's only a few (dozen?) miles between the airplane and the nearest tower. That's peanuts in terms of radio communication, and there's still a clear line of sight for any radio band one might want to use (compared to ground point-to-point links in urban areas, for example). Sadly, it would have been useless at least for MH370.

Re: Black box data streaming

[Msupp]

I just flew a united flight from Chicago to Tokyo (it was a 747) which had internet the entire flight, even over the pacific. I used it briefly and it was satisfactory.

Re: Black box data streaming

[ray-auch]

For MH17 it will tell us very little - big bang, plane breaks up, end of recording. Obviously streaming would mean that someone would have the data now, rather than be hiding it, but _who_ would have it ?

  - stream the data to the western world and any release would be an NSA/CIA fabrication according to Russia
  - stream the data to Russia and any release would be a KGB fabrication according to the west

Does that really help ?

For MH370, streaming might tell us what happened, but if we just had streaming location and knew _where_ it happened then we'd get even more info from wreckage and be able (with very high probability) to recover the black boxes anyway.

Look at AF447 - 2+ years to find the crash site, less than 2 days after that to find and retrieve the boxes (IIRC).

Re:Black box data streaming

[YouTahDoug]

Maybe they could run fiber-optics to the plane :)

Re:Black box data streaming

[stoatwblr]

+1

It's been estimated that you'd need to upgrade the bandwidth of the _entire_ global satellite fleet (not just the inmarsats) by a factor or 10 or so to cope with this requirement. You're not just looking at oceanic coverage - there are vast swathes of land where there is no radar or data coverage.

The USA had AWACS over the Black Sea with enough visibilty over the area in question, so they should be able to replay a lot of data to work out who pressed the launch button - but given the amount of backpedelling the rebels and russians are doing it's pretty clear who's responsible.

As for MAS, it's sheer bad luck this time. The last one is arguably down to poor maintenance practices(*) but this time around the aircraft simply happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time (it was far from being the only transcontinental civilian airliner over Ukraine that day)

(*) MAS has depressingly frequent history of major inflight and maintenance shop safety incidents in the last 5 years, mostly stemming from dispirited staff being sloppy - the airline was in deep financial trouble even before MH370 went off the radar and had massive layoffs a couple of years ago as part of a government bailout.

Re:Black box data streaming

[HornWumpus]

I've considered taking them up on borrowing one (for a track day).

Just to see their reaction.

Re:Black box data streaming

[Hamsterdan]

Only send vital info at intervals (like every minute), and compress before sending it. Voice using modern codecs takes very little space, and since you're compressing it, It could be measured in KBs for every minute. Modern telephony codecs are very efficient

Re:Black box data streaming

[Meski]

We can't put airplanes in the cloud!

Re:Black box data streaming

[Jimbob The Mighty]

Why haven't all airplanes been upgraded so the black box data is streamed to satellites/ground stations? It's so dumb to have to search for a airplane to find the data, that should be the fallback plan. Hey FAA, you listening?

Because signal jacking?

Re:Black box data streaming

[rezme]

It's satellite based. My father did some of the work on the code that handles transitioning between satellites and ground stations as the plane travels the globe. Basically, the plane talks to a satellite, and the satellite hands the connection off to a ground station. As the plane moves, different satellites come into range while others pass out of it. The connection is transferred between the satellites during the trip.

meanwhile overnight...

[Anonymous Coward]

meanwhile overnight it's been reported by the telegraph.co.uk that a mobile launcher was seen headed back toward the russian border with two of it's four missiles missing, short video clip provided of one on the move at the website.

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[drinkypoo]

meanwhile overnight it's been reported by the telegraph.co.uk that a mobile launcher was seen headed back toward the russian border with two of it's four missiles missing, short video clip provided of one on the move at the website.

I can't find your reference. Please provide a link.

Re: meanwhile overnight...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is video of the Buk system crossing the border from Russia with 4 rockets two days ago and crossing back into Russia this morning with one missing. These rockets are large and wouldn't just go missing. The rebels are correct, they don't have these weapons, the Russians do and it looks like they let the rebels borrow one.

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I found it: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10976191/Malaysia-Airlines-crash-video-claims-to-show-missile-launcher-being-smuggled-into-Russia.html

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[OzPeter]

Here is the story Malaysia Airlines plane crashes on Ukraine-Russia border - live

The video is referenced as

12.20 Tom Parfitt has picked up an intriguing Russian-language detail.
Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine's interior minister, has made the latest of a series of claims that a Buk missile launcher allegedly used by pro-Russian rebels to knock down Flight MH17 was smuggled away into Russia overnight. He highlights a video which purportedly shows the launcher with two of its missiles missing, writing "it's not hard to guess why".
“It was exactly these missiles which brought death to almost 300 innocent passengers of the ill-fated Malaysian Boeing,” he added.
Mr Gerashchenko says the video was made by Ukrainian intelligence agents at 4.50am as the launcher was on the move towards the Russian border near the town of Krasnodon.
We obviously can't confirm it's authenticity.

The video is found here Buk launcher video

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[pahles]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[timrod]

The question is, was this really a launcher that the Russians gave the rebels? I looked up the Wikipedia page for the BUK missile system last night, and there was a link on that article to a report from Jane's that said Ukraine had some in their possession from their days as a Soviet satellite state. It makes me wonder if the BUK (being a Soviet-era weapons system dating back to 1979) wasn't just misplaced somewhere - if the National Institutes of Health can misplace 300 vials of deadly diseases and biological weapons, it's not a stretch to think that the Ukrainian military might've had a BUK somewhere and forgotten about it.

To me, this almost sounds like the Twitter messages from the rebels claiming that they captured a BUK were correct - the Russians didn't directly lend the rebels a BUK, but they're helping them cover it up after the fact in order to stop any news coming out that goes against their message of the rebels being poor, oppressed ethnic Russians who need protection from their "home country".

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[OzPeter]

To me, this almost sounds like the Twitter messages from the rebels claiming that they captured a BUK were correct - the Russians didn't directly lend the rebels a BUK, but they're helping them cover it up after the fact in order to stop any news coming out that goes against their message of the rebels being poor, oppressed ethnic Russians who need protection from their "home country".

What sort of "rebels" would have the training an ability to set up and operate a crew served weapon? I severely doubt that such a system is "point and shoot" as it has 3 separate, independent mobile systems.

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[ihtoit]

according to RT, the Ukrainian military themselves have at least 27 Gadfly launch systems, which equates to just over a hundred missiles. It's likely that whatever fired the missile (if it is confirmed) was at some point in the hands of the legitimate Ukrainian Government, and COULD ONLY HAVE COME ORIGINALLY FROM ITS MANUFACTURING BASE IN RUSSIA.

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[invid]

The only way the Russian's can "win" this propaganda war is if they can somehow convince those Europeans who make decisions about sanctions that they had nothing to do with the downing of the passenger jet. People will want to know where that Buk missile launcher came from, who gave the order to shoot, and where that missile launcher is now. If there is any evidence that the Russians had any direct involvement with this, no amount of propaganda will help them outside of the regions where they have complete control of the media.

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Generic, knuckle-dragging rebels one step away from cavemen, no. Former Soviet military with experience of a 1979-era system, yes. There's probably a numner therr. However, I still think it's a loan with helpers. They're just code red, ass deep in the worst case scenario of needing to CYA with fallback stories.

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[Xest]

Janes suggests that whilst training is needed, the launcher can operate in stand alone mode and even be set to fire autonomously at anything approaching it:

http://www.janes.com/article/4...

I suspect setting it in this mode could be done by a Ukrainian military defector, a Russian operative, or possibly even just by a smart operative being told over the phone or whatever how to set it into this mode. I doubt there's something mystical about it that stops someone being able to be talked through it, people have been talked through how to land aircraft before over comms with zero experience so it seems reasonable.

Besides, it was only the other day the rebels were gloating about having shot down an actual Ukrainian transport at that sort of altitude, so they've already admitted they have the capability to launch this sort of missile anyway so that's not even in doubt at this point either way.

It's not as if they haven't been able to launch massively succesful MLRS attacks in the last week either. There's clearly some extremely skilled military players working for the "rebels". I say rebels in quotes because the entire lineup of the rebels top team are actual Russians, or Ukrainians who have served with the Russian military I believe without exception. They're more actual Russian than they are Ukrainian rebel or separatist.

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[Richard_at_work]

Rebels that come from the Ukrainian military.

Re: meanwhile overnight...

[Anonymous Coward]

What I did find at the Telegraph.co.uk website was the transcript of the separatists figuring out they shot down a civilian plane and expressing surprise that civilians were flying in that area.

If people compare the tracks of previous MAS17 flights on a site like FlightAware, it's obvious the plane that was shot down was about 100 miles further north than the northernmost track from the previous two weeks.

Not that it is an excuse for those Russian-armed bastards to kill anyone. And it may have no significance. But with the separatists expressing surprise that a passenger jet was overflying the area, it might have more significance. Just look up MAS17 on FlightAware.com and see for yourself. It was clearly further north than previous flights.

This is what Putin gets for playing with fire. In this case it was 290 innocent civilians getting shot out of the sky. Putin is a fucking bastard.

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, this video is like one of those Yetti clips. Something happens somewhere. Or not. However, I doubt that video of such length and quality could be made by "intelligence agents".

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[Kythe]

I'd think there would be an additional consideration, though: BUK and similar systems are "transponder aware", and thus will avoid hitting civilian aircraft by default. Whoever fired this would have had to know the system well enough to disable transponder sensing.

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[Anonymous Coward]

So... is there a timestamp on this video? How do we know it's going "back towards the russian border" and not back to Kiev?

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://ukraineatwar.blogspot.ca/2014/07/russian-transport-of-buk-that-shot-down.html

The above has a direct link to the video and it shows a blown up picture that one of the four missiles is missing -- it was shown close to Krasnodan 2014-07-18 4:50 AM Kyiv time heading in the direction of the Russian border (at a Russian controlled border point)

Krasnodan is in the Luhansk Oblast, very close to the Ukrainian border
https://www.google.ca/maps/@48.299252,39.7498181,11z

Here is a photo of the BUK Missile System in the vicinity of Snizhne on 2014-07-17 13:30 hours -- four hours before the downing of Malaysian Airlines MH17
http://sprotyv.info/ru/news/2426-foto-kolonny-rossiyskih-terroristov-perevozivshey-zrk-buk-k-mestu-strelby-po-malaziyskomu

This photo shows a BUK Missile System in Snizhne on 2014-07-17 and just 12 km away from the crash site -- this system has a range of 28 km
http://nvua.net/ukraine/Spryatannyy-ZRK-Buk-terroristov-byl-sfotografirovan-v-12-km-ot-mesta-padeniya-Boinga-3988.html

This is a video of a BUK missile system moving from the town of Torez to Snizhne
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WjhUAZNHBM&list=UUMgrofT7rfqEPxzicmfdo9w&index=1

Location of the towns of Torez & Snizhne, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine
https://www.google.ca/maps/@48.039368,38.7504295,11z

BTW here is a situational map dated 12 Noon Kyiv time, 2014-07-18
http://gdb.rferl.org/69CCAD96-D1DB-4F66-8455-41C079FCAC83_w974_n_s_s.jpg

BTW here is a situational map dated 12 Noon Kyiv time, 2014-07-17
http://gdb.rferl.org/A18E8EAD-04DB-4EBB-892E-1EAA82655E00_w974_n_s_s.jpg

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[Xest]

Nope, read the link I posted in the post you were replying to, specifically:

"Although it has its own identification friend or foe system, this is only able to establish whether the target being tracked is a friendly aircraft. It is the electronic equivalent of a sentry calling out: "Who goes there?". If there is no reply, all you know is that it is not one of your own combat aircraft. It would not give you a warning that you were tracking an airliner."

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[TangoMargarine]

They're more actual Russian than they are Ukrainian rebel or separatist.

I thought the whole point of the separatist movement was because they would agree with your statement: They label themselves more ethnically Russian than Ukrainian.

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[happy_place]

A reporter on location reported on NPR this morning that they had a couple witnesses that saw a flash prior to the downing of the launch. Apparently due to the pro-russian population of the village where it was downed, this is a very unpopular confession to make. This is a HUGE snafu for Russia, who has been arming the rebels, so they can continue to humiliate Ukrainian air power. I also think it is ridiculous that Obama is only speaking out of concern for possible US Citizens missing. The Netherlands are a solid ally, this is a terrible attrocity...

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[alphatel]

Igor: Why makes Google this clip? I need remove
V.Putin: Use "Right to be forgotten!"

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[Xest]

Right, but there's a difference between ethnicity and nationality. I'm referring to Russian nationals.

Even those born in Ukraine, but who served in the Russian army post-soviet split up will also likely have Russian nationality.

This, for what it's worth describes the "separatist" leadership. Igor Girkin the military leader of the "separatists" and Alexander Boradai, the political leader of the separatists are actual just plain old Russians, no natural Ukrainian association at all and don't even live in the Ukraine (well, not until this separatist movement started), they're both from Moscow.

When the Ukrainian military destroyed a truck transporting I believe about 30 rebels, their coffins were all sent to Russia, because that's where they were all from.

This is really the problem with the battle, a lot, possibly even a majority of those doing the fighting aren't even actually Ukrainian, they're simply out and out Russian, nationals, citizens, residents, fighting in the Ukraine for Russian ultra-nationalist expansionism. I'd say it's a new form of imperialist expansionism, but it's really not new. It actually harks back more to the days of the crusades where civilians often acted not in a state capacity, but simply only with the implicit support of the state to invade foreign lands to try and take them for their own.

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[Savage-Rabbit]

A reporter on location reported on NPR this morning that they had a couple witnesses that saw a flash prior to the downing of the launch. Apparently due to the pro-russian population of the village where it was downed, this is a very unpopular confession to make. This is a HUGE snafu for Russia, who has been arming the rebels, so they can continue to humiliate Ukrainian air power. I also think it is ridiculous that Obama is only speaking out of concern for possible US Citizens missing. The Netherlands are a solid ally, this is a terrible attrocity...

I just watched the entire speech, he went out of his way to mention the Netherlands and the bloodlettign they have had to suffer..

Re: meanwhile overnight...

[shutdown -p now]

What is the video of Buk crossing the border from Russia? The one video that I'm aware of that predates the attack shows a Buk driving around somewhere close to the area where the plane was shot down; it's not the border.

Also, the rebels themselves boasted of capturing two Buks from an Ukrainian military base that they took over recently. Ukrainian side has confirmed that the base was taken over, and that it had Buks in it, though they dismissed the threat saying that those Buks are "deactivated" and "inoperable". But then again, three days before the attack, Sergey Kurginyan, one of the rebel sympathizers, have mentioned the Buk in a lengthy video and claimed that they have "genius technicians" that have already got the thing running.

So it seems that the rebels "borrowed" the launcher from Ukrainians, but Russia is now aiding them in trying to hide it to block the investigation.

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[shutdown -p now]

Most of the rebels there are people who served in the Soviet military (most as conscripts, some as volunteers) years ago - some of them might have served on this very thing.

More likely is that it's some of the people with past combat experience. A lot of volunteers coming from Russia are veterans of Afghan and Chechen wars.

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[Savage-Rabbit]

Here is the story Malaysia Airlines plane crashes on Ukraine-Russia border - live

The video is referenced as

12.20 Tom Parfitt has picked up an intriguing Russian-language detail.
Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine's interior minister, has made the latest of a series of claims that a Buk missile launcher allegedly used by pro-Russian rebels to knock down Flight MH17 was smuggled away into Russia overnight. He highlights a video which purportedly shows the launcher with two of its missiles missing, writing "it's not hard to guess why".
“It was exactly these missiles which brought death to almost 300 innocent passengers of the ill-fated Malaysian Boeing,” he added.
Mr Gerashchenko says the video was made by Ukrainian intelligence agents at 4.50am as the launcher was on the move towards the Russian border near the town of Krasnodon.
We obviously can't confirm it's authenticity.

The video is found here Buk launcher video

No purportedly about it, there are two rounds missing. As to authenticity, how likely is it that there is another Buk launcher is being hauled throught the E-European countryside on a civilian truck with two rounds missing from it's launcher as we speak? Surely the Russian army has specialist military trucks to move these beasts.

Re: meanwhile overnight...

[oldmac31310]

Previous flights show the route passes consistently over Ukraine, so AC I don't get what you are saying. The July 18 map shows the flight stops over Romania which is south of the previous routes so I'm not sure what you are getting at. These Flight Ware maps are probably not accurate at all.

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[Savage-Rabbit]

The only way the Russian's can "win" this propaganda war is if they can somehow convince those Europeans who make decisions about sanctions that they had nothing to do with the downing of the passenger jet. People will want to know where that Buk missile launcher came from, who gave the order to shoot, and where that missile launcher is now. If there is any evidence that the Russians had any direct involvement with this, no amount of propaganda will help them outside of the regions where they have complete control of the media.

I just don't buy it, if the Ukrainians wanted to investigatesome airliner they could send up a couple of MiG-29s to fly rings around it and wave at the pilots to get their attention. Why on earth would they shoot it down blindly with a SAM? The Russians have lost all credibility although their propaganda will probably be widely beleived at home. There is little doubt that the separatists shot this aircraft down, the only question that remains is who operated the weapon. One of those sigint soundclips said literally: "These are Chernukhin folks who shot down the plane. From the Chernukhin check point. Those cossacks who are based in Chernukhino." make of that what you will.

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[The Grim Reefer]

It makes me wonder if the BUK (being a Soviet-era weapons system dating back to 1979) wasn't just misplaced somewhere - if the National Institutes of Health can misplace 300 vials of deadly diseases and biological weapons,

On one hand I agree with you. However there's a rather big size difference between 300 vials and a tank sized missile launcher. I've been to the NIH, it's a huge campus. One is like finding a sliver of a needle in a haystack, while the other is like a marble sized ball-bearing in a haystack.

The likelihood of any of the smallpox still being viable after sitting in an unrefrigerated closet for decades is pretty slim. The odds of a BUK missile system remaining functional after being forgotten about for 24 years is pretty slim too.

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[budgenator]

When I was in the US Army, I was a Hawk Missile and Launcher repairer, and work in IGLE, Internal Guidance and Launch Equipment back in 1974-78 and I can say with pretty good authority that the technology available in that era required pretty much constant maintence. The Guidance packages was all electron tubes except for one transistor, the microwave reciever was klystron based so everything drifted constantly. When something drifted out f spec it's not amatter of twisting a reostat either, you have to take it apart, unsolder a fixed resistor, and replace with a resistor of different value, potentiometers would never hold their value durring launch G's or after bouncing acrost the grond on top of a tracked vehicle. It's highly unlikely that the rebels could have just stubled upon a lost or abandoned weapon system and have gotten it working with out highly trained support personnel and operators. It takes a lot of finesse to work the old stuff, modern systems just work or not.

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[CrimsonAvenger]

What sort of "rebels" would have the training an ability to set up and operate a crew served weapon?

The "military veteran" kind. Off the top of my head, I don't know whether either Russia or Ukraine still has mandatory military service, but even without that, it's extremely unlikely that no civilians in Ukraine know how to use the weapon system.

As to who actually used the weapon, I'll go with the "rebels" who reported shooting down an AN-76 (?) about the right time yesterday, before deciding they hadn't really had the hardware or training to do so.

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[shutdown -p now]

Read these links in order, paying close attention to the dates of each article (use Google/Bing/Yandex Translate if you don't know Russian, it's good enough to understand the meaning). They pretty much answer all the questions: who did it, what they did it with etc. Note that ITAR TASS is the Russian official state media, so while it is obviously propaganda, in this case it only gives credence to the claims, since the result is strikingly not in their favor:

http://itar-tass.com/mezhdunar...
http://itar-tass.com/mezhdunar...
http://www.vz.ru/news/2014/7/1...
http://itar-tass.com/mezhdunar...
http://itar-tass.com/mezhdunar...

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[rahvin112]

That's why the Russians are trucking the BUK system back into Russia so they can destroy it. No launcher, no inspection of the launcher and they can claim they know nothing about it. That BUK launcher is going to be scrap metal by the end of today.

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[DerekLyons]

What sort of "rebels" would have the training an ability to set up and operate a crew served weapon?

Rebels that had that training before they became rebels? (And who could then give guys that didn't have the training the bare minimum they need to know.) That's a serious answer by the way, folks don't lose their knowledge just because they turn their coats. And on top of that, low level missile systems designed to be used in active combat (like the BUK) are generally not designed to operated by rocket scientists in the first place. They're simplified and designed to operate quickly with minimal controls.

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[seven of five]

Cripes!! They could at least have thrown a tarp over it....

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[pjh3000]

headed back toward the russian border

Any source backing up the claim that it came from Russia just prior to being fired? Otherwise how can you say it's heading "back" towards Russia?

Re: meanwhile overnight...

[shutdown -p now]

The original capture report listed two Buks, according to Ukrainians.

I've no doubt that Russia supplies arms to the rebels, but the source of this particular AA remains unclear, and could be either. Now that it has been hastily removed from the scene, and probably destroyed, I doubt we will ever find out.

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[oh_my_080980980]

Hardly - you can't hand wave away a couple hundred dead people....and it's Italy that's stone walling.

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[HiThere]

That's OK, if US citizens were involved he'd waffle his way around it. This is high level politics, individual people aren't of much concern.

An interesting question is "Is this proper?". If I trusted the government to have the best interests of the citizens as their goal, then I'd say yes. Unfortunately...

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[mpe]

The only way the Russian's can "win" this propaganda war is if they can somehow convince those Europeans who make decisions about sanctions that they had nothing to do with the downing of the passenger jet. People will want to know where that Buk missile launcher came from, who gave the order to shoot, and where that missile launcher is now. If there is any evidence that the Russians had any direct involvement with this, no amount of propaganda will help them outside of the regions where they have complete control of the media.

About the only way the Russians could come out looking like the "good guys" would be to arrest those responsible as war criminals. Assuming they are from the pro-Russian "rebels". But where to try them would be tricky, given the large number of Dutch passengers on the plane.

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[mpe]

The question is, was this really a launcher that the Russians gave the rebels? I looked up the Wikipedia page for the BUK missile system last night, and there was a link on that article to a report from Jane's that said Ukraine had some in their possession from their days as a Soviet satellite state. It makes me wonder if the BUK (being a Soviet-era weapons system dating back to 1979) wasn't just misplaced somewhere - if the National Institutes of Health can misplace 300 vials of deadly diseases and biological weapons, it's not a stretch to think that the Ukrainian military might've had a BUK somewhere and forgotten about it.

Or the Ukrainian military/government dosn't want to admit that the rebels had stolen it from them. Even though such a thing would not be unheard of in a civil war.

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[mpe]

What sort of "rebels" would have the training an ability to set up and operate a crew served weapon? I severely doubt that such a system is "point and shoot" as it has 3 separate, independent mobile systems.

So "rebels" cannot possibly be soldiers. Nor can they read manuals. There were reports last month of people quite literally taking weapons from museums. Also the Soviet army was made up mostly of conscripts. Even weapons systems intended for all volunteer armies are often designed to be easy to use.

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[mpe]

"Although it has its own identification friend or foe system, this is only able to establish whether the target being tracked is a friendly aircraft. It is the electronic equivalent of a sentry calling out: "Who goes there?". If there is no reply, all you know is that it is not one of your own combat aircraft. It would not give you a warning that you were tracking an airliner."

The rebels don't have any of their own aircraft so there'd be no reason to do this in the first place.
A sentry who knows that an intruder cannot possibly be one of their own might well follow the "shoot first ask questions later" approach.
Distinguishing between a military and civilian plane is not so easy and even trained radar operators can get this wrong. As was the case with Iran Air 655.

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[mpe]

and thus will avoid hitting Russian aircraft by default

Or Ukrainian (military) aircraft should the system have been "acquired" from the Ukrainian military. In which case the operators would have been expected to either disable or override the IFF function. Anyway the transponder on a civilian plane is NEVER going to return the correct response to a military IFF. It probably isn't going to return anything at all, since as far as it's concerned it's not seeing a vaild signal.

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[flyingsquid]

Here's the current list of the top 5 most read articles on the New York Times:

1. Jetliner Explodes Over Ukraine; Struck by Missile, Officials Say

2. Obama Points to Pro-Russia Separatists in Downing of Malaysia Airlines Plane

3. Fallen Bodies, Jet Parts and a Child’s Pink Book

4. Maps of the Crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17

5. World Leaders Match Anger With Calls for Inquiry Into Ukraine Plane Crash

I'm going to really go out on a limb say that Putin has already lost the propaganda war here...

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[fnj]

Ukraine had some in their possession from their days as a Soviet satellite state

Ukraine was never a "Soviet satellite state". It was an integral republic of the Soviet Union, and the second most important one, from the first year of the Soviet Union.

List of the republics of the Soviet Union:
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (member since 1922) (population in 1989 147 million)
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1922) (52M)
Unbek Soviet Socialist Republic (1924) (20M)
Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic (1936) (17M)
Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (1922) (10M)
Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (1922) (7M)
Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic (1922) (5M)
Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic (1929) 5M
Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (1940) (4M)
Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic (1936) (4M)
Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (1940) (4M)
Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic (1924) (4M)
Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (1922) (3M)
Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic (1940) (3M)
Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic (1940) (2M)

The three Baltic republics (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) was disputed as an illegal occupation, but none of the others were.

The states referred to in some quarters as satellite states were such as Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, etc. Most of them were People's Republics or Socialist Republics or Democratic Republics, but none had "Soviet" in their name. They were formally independent but heavily influenced by the Soviet Union.

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[sound vision]

It's Russian hardware, so Russia could be seen as the "country of origin" regardless of whether they supplied it directly, or if it had belonged to the Ukraine government and was recently captured by rebels.

Re: meanwhile overnight...

[FatLittleMonkey]

You don't "borrow" a mobile SAM system. It has to be operated by trained personnel. In this case, by Russian military personnel.

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[Areyoukiddingme]

But where to try them would be tricky, given the large number of Dutch passengers on the plane.

What's tricky about it? War criminals are traditionally tried in The Hague.

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[kirovs]

It is a terrible atrocity. I just wish people would think the same way of the Serbian train that was bombed by NATO in the 90s. 16 women and children. Somehow some lives are more precious than others...

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[tompaulco]

FYI, military jets already have civilian transponders. When they are not in actual combat or conducting military operations, transponders are used by ATC to separate all Instrument Flight Rule flights, military or civilian, and when available and asked, to provider advisories for flights operating under Visual Flight Rules.

Re:meanwhile overnight...

[tompaulco]

On the other hand, to me it looks like the spin doctors won this one. Only one of those summaries hints at the plane being shot down. All of the others are calling it a crash. Even FOX news, as conservative as they supposedly are, were not calling it shot down. They also called it a plane crash. I'm sorry, but the plane did not crash. It was shot down. There is zero doubt about that. So why are all the news agencies trying to downplay the missile strike?

It is the fault of..

[EasyTarget]

.. Nationalism: the single biggest source of evil on this planet.

Re:It is the fault of..

[jbmartin6]

Not really. Look at the vicious atrocities of the Mongols. They were hardly what we would call nationalistic. Sadly, it is human nature that devalues the Other and makes it possible to rationalize anything.

Re:It is the fault of..

[EasyTarget]

Yeah, my bad. You are on the money there; I should really have said: .. Nationalism: currently the single biggest excuse for evil on this planet.

Re:It is the fault of..

[EasyTarget]

Religion and Nationalism are just flip sides of the same coin.

Neither is evil per-say; in fact both can be quite admirable; but they enable evil.

Re:It is the fault of..

[Bengie]

Only a few hundred years ago it was religion. Flavor of the century. Ass holes will always be assholes, they just use whatever is the current popular tool to accomplish their misdeeds.

Re:It is the fault of..

[EuclideanSilence]

Whether it's religion or nationalism, they have one thing in common: loyalty. Loyalty is a very convenient excuse, and I hate that it is considered a virtue. When controlling people with greed is not an option, controlling them with sermons about loyalty is just as effective.

Re:It is the fault of..

[TangoMargarine]

His hate of jews is certainly agreed with by new testament scripture,

Whoa! Um, what? Please show me in the New Testament where it says people should hate Jews. You might, in fact, recall that Jesus prayed that those having him put to death would be forgiven for their actions (although admittedly the guys actually doing the physical nailing to the cross may have been Romans, the Jewish leaders were clearly complicit).

You can blame someone for their actions without hating them, too, although this seems to be a foreign concept in Internet asshole society these days.

turn the knobs and bulldoze the deicidal jews.

"Deicide" in this situation is heavily debatable. Cf. the concept of the Trinity and that Jesus subsequently reappeared to the disciples. But I'm probably being pedantic.

but he had christianity on his side to fire up a furor against the jews, and blacks and atheists, and homosexuals (omg, the bible describes how all of those things are gross. if you dont believe me on the black part, see: curse of ham. and yeah, could be a wrong interpretation, but many christians took it seriously for long enough to make the african slave trade be totally cool)

Curse of Ham:

The relevant narrative occurs in the Book of Genesis and concerns Noah's drunkenness and the accompanying shameful act perpetrated by his son Ham the father of Canaan (Gen. 9:20–27).[2] The controversies raised by this story regarding the nature of Ham's transgression, and the question of why Noah cursed Canaan when Ham had sinned, have been debated for over two thousand years.[3] The story's original objective was to justify the subjection of the Canaanites to the Israelites,[4] but in later centuries, the narrative was interpreted by some Jews,[5] Christians and Muslims as a curse of, and an explanation for, black skin, as well as slavery.[6] Nevertheless, most Christian denominations strongly disagree with such interpretations due to the fact that in the biblical text, Ham himself is not cursed and race or skin color is never mentioned.[7]

Assholes gonna be assholes. If a suitable excuse cannot be found, one will be manufactured.

Re:It is the fault of..

[Remus Shepherd]

You mis-spelled 'Tribalism'. Your tribe might be your nation, your religion, your skin color or your political party.

Unfortunately tribalism was bred into us back when we were apes. Experiencing evil is part of being human.

Re:It is the fault of..

[Jaysyn]

Bingo, they are both just tribalism when boiled down.

Re:It is the fault of..

[david_thornley]

Nationalism and its religious equivalent are similar, and in several historical religious wars the religion was simply masking nationalism.

Re:It is the fault of..

[fnj]

per-say

per se, latin for "by itself"

Let loose the dogs of misinformation!

[Anonymous Coward]

Counter propaganda is rife, backpedaling at the speed of light by the ukrainian "rebel" commander (who's actually Russian) and hordes of incoherent babblegaffers vehemently denying everything and making it even more painfully obvious what's plain for everyone to see.
Ukraine did not shoot down the Malaysian passenger jet, the rebels did, and boasted about it (then quickly removed the post).
Just watch what happens in this thread.
It will be very enlightening

Re:Let loose the dogs of misinformation!

[Anonymous Coward]

But the most important thing is: "and saying that the priority is investigating whether U.S. citizens were involved."
*sigh*

Re:Let loose the dogs of misinformation!

[chispito]

That's just an excuse to keep investigating until the US knows whom to blame.

Re:Let loose the dogs of misinformation!

[alphatel]

Ukraine did not shoot down the Malaysian passenger jet, the rebels did, and boasted about it (then quickly removed the post).

Igor: Why Twitter not delete? I need remove
V.Putin: Use "Right to be forgotten!"

04.10.2010

[Anonymous Coward]

Russia already has a history of, at the very least, being a prime suspect for taking down a plane. The only difference now is that the world is actually watching this show more carefully.

Re: 04.10.2010

[IamTheRealMike]

Both Russia and the USA have a history of supporting rebellions and shooting down passenger jets. America's was an Iranian Airbus.

Re:04.10.2010

[rasmusbr]

Russia already has a history of, at the very least, being a prime suspect for taking down a plane. The only difference now is that the world is actually watching this show more carefully.

So does the US: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...
And Ukraine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

The only real lesson is that surface to air missiles are way to dangerous to be put into the hands of the military. Now think about putting them into the hands of rednecks and other idiots who fancy themselves rebels. In retrospect it is pretty obvious that this had to happen sooner or later.

Re:04.10.2010

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, Ukraine also downed a Russian civilian jet not long ago with a bunch of Russian-Israelis on it. And of course, I'm sure you've heard that US downed an Iranian jet with civilians on board.

Looks like US is waging its own propaganda war here, as well.

Re:04.10.2010

[pantaril]

Russia already has a history of, at the very least, being a prime suspect for taking down a plane. The only difference now is that the world is actually watching this show more carefully.

Our local Czech news reported yesterday about Putin saying that Ukrainian government is responsible for the accident because it happened in their territory. I wonder if it means that he has taken responsibility for all aircraft shootings which happened previously in the russian/soviet territory:)

Re:04.10.2010

[Anonymous Coward]

Now think about putting them into the hands of rednecks and other idiots who fancy themselves rebels. In retrospect it is pretty obvious that this had to happen sooner or later.

What makes you think those Ukraine separatists (assisted with Russian Cossac -volunteers) are too far of from rednecks? If you listened that youtube posted audio which the poor guy was repeating "Da Major" over and over again when he was told he shot down a large civilian aircraft.

I'd say that it's already monkeys running the zoo there.

Re:04.10.2010

[ehiris]

Not to mention TWA 800 which included a massive government cover-up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

Re:04.10.2010

[rasmusbr]

Yeah, by "rednecks and other idiots" I was precisely referring to the Russia-aligned separatists in Eastern Ukraine.

These weapons are designed to be part of a complex system with military radar, civilian radar / ATC and central command in addition to the missile launcher itself. Airliners do get shot down by mistake even with such a system in place. Now imagine that a launcher has fallen into the hands of a bunch of enthusiastic guys who aren't the sharpest tools in the shed and who at best maybe have some training on the launchers from back when they were conscripts, who don't understand the complexity and intricacies of telling hostile aircraft apart from civilian aircraft and who don't have the resources to do that anyway since they don't have access to civilian radar and ATC. If these weapons fall into the hands of poorly organized rebels it's only a matter of time before a civilian aircraft gets shot down.

Re:04.10.2010

[Oligonicella]

You could have just said liberals instead of other idiots.

Re: 04.10.2010

[Mashiki]

And if you go read what happened in the case of that Iranian Airbus, you quickly find out that it's a case of the Iranians putting the american ship on edge after doing aggressive maneuvers, including having a plane in flight earlier hat was acting in a targeting mode. Not saying that the US is innocent, but there was more going on then "they just shot down the jet." In Russia's case, they actually visually identified the civilian airliner and shot it down anyway.

Re: 04.10.2010

[aaaaaaargh!]

It's much more likely that they mistook the plane for a Ukrainean military machine. That's what happens when you hand over advanced surface to air missile systems to violent thugs and morons.

Re:04.10.2010

[FatLittleMonkey]

Interesting differences. In the Iranian-655 incident, the US admitted it's actions. And Russia used it as an excuse to demand that the US withdraw from the region.

In the Siberian-1812 incident, Russia immediately went into cover-up mode - along with Ukraine, it's then-ally - with Putin claiming that it wasn't even technically possible for the missile to hit.

Re: 04.10.2010

[airdweller]

You'd better follow your own advice and read up on the circumstances of the Korean Air 007 case. For instance:
"In 1983, Cold War tensions between the US and USSR had escalated to a level not seen since the Cuban Missile Crisis because of several factors. These included the United States' Strategic Defense Initiative, its planned deployment of Pershing II missiles in Europe in March and April, and FleetEx '83, the largest fleet exercise held to date in the North Pacific.[26] The military hierarchy of the Soviet Union (particularly the old guard led by Soviet General Secretary Yuri Andropov and Soviet Defense Minister Dmitry Ustinov) viewed these actions as bellicose and destabilizing; they were deeply suspicious of US President Ronald Reagan's intentions and openly fearful he was planning a first strike nuclear attack against the Soviet Union. These fears culminated in Operation RYAN, the code name for a secret intelligence gathering program initiated by Andropov to detect a potential nuclear sneak attack which he believed Reagan was plotting.[27]
Aircraft from USS Midway and USS Enterprise repeatedly overflew Soviet military installations in the disputed Kurile Islands during FleetEx '83,[28] resulting in the dismissal or reprimanding of Soviet military officials who had been unable to shoot them down.[29] On the Soviet side, Operation RYAN was expanded.[29] Lastly, there was a heightened alert around the Kamchatka Peninsula at the time KAL 007 was in the vicinity, because of a Soviet missile test that was scheduled for the same day. A United States Air Force RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft flying in the area was monitoring the missile test off the peninsula.[30]"
What do you think would happen to an unidentified aircraft crossing into the US airspace border and approaching, say, Seattle during the Cuban Missile crisis?

Active ops

[eddy]

Seeing a lot of pro-russian "psyops" on one local forum attached to a news outlet focused on economics, so much so that it's pretty obvious that it's organized. Massive amounts of downvotes on anything negative to the pro-russian side, and weak conspiracy theories written in broken english moderated up.

Not sure why they're wasting their time, but there you go. I guess the proud Cheka men have nothing better to do than troll forums.

Re:Active ops

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't assume it's psyops, there were plenty of idiots here who have been around long enough on enough subjects to likely not be professional Russian agents spouting the same nonsense propaganda.

Sometimes people are just really really stupid. Or conspiracy theorists, though you might claim they fall into the former category anyway. Yesterday one such idiot even started trying to tie all this to Israel and the "Jews" yesterday they're so far gone (but then, they did 9/11 too according to that sort of idiot). I guess if you're that far right then maybe everything is their fault? Either way, it's stupidity rather than professional propaganda.

Re:Active ops

[aaaaaaargh!]

These operations are massive in many countries, they have for example been going on for months in German news forums like the "tagesschau" meta comment section. These forums are swamped daily with hundred of pro-Russian comments, even on stories that have nothing to do with Russia.

Not sure what they want to achieve with it except pissing off everyone. Perhaps the idea is to cast doubt by constantly repeating bullshit. After all, it worked for the US in the beginning of the second Iraq war for some short time period, so perhaps Putin thinks it will work for him this time, too. It won't have any noteworthy effect, though, because it is crystal clear who shot down the plane.

Propaganda won't help this time

[Rhywden]

That kind of propaganda might help them inside Russia where Putin has almost complete control over the press. But outside? With all the incriminating stuff that's already turned up?

I really don't think that the other major players will be impressed by Russian propaganda. The Ukraine certainly won't. The US won't as well, due to their longstanding tradition of mistrusting Russia, in addition to having lost citizens in the crash. Neither will several states in the EU - the Netherlands won't be happy with an "accident" explanation, particularly in light of the fact that an anti-air missile cannot really be considered an accident.

Re:Propaganda won't help this time

[bhcompy]

Then you read sites like Reddit and Twitter and see all the Russian apologists, just like the Hugo Chavez apologists that used to exist. The problem is that the news agencies now quote/source directly from those sites. Eventually, you get a 9/11-Afghan War situation where you're damned if do and you're damned if you don't

Re:Propaganda won't help this time

[Rei]

I really don't think that the other major players will be impressed by Russian propaganda. The Ukraine certainly won't.

But what about the Crimea - will they listen to the America or the Russia? I mean, I'm writing here in the Iceland and we're not exactly a big player, but I imagine Americans of all stripes, from those in the California to those in the Florida, want to be sure that all of the relevant players in the Europe and the Asia don't fall victim to Russian propaganda.

Re:Propaganda won't help this time

[Rhywden]

Yes, they're quoting from those sites. However, they're quoting from both sites. For instance, SpiegelOnline has been very careful to treat such material as moderately unreliable.

Re:Propaganda won't help this time

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

I agree with your post in general, but I want to point out a couple of exceptions. In English you're supposed to say "Ukraine" and not "the Ukraine" since Ukraine is an independent country and not a part of the USSR. The only people who know the difference and insist on "the Ukraine" are Russian sympathizers, so you're actually picking a side you may not wish to pick by saying "the Ukraine". Rules for languages other than English may be different. Don't agree with me? Then go to a website for a Ukrainian embassy in an English speaking country and you will see that they only say Ukraine and not "the Ukraine". I've been to Ukraine. I know.

Right now there's no evidence that any US citizens were on the plane, so the US seems to have not lost anyone in the crash. As far as what the Netherlands will do, well, to me they are sort of the kings of wussies in Europe so while citizens are going to be upset, based on posts here I get the distinct impression that Dutch people or at least the ones on Slashdot always pick the wrong side in a dispute. I wouldn't be surprised if the Dutch in particular view Russia as the aggrieved party in their dispute with Ukraine and start to push for the explanation that Ukraine did it and won't admit it.

Re:Propaganda won't help this time

[Rhywden]

I agree with your post in general, but I want to point out a couple of exceptions. In English you're supposed to say "Ukraine" and not "the Ukraine" since Ukraine is an independent country and not a part of the USSR. The only people who know the difference and insist on "the Ukraine" are Russian sympathizers, so you're actually picking a side you may not wish to pick by saying "the Ukraine". Rules for languages other than English may be different. Don't agree with me? Then go to a website for a Ukrainian embassy in an English speaking country and you will see that they only say Ukraine and not "the Ukraine". I've been to Ukraine. I know.

Sorry, but I'm not a native speaker and such intricacies sometimes elude me. Seems strange to me that such a little article makes all the difference, because after all, you yourself call other countries "the US" or "the Netherlands".

And last time I looked both the US and the Netherlands were independent countries.

Re:Propaganda won't help this time

[OzPeter]

Sorry, but I'm not a native speaker and such intricacies sometimes elude me. Seems strange to me that such a little article makes all the difference, because after all, you yourself call other countries "the US" or "the Netherlands".

And last time I looked both the US and the Netherlands were independent countries.

The US and the Netherlands are special cases. For example in English you don't say "The Australia", "The Brazil" or "The Canada".

Re:Propaganda won't help this time

[The MAZZTer]

in addition to having lost citizens in the crash

I would think so too, but apparently as of this morning we're still not sure any Americans were even on board (?!?!) despite knowing when it happened that there were 23 on board. Of course maybe they're referring to actually finding and identifying bodies, I dunno.

Re:Propaganda won't help this time

[Rhywden]

Whatever. As I said, I'm not a native speaker and to determine affinity towards one side or the other merely through the usage of an article strikes me as foolishness at best.

It actually reminds me of the Jehovah-scene from Life of Brian.

Re:Propaganda won't help this time

[Talderas]

And last time I looked both the US and the Netherlands were independent countries.

America is an independent country but the United States are not. Netherlands is an independent country but the Netherlands is not.

The key is that "the" is referencing a portion of country or grouping. So with the United States of America the article 'the' is reference the individual states which constitute America. The same thing applies for the Netherlands except you're dealing with an overloaded term. The Netherlands is a constituent member of the Kingdom of Netherlands which also includes Aruba, Curacao, and Sint Maarten. The Netherlands references that member country while Netherlands references the Kingdom.

That is why "the Ukraine" could be considered offensive to Ukraine. It's a phrase that is held over from the time when Ukraine was not sovereign and were constituent of the USSR.

"The" is not required when dealing with dependent territories, like Scotland, but it shouldn't be used when dealing with a sovereign and independent entity.

Re:Propaganda won't help this time

[Mr D from 63]

Thanks for the advice on "The Ukraine" vs "Ukraine". I never picked up on that, helpful to know.

Re:Propaganda won't help this time

[Rhywden]

You're wrong on the US part. You're also wrong on the Netherlands part. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazi...

Re:Propaganda won't help this time

[Rhywden]

Actual war zones?

• Let's see: RH 827, 1979 by Simbabwian rebels.
• IR 655, 1988. This was an Iranian airplane during the Iran-Iraq-War. I'm not quite sure how you think that an Iranian plane can avoid flying over Iran?
• 9XR-NN, 1994. The jet of the Ruandian president. Again, how is a Ruandian airplane supposed to avoid Ruanda?

That's about all civilian airliners shot down during an actual war. I'm counting 3 so far. Unless, you also count the Cold War as a hot war.

Re:Propaganda won't help this time

[TangoMargarine]

The US [...] in addition to having lost citizens in the crash.

Last I heard they hadn't.

BBC article:

        Netherlands: 189
        Malaysia: 44 (including 15 crew)
        Australian: 27
        Indonesia: 12
        UK: 9
        Germany: 4
        Belgium: 4
        Philippines: 3
        Canada: 1
        New Zealand: 1
        Unverified: 4

Re:Propaganda won't help this time

[TangoMargarine]

One might notice that both "United States" and "Netherlands" are plural.

Not quite sure what a singular Netherland would be, though.

Re:Propaganda won't help this time

[mrchaotica]

The US and the Netherlands are special cases.

I was under the impression that "the Ukraine" was a similar special case, in a way having nothing to do with whether it was a part of the USSR or an independent country.

Re:Propaganda won't help this time

[u38cg]

You are correct. Another is Argentina, which many older British English speakers will refer to as "the Argentine".

Re:Propaganda won't help this time

[Jaysyn]

The US and the Netherlands are special cases. For example in English you don't say "The Australia", "The Brazil" or "The Canada".

Thanks for the elucidation. I've always thought "the Ukraine" was a special case as well.

Re:Propaganda won't help this time

[Azaril]

Its the difference between proper nouns and and improper nouns. The "the" indicates that your referring to a specific instance of a word that is not specific. It has nothing to do with the differing uses of Netherlands (where you are actually getting confused between the normal use of Holland and the Netherlands). Netherlands means low countries. The Netherlands is a specific use (the Kingdom of Netherlands). You don't say "the France" despite the existence of French Guiana do you?

Its not a hugely complicated grammatical construct, but it seems a little harsh to judge someones English, given that you, an English speaker natively, don't know the correct reasoning/application

Re:Propaganda won't help this time

[shutdown -p now]

It's "the USA", because the long form is "the United States of America". "The" here attaches to the "states", not to the entire name of the country.

Similarly, in "the UK", "the" is attached to the "kingdom"; and in "the USSR", it's "the union".

The Netherlands is a bit less obvious because people don't usually know the full name of the country. It's "The Kingdom of the Netherlands", and "the Netherlands" is just a geographic region - it literally means "the low lands", for obvious reasons.

In case of Ukraine, it's a bit trickier. The etymology of the word itself is from Old East Slavic "oukraina", which literally means "area at the edge" ("ou" - "at", "krai" - "edge"). When applied to geographic places and countries, it's the same as English "march", German "mark", or Polish "kresy" - i.e. "borderland", a region of some larger territory that is on the frontier. Which, of course, is what Ukraine was for Muscovite Rus - the borderlands with Poles, Ottomans, Crimean Tatars, and numerous small raiding steppe tribes; a place where life is harsh and violent, but there's no rigid state hierarchy;a place where criminals, runaway serfs, and anyone else who wanted to escape the oppression in Muscovy or Poland-Lithuania would go to join cossacks, because "there's no extradition from Don", as cossacks themselves put it.

Now, if you use it literally, as a descriptive term, then in English you'd put the "the" there - a literal translation of Russian "okraina Rossii" would be "the borderlands of Russia". So saying "the Ukraine" is basically saying that the country is the borderlands (by implication, of some other country). When you drop the "the", you are basically dropping the etymological baggage, and accepting the name as a proper name in its own right.

Depending on the language, this same distinction can manifest itself differently. For example, Russian doesn't have articles, but it has two different prepositions, "v" and "na" (roughly equivalent to "in" and "on" in English). The equivalent of saying "in the Ukraine" in Russian is "na Ukraine", and the equivalent of saying "in Ukraine" (without the "the") is "v Ukraine". Similarly to English, the "the"-equivalent form has been the literary standard for several centuries now, and is commonly used, but Ukrainians don't like it and prefer that the other form is used. This often results in lengthy flamewars on forums, Wikipedia etc.

Re:Propaganda won't help this time

[oh_my_080980980]

Because Twitter and Reddit are news outlets *eye roll*

Re:Propaganda won't help this time

[bhcompy]

Where exactly do you think people hear things first these days? Certainly not on the evening news.

Re:Propaganda won't help this time

[Blaskowicz]

The French say "la France", vast majority of countries are called "the Country" with few exceptions, actually small insignificant states, city-states or remote overseas possessions : e.g. San Marin, Singapore, Macao, Trinidad and Tobago, Vanuatu, Palau, many other such examples and then for some reason Israel.

Re:Propaganda won't help this time

[TangoMargarine]

In any language that conjugates nouns, sure. I would question whether that is really intentional, or just an artifact of the language, though.

Re:Propaganda won't help this time

[airdweller]

"Then go to a website for a Ukrainian embassy in an English speaking country and you will see that they only say Ukraine and not "the Ukraine". I've been to Ukraine. I know. "
Yeah, great logic. Is English the native language of Ukrainians? Is the ultimate authoritative body on the English language located in their country? Why would anyone care what they think their country's name in English is? Oh, you've been to Ukraine? I'm so sorry, you must really know what you're talking about then :D

I don't really give a damn whether it's Ukraine or The Ukraine. I suspect that only butt-hurt nationalists care. Neither Ukrainian, nor Russian languages have articles (as in "a word (or prefix or suffix) that is used with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun") so there's only one name and it sounds the same in both languages, but you know that, don't you? You're an expert on Ukraine after all.

PS. What's your opinion on "The Hague", I wonder?

To me it's pretty clear.

[Qbertino]

Slavian Farmers Militia ("Seperatists") bored and trigger-happy and with easy access to Russian military hardware. To dumb to doulbe-check their targets or to dumb to care. Wether this is Ukranian seperatists or not is of no significance - there all just pawns in a Game. I think Putin has since this begun weighing the risks of supporting seperatists and making russia fell big again - whatever that is - and keeping a low(er) profile. This could shift sentiment considerably.
Either way, I don't trust the guy but I don't consider east-ukranian militia folks rational enough to be under any usefull control by russian. When push comes to shove, they'll do whatever they feel like doing, as long as they've got enough ammo and toys and enough dumbwits who support their cause - whatever that's supposed to be.

Re:To me it's pretty clear.

[AHuxley]

Yes once the real SAM like systems are in play its very complex.
Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 was shot down by the Ukrainian military over the Black Sea on 4 October 2001
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
Iran Air Flight 655 had its correct transponder "squawk" code typical of a civilian aircraft.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...
and perhaps Aerolinee Itavia Flight 870
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... (27 June 1980)
"On 23 January 2013 Italy’s top criminal court ruled that there was "abundantly" clear evidence that the flight was brought down by a missile."

Re:To me it's pretty clear.

[Rei]

The militias controlling Donbas have repeatedly complained about how little material support they've gotten from the locals and how few people have enrolled (although it supposedly varies a great deal from place to place). They get more than enough cheers and pats on the back (pre-conflict polling suggested about a quarter to a third would rather be a part of Russia than Ukraine and a majority are unhappy with Kiev - and I'm sure the remainder know well enough to keep their mouths shut), but the percent willing to put their lives on the line for Russia is apparently quite low. The local Ukranians involved are often reported a lot "softer" - the Russian commanders are more of the "shoot you if you don't obey orders" type.

Re:To me it's pretty clear.

[OzPeter]

Slavian Farmers Militia ("Seperatists") bored and trigger-happy and with easy access to Russian military hardware.

But is a SAM system something a "farmer" can just point and shoot? Or does it take training and expertise in order to shoot down an aircraft at 30,000 feet?

My expectation is that regardless of which side shot the missile, that they would have had to have been a trained crew - even just to correctly set the system up.

Re:To me it's pretty clear.

[Nimey]

It's certainly possible that some rebels used to be in the Ukrainian military and were trained on SAMs.

Re:To me it's pretty clear.

[gmhowell]

The militaries of the world take people who are 'just' farmers all the time. Most equipment is made to be operated by and maintained by average guys of average intelligence. (Depending on the level of mechanization of the farm, the proverbial farmer may be overqualified to operate some machinery)

Re:To me it's pretty clear.

[towermac]

That's not my expectation. I would think that you and I could figure out how to power the thing up in less than an hour; likely a few minutes. It won't be too complicated to turn on; remember you're supposed to be able to operate it under the duress of war..

I'm not really disagreeing with you; that in no way qualifies us to operate the thing, and in fact makes it far more dangerous. For example, we would want to turn the default auto-target off, and set a self-destruct ceiling and range before firing. How long would it take to figure that out without somebody showing us?

If my only experience was shoulder missiles, I might forget this big one has a ceiling of 35,000 feet, and that missing with it is much worse than not firing at all. I bet they cover all that pretty thoroughly in Army training.

Re:To me it's pretty clear.

[Rei]

You mean those poor innocent 42 people who were part of a mob that was clearly only minding its own business, having done nothing more provocative than having just shot to death four people and injured a dozen at a football march, having converged with guns on the unarmed crowd - which I'm sure was in no way a pre-planned action (they were all just taking their guns to the cleaners, right?) Yeah, my pity cup runneth over for them, just like it does for the people who shoot down civilian airliners.

Re:To me it's pretty clear.

[erikkemperman]

Given that your nice Kiev friends have recently burned 100 Russians in Odessa to death, I say you are either stupid or a tool.

The coverage I've seen of this event in mainstream Western media was abysmal. "The building caught fire" was an oft read phrase, while there were crystal clear videos of goons throwing Molotov cocktails inside.

Re:To me it's pretty clear.

[sgtsquid]

It's certainly possible that some "rebels" are currently in the Russian military and were trained on SAMs. FTFY

Re:To me it's pretty clear.

[ihtoit]

think about this for a minute, you've just thrown a very important number out here: 30,000 feet. Six vertical MILES. A missile would not only have to cover that, it would also have to lock on and follow the target throughout the flight from the moment of launch. At Mach 3 (about average speed for a SAM), the missile has 26 miles (operational range) to track, lock, launch and terminate. From the moment of firing this can be anything up to 87 seconds. An airliner can move 15 miles in 87 seconds. Bring in the trig. Your long side (missile flat lead trajectory) is the root of 36+225=16.15 miles. You have shy of ten miles leeway, or one half minute (because that leeway is either side of closest approach assuming that the aircraft passes directly overhead), to decide if what you are tracking is an airliner with an international civilian IFF squawk or a transporter with a military code - something which a Gadfly TAR can accomplish instantly - then make the transaction between a fire order and firing the missile.

Re:To me it's pretty clear.

[shutdown -p now]

The sad story of the Odessa fire is that the people who were actually responsible for earlier violence have all got away - they either didn't retreat to that building in the first place, or quickly vacated through the back windows when they saw the fire. The ones who burned or choked to death in the building were anti-Maidan sympathizers, but none of them were of the violent kind (at least, there's no evidence implicating any of them).

Re:To me it's pretty clear.

[dunkelfalke]

So you are really cheering for murderers? What exactly makes you better then?

Re:To me it's pretty clear.

[Rei]

Not pitying the death of a murderer coming at the direct, immediate-aftermath hands of those he tried to kill is not "cheering for murderers"

Re:To me it's pretty clear.

[dunkelfalke]

You have not a single proof that the actual people burned in the building murdered somebody. And yet you are cheering for murderers. You are one of the worst kind of people.

The Kremlin are busted

[Katatsumuri]

Too much evidence this time. Now it's only a matter of due diligence, and choosing to put them on trial as war criminals, or as terrorism sponsors, or both.

Re:The Kremlin are busted

[amiga3D]

It's no big conspiracy. This is what happens when you start handing out weapons to radical people. "If it flies it dies" makes a great motto for anti-aircraft missile batteries. That's what you get from the crazies operating this weaponry. Not a lot of skill needed to use it so they also don't have the skill to tell a military cargo aircraft from a civilian passenger liner even if they did give a shit. I'm sure Russia didn't want this but they handed out the weaponry to these idiots.

Well they better hurry

[bazmail]

Coz we're wayyyyy ahead of them

Russian Internet propaganda army

[ArcadeMan]

Hell, they were even able to enlist "Weird Al" Yankovic.

Re:Russian Internet propaganda army

[antdude]

Don't forget Jack Bauer in his day #9 (Live Another Day).

Russia has no choice

[conquistadorst]

Russia has no choice, they have to do everything in their power to stem the international avalanche of disdain that would otherwise befall them. Think about it:

1. 1. Russia denies wanting to annex eastern Ukraine
2. 2. Russia denies supporting rebels
3. 3. Russia denies arming rebels
4. 4. Rebels then shoot down an international civilian aircraft using the very weapons they weren't supposed to have

If the rebels are ever confirmed to have shot down the plane all of Russia's denials fall apart like a house of cards. Caught red handed. Except now there's international blood on their hands instead of just Ukrainian. Unfortunately for Ukraine, nobody really cares about them except their neighbors. So on that note, you can be guaranteed they will stop at nothing to prove rebels were not at fault. I have no doubt there will be people that will be "silenced". The stakes are simply too damn high.

Re:Russia has no choice

[ericloewe]

It's not like their denials were ever worth anything.

Putin denied having a single Russian operative in Crimea... until after the annexation, when he admitted that was a lie.

Given all the evidence of Russian involvement, denials are pure soviet-style bullshit.

Re:Russia has no choice

[AlterEager]

Putin has effectively already admitted that the rebels did it:

The state over whose territory this occurred bears responsibility for this awful tragedy.

-- Vladimir Putin.

Note that he doesn't say "Ukraine did it", he says "It's Ukraine's fault", i.e. that it would never have happened if Ukraine hadn't made such a fuss about having its territory annexed.

Classic victim blaming. "You made me do it, it's your fault".

Re:Russia has no choice

[Kagato]

I think you are putting too much value in Russia actually caring what the rest of the world thinks. The EU and US have zero treaty obligations to the Ukraine. It was never going to be a Military altercation with the West. It was always going to be a series of trade and diplomatic sanctions. All Russia has to do is weather the sanctions until the Winter and then bend over Western Europe who needs Russian Natural Gas to survive.

Worst case, 5 years down the road North American liquified Nat gas might be able to replace Russian pipeline shipments... Maybe.

Re:Russia has no choice

[daemonhunter]

The state over whose territory this occurred bears responsibility for this awful tragedy.

I think you misread that quote.

What Putin is saying is "We did it. Also we own the Ukraine."

Re:Russia has no choice

[Sobrique]

"There is no such thing as a former KGB man" - Vladimir Putin.
He was Lieutenant Colonel when he left in '91. I don't think you spend 15 years in the KGB and get to that rank without learning a thing or to about 'playing games'.

Re:Russia has no choice

[Anonymous Coward]

The EU and US have zero treaty obligations to the Ukraine.

Actually, The Budapest Memorandum was signed by the US, UK, China, France and Russia in 1994 in exchange for Ukraine giving up their nuclear arsenal after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and provides security assurances against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine.

The essence of what you said was correct, though. The EU and US just *act* like they have no treaty obligations to Ukraine.

Re:Russia has no choice

[shutdown -p now]

It's actually a really funny way to word it, because if you ask the rebels, it's not the territory of Ukraine. It's the territory of the Donetsk People's Republic (or is it Novorossiya Federation now?).

Re:Russia has no choice

[shutdown -p now]

There are many other gas suppliers in the region - Azerbaijan is the most obvious one, but then there's Turkmenistan, and hell, why not, even Iran. The trick is building new pipelines such that they don't end up on Russian territory. But that is already in progress.

Re:Russia has no choice

[ElusiveJoe]

Unfortunately for Ukraine, nobody really cares about them except their neighbors.

Unfortunately for any government in any country, nobody there really cares about its citizens. What I see is EU, US and China elites thinking how they can profit from the civil war in Ukraine, helping their domestic businesses expand and gain a share in the market. And Russian elites care only about not loosing their secret banking accounts.

"A plane was shot down with innocent people? Good. Now, let's see how we can turn that into profit.."

You can easily guess by the reactions of ruling elites in different countries what they have in mind. France wants to sell its troop ships to Russia? It keeps its mouth shut. The U.S. wants to thwart Russian weapon export? Scream at every corner that Russia supports terrorism (but the U.S. supporting insurgents in Syria is OK).

Lies and greed everywhere.

The US media used to lap up Ruskie Propaganda

[Squidlips]

Will they continue to? This will be interesting.... And how the heck did Russia end up with the block boxes?

Re:The US media used to lap up Ruskie Propaganda

[amiga3D]

The US media lapped up "Soviet" propaganda. The new Russian government sadly isn't Socialist so they don't feel any sympathy for them. I get the feeling NBC thinks the wrong guys won the cold war.

Wrong priority!

[Aethedor]

... the priority is investigating whether U.S. citizens were involved.

Seriously, is that really what matters now? What an arrogant *****. What really matters is who did it and why. What's the risk for other planes. If it were the rebels, how did they get their hands on such advanced weaponry. 298 people died. Who they were is something to find out by the airliner company. A president, and specially one from the USA, should really have other things to worry about.

Re:Wrong priority!

[nedlohs]

Yes, he's the President of the United States. His primary concern should be determining if any US citizens have been killed.

Civilian planes getting shot down by the military isn't exactly unheard of. The US has done it. Russia has done it. China has done it. Ukraine, Bulgaria, Israel... It's rare but has certainly happened multiple times already.

There are really only three options. Ukraine shot it down. Russia shot it down. The Russian backed rebels in Ukraine shot it down. Not much the for the US to do in any of those cases. You expect and want the US to stick it's nose into every corner of the world? Don't we have a UN? Can't Europe look after itself?

Though of course I'm sure someone somewhere is brewing a conspiracy theory that it was a US or Israel false flag operation of some sort...

Re:Wrong priority!

[Xest]

I was actually rather astounded at how happy Obama seemed when he gave the announcement, I saw it live on TV and it was completely the wrong way to address people about such an incident.

What an absolute amateur plonker he is. Where's the great orator we were promised?

Re:Wrong priority!

[Aethedor]

You expect and want the US to stick it's nose into every corner of the world?

It already has been doing that for the last decades.

Don't we have a UN? Can't Europe look after itself?

I'm not say that *only* the US president should be doing something. EVERY world leader should be doing something. If you think that this is only a local incident, you don't understand the situation there and what just has happend.

Re:Wrong priority!

[Solandri]

Seriously, is that really what matters now? What an arrogant *****. What really matters is who did it and why. What's the risk for other planes.

In the grand scheme of things, yes those are the things that matter. But unless a U.S. citizen was killed, the U.S. really has no business getting involved in this. It's the same reason the U.S. stations troops in South Korea. Their job isn't to help repel a North Korean invasion. Their job is to die so the U.S. has a reason to get involved.

The plane was a Boeing, so Boeing and possibly the NTSB will be involved in the investigation. But unless another country requests it, the U.S. cannot bring in the FBI or CIA to investigate this unless a U.S. citizen was killed. Given that Russia has already removed the black boxes and purportedly the missile truck used in the attack was secreted to Russian soil, those are the kind of intelligence assets you really want investigating this.

So yes the things you say are most important, but answering them reliably very much hinges on whether or not a U.S. citizen was among those killed.

Re:Wrong priority!

[MightyMartian]

Winston Churchill confessed, guiltily, in his History of WWII, to being happy at the news that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor, because he knew at that moment, the Germans had lost the war.

Re:Wrong priority!

[phantomfive]

What really matters is who did it and why.

What, exactly, do you expect that to accomplish?

Re:Wrong priority!

[ehiris]

Well, that's the only thing that he thinks he can do these days. Illegally I might add. Killing US Citizens abroad without due process seems to be his only jump-to-conclusion square.

What he should worry about is how does something like this happen a day after he expanded economic sanctions. Some awful oligarch who doesn't feel he stole everything he could have from the Ukrainians is retaliating over it.

Re:Wrong priority!

[Rei]

Not much for the US to do? So you presume, for example, that punitive sanctions aren't an option? This could finally be the impetus to lay on some "more than just a slap on the wrist" sanctions. I mean, they haven't even banned the export and import of luxury goods yet. There's a long way to go down that road. The big effects come in creating a business environment in which any company that has any operations in the US or Europe is afraid to touch Russia out of fear of massive fines, causing them to over-self-sanction as a precaution (this usually has the greatest effect on sanctioned countries).

There's really no way to ever *totally* stop travel between the borders, and even very strict measures well beyond what we could reasonably expect here would leak like a sieve. But the key is to ruin the ratios in Russia - to devalue their exports, hike the cost of their imports, and raise the interest rate on their borrowing. Which in turn would render most of their business activity except that with a very high profit margin uneconomical, as well as smashing their per-capita buying power.

Yeah, Russia's energy weapon can be used, and that's a big weapon, although it'd aim even more back at Russia (that's the foundation of their economy). Europe has the operational LNG terminals to import enough (even without usage displacement, which would happen en masse - welcome back, coal!) to replace Russian gas, for example, and there's more than enough exporters (Qatar alone could offset it). But Europe would pay out the nose for it - LNG is expensive to begin with and they'd be competing against other buyers all over the world. Again with oil, Saudi Arabia alone has nearly enough reserve capacity to offset Russian oil. But you better bet OPEC will let the price float up a several dozen dollars a barrel in the process. (OPEC really has to be thrilled about the prospect - Russia's been a pain in their side for ages).

So yeah, the EU, and to a lesser extent the US, would really hurt from such a full-out trade war - probably a 5+% loss of GDP in Europe, a brand new recession. I could even picture on the order of a 10% hit in some parts of Europe. But Russia would literally become a third world nation without that income.

A more interesting - and realistic scenario - would be if they can render new investment in the Russian oil and gas industry uneconomical, but not take sanctions too far otherwise. In that case, Russia would continue selling oil and gas from their existing fields - which are largely only set up to export to Europe - and Europe would continue to buy. But Russia's production - and economy - would keep slowly tapering away as the fields aged without replacement. The rest of the world would at the same time have ample time to develop alternative production and Europe would have ample time to adjust.

Whatever happens, I doubt we'd see the necessary support to lift any sanctions on Russia unless they give up Crimea. That is to say, I don't think we'll see anything lifted from Russia for a long, long time. Whatever hits Russia today is probably going to become the status quo for decades.

Re:Wrong priority!

[MightyMartian]

There was at least one American on board.

Re:Wrong priority!

[strikethree]

What an arrogant *****.

Come on dude. Censorship is so fucking annoying.
An arrogant what?

I know it is five letters long and we can guess that it is disparaging and uncivil but there are no letters to even give a hint. Most of the words that would normally fall in there do not fit: Jackass, asshole, shit, fucker, cunt, etc.

For fucks sake tell us what is hidden behind those god damned stars! Either say what the fuck you mean or don't say it at all.

Re:Wrong priority!

[Aethedor]

prick

Re:Wrong priority!

[nytes]

If a U.S. citizen was killed, then the U.S. has a diplomatic wedge into the investigation. "We are looking into what happened to our people."

If if no U.S. citizen is involved, then everyone inside and outside would be perfectly justified in telling the U.S. to keep their nose out of it. (Not that the U.S. would follow that advice.)

Re:Wrong priority!

[strikethree]

Ah. Thank you. It was driving me nuts trying to figure out what to put in there.

Really, you should just say what you mean and be honest about it. Censorship is just wrong even when it is not intended to be evil.

I apologize if I offended you with my previous response filled with vulgarity. The vulgarity was an intentional device but not meant to offend.

Re:Wrong priority!

[Xest]

That is basically the impression it gave, but Churchill was also competent enough to not make it publicly clear when addressing people about grave events.

Re:Wrong priority!

[sugar and acid]

There were a number UK, canadian and Australians killed. Which would mean those countries will get all relevant signals intelligence from the US at least under the United Kingdom – United States of America Agreement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA_Agreement.

Also when have the CIA ever kept there nose out of anything? :)

Re:If only...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not his dick size, it's that he can't psychologically accept that he is homosexual. Therefore he's obsessed with appearing as masculine as possible. (With the hilarious side-effect that he spends more time in homoerotic shirtless man-wrestling than he would if he was straight or out-gay. And the less hilarious side-effect of, you know... Russia.)

believe everything you are told!

[Cardoor]

or dont.. im continually astounded that people continue to believe what's told to them just because it comes from a tee-vee, internets, or ink on paper.. so long as the people telling the story look like me. oh yeah - those dumb russian citizens!! believe the propaganda that's administered to them by corrupt information! not like US.

Re:believe everything you are told!

[TangoMargarine]

You don't have to believe the propaganda to call this what it is: a regrettable and dumb action.

I assume they had a big Malaysian flag painted on the side of the fucking plane if they had looked. And they were probably broadcasting a civilian transponder code. Although the first casualty of a world where countries routinely engage in false-flag black ops is trust in said countries, naturally.

"Is this a military plane?"
"No, of course not!"
"Hmm...well, I guess they wouldn't have any reason to lie. Stand down, comrade."

Re:believe everything you are told!

[MightyMartian]

You know, I'm beginning to think conspiratorial thinking is just another form of apathy. "Oh well, it's probably made up, so I'll sit in my cocoon, spout my paranoia on the Internet on occasion, and play PS3 the rest of the time."

Re:believe everything you are told!

[Cardoor]

i appreciate your comment for pointing out that it is my mistake for not containing and integrating my frustration. i agree with you that spouting on the internet as an outlet is personally unproductive and a misuse of energy. (though i assure you im not much for literally or metaphorically playing the ps3. ) regardless, if you are ever so inclined, i would suggest you do even a cursory (and rational) investigation at what is quite a long list of 'conspiracy theories' that have turned out to be 'conspiracy facts'. maybe it will at least present you with some possibilities. best regards

Re:believe everything you are told!

[MightyMartian]

Because some relatively small number of events may have a conspiratorial aspect does not mean all events do. In this case, it does appear that a bunch of separatists in Ukraine got their hands on some pretty sophisticated hardware and, obviously by accident, blew a civilian airliner out of the sky. Now, that's not as sexy an explanation as secret US operatives standing in the bushes near the separatists, or secret Russian operatives bringing the plane down in an even more elaborate scheme to make the West look bad by making themselves look bad so they can say "Those rotten Americans are trying to make us look bad."

Something like this was bound to happen when relatively poorly trained and disciplined weekend warriors get their hands on serious military hardware. The Russians have been quite keen to back the separatists with weapons, intelligence and some of their own personnel. It would be nice that if they are going to allow these separatists to use advanced AA equipment that maybe they have someone nearby who actually knows how to use such equipment, or at very least to put a bullet in the head of some daft nimrod who thinks he knows how to use the equipment.

Casualties

[Celarent Darii]

"In war, the first casuality is truth".
Aeschylus (525 BC - 456 BC)

Res eo magis mutant quo manent.

Re:Casualties

[Celarent Darii]

*casualty

Re:Who benefits

[Anonymous Coward]

The Russians have means but no motive. The separatists have no motive and probably no means (but this is somewhat unclear). The Kiev regime and NATO have both means and motive.

Separatist sadly had means provided by Russians and most powerful motive of all time - stupidity. Do not think other people are idiots and believe Kremlin propaganda machine.

Video URL

[cmholm]

The Telegraph screwed up the link within their site. Google turned it back up: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...

Re:Who benefits

[abies]

Separatist have motive - they are trying to shoot Ukrainian military planes. They have means - they were showing BUK launchers themselves, Ukraine later said that they won't be able to operate them, but might have been wrong, especially given technical support from next country.
They had means and motive. And no clue this is rerouted civilian plane, because despite having enough capability to fire BUK (few people with neccessary skills), they weren't up to date on flightwatch... and decided to not ask on radio first.

So, in certain sense it is an accident. Same kind of accident as when sniper tries to kill person A, but person B moves in the way at last second. Sniper is still at fault, even if he had no motive to kill person B.

Re:If only...

[Rei]

Oh come on now, how could anyone mistake this guy for being gay?

Seriously, though, some of his publicity stunts are almost Kim Jong-* level. While the "flying with geese to lead them home" one was funny, and the saving his camera crew from a savage tiger one was conveniently off camera, my favorite has to be the "finding ancient Greek pottery while diving in two meters of clear water on a popular beach" one. ;) Of course that one was so over the top even for him that they had to backtrack:

But his spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview shown Tuesday on the Dozhd TV channel that the jugs had been found earlier by archaeologists and placed there for Mr Putin. ... 'Of course, they were left there or placed there. It's completely normal. There's no reason to gloat about this and everything else.'

Mr Putin is noted for his habit of appearing in vigorous and adventurous settings, including fishing and hunting while stripped to the waist and riding with leather-clad bikers.

Again, though, let me stress - not gay! ;)

Re:It's Putin's fault

[Ultra64]

Did they know Bush was lying when he said he had evidence?

US and UK "spreading the blame"??

[steveha]

From the summary:

U.S. and U.K. news organizations are studiously trying to spread the blame

WTF? Is this intended to somehow suggest that the USA and/or UK share some portion of blame?

The article linked in that part of the summary is a CNN article making the case that shoulder-fired missiles cannot reach 33,000 feet, so it must have been military gear. That's it... it even notes that both Russia and the Ukraine have such missiles.

This is news, and a news organization is reporting on it. Go figure. "trying to spread the blame"? "studiously", even! Really?

Re:US and UK "spreading the blame"??

[Guppy06]

I think the poorly-written sentence (on Slashdot?) is trying to say that US and UK media generally isn't trying to pin the blame on one party or another (yet).

Re:US and UK "spreading the blame"??

[ehiris]

Slashdot seems to be caught up in the same disinformation campaign it is warning about.

Psychosis?

The matter of fact remains simple no matter who is at fault for this incident. There should not be a war there. But there is and Russia is to blame because they started it when they lost their puppet government.

Re:US and UK "spreading the blame"??

[Cederic]

shoulder-fired missiles cannot reach 33,000 feet, so it must have been military gear.

Where can I get me one of these civilian shoulder-fired SAMs?

Re:US and UK "spreading the blame"??

[HornWumpus]

You are about a hairs breadth away from a 10 year federal conspiracy charge. 3 felonies per day.

Re:US and UK "spreading the blame"??

[Cederic]

Oh? Shotguns are illegal in the US?

Re:US and UK "spreading the blame"??

[HornWumpus]

Conspiracy to import illegal weapons. Shoulder-fired SAMs.

To whoever did this

[Rashdot]

To whoever is responsible:

You make think that you're a big balled freedom fighting hero, but in fact you are the worst kind of coward. Instead of admitting what happened, and apologizing, and turning yourself in to the International Crimes Court, you're trying to put the blame on others.

You're a despicable coward. I hope you'll never be able to have good night's sleep for the rest of your stupid life.

Re:To whoever did this

[OzPeter]

You make think that you're a big balled freedom fighting hero

It seems you have already decided who is responsible.

Well it was either the pro-Russian, Ukrainian separatist freedom fighters, or the Nationalistic, Ukrainian independence freedom fighters who did it.

Which group do you think the OP is referring to? And why?

Re:To whoever did this

[Rhywden]

And sometimes they are exactly that.

Re:To whoever did this

[stdarg]

It's probably not up the guy who is responsible. It was one of the leaders, and it went something like this..

You really fucked up. You are going to be punished, maybe put to death. But we cannot let your mistake become fodder for the enemies of our noble struggle so we're going to take care of you quietly.

Re:To whoever did this

[Rashdot]

I don't know who did this and I don't care.

Everybody is accusing everybody else, that means that those who did it are cowards. I hope they will be punished, but I realize that those who are responsible probably never will in this case. Because they will be protected by other cowards.

Re:To whoever did this

[Lead Butthead]

I am pretty sure they'll sleep just fine, like the perpetrators of ethnic cleansings of late. Never forget, MY ASS.

Ooo...not an INTERNET war...ooo...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Russia: guns, oil, money and thousands of practicing hackers
US: very, very peezed bloggers and president "with a pen and a phone"

Unfortunately, my money here is on Putin...again.

Re:Ooo...not an INTERNET war...ooo...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> Care to put a dollar amount out there?

Sure. $100 says that Putin comes out of this thing looking like a world-class statesman to his allies - much like he did walking out from the Syria standoff (where the US also backed down).

For example, I already read a story this morning that Putin has "offered a cease fire" (ah, truly a man of peace!):
http://www.jsonline.com/news/u... ... even though he's the guy who invaded Ukraine and armed the f***ers who shot the plan down.

Re:Ooo...not an INTERNET war...ooo...

[Anonymous Coward]

LoL... you'll bet that he comes out looking stellar in his state-controlled media? That's like betting the sun will rise tomorrow.

$100 says Putin doesn't have the balls to start anything with the US over this, assuming we get involved in any way, ground, air, water, or cyber. His veto power will ensure that the UN doesn't do anything substantial, but NATO isn't constrained by UN resolutions, and, if he's got anything resembling an IQ above room temperature, he's rightly scared shitless of an earnest NATO response to his recent BS.

To that end, another $100 says that the bear gets really quiet over the next few months -- outside of its own, internal propaganda machine. Putin knows that a line has been crossed, and the last thing any sane person would want to do under these circumstances is add an exclamation point at the end of this tragedy.

Re:Ooo...not an INTERNET war...ooo...

[TangoMargarine]

People who make statements like "country X doesn't have the balls to do Y" are generally people that I hope and pray stay far the hell away from positions of power.

Re:Ooo...not an INTERNET war...ooo...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> you'll bet that he comes out looking stellar in his state-controlled media

Not just that. That even "our media" will pick up on Russia winning and the west losing. For example:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/... ...etc.

Re:Ooo...not an INTERNET war...ooo...

[TangoMargarine]

STFU noob

FTFY.

Please read the entire thread before lodging a moral objection,

Apparently I'm being pragmatic when I complain about specific things wrong with the world instead of enumerating every thing that's happened that I dislike over the last year, in which case we'd be here until next Tuesday. I'm so sorry.

or simply surrender any claim to objectivity at the door, thanks.

Where did I make any such claim? Your tone subjectively rankled me. Then I made a reply subjectively complaining about it.

But the taunting nature of the OP is completely okay with you?

"Backing down" is rather less testosterone-driven than "don't have the balls for it." I would have commented instead on a replier to you who made a reference to "fucking the bitches up" but fortunately nobody did.

Re:Ooo...not an INTERNET war...ooo...

[Sir_Eptishous]

I was going to mod you up, but you're already at 5...
So, I have to say your post made my day!
That's some funny shit bro.

Re:Ooo...not an INTERNET war...ooo...

[TangoMargarine]

Feel free to elaborate what you mean by either one of those flippant dismissals.

I said I didn't appreciate chest-thumping when it comes to international politics, you whined that I had picked you to reply to, and I said you were the worst offender present. Is that supposed to be the red herring or the strawman?

If former) You can't just label any opinion you don't like as a "red herring." Perhaps my observation wasn't strictly on-topic but your post basically boiled down to "my dick is bigger than Putin's." Foolish statements like that have led to many, many wars in history.
If latter) See last sentence above.

If you're saying me dismissing your insistence that I "be objective" is killing a strawman, maybe that's because I don't understand what point you're trying to make, and I already applied my chest-thumping complaint to both you and the parent so I'm not even sure what we're arguing about in that case.

But hey, this is Slashdot, so if you can't reason your way out of a corner just starting hurling the names of fallacies at it until something sticks, right? You haven't tried begging the question, appeal to authority, or ad hominem yet; why don't you give those a shot.

good troll soup

No kidding.

"treating it as an accident"

[DarthVain]

As someone pointed out in the first thread of this tragedy, this is not the first time something like this has happened.

Obama may be being diplomatic so as to not call the kettle black so to speak. The US accidentally did the same to Iran years ago, except they were in Iran air space, the weapons were fired from a warship, by professional soldiers. Consequently rebels accidentally (and I have no doubt they did) shooting down an airliner, using stolen unfamiliar technology with little or no training by militia in the middle of a civil war seems rather less bad.

Also it dredges up the result which was all dead, and the USA not admitting any blame or fault, and instead writing a check for a few million to throw at the hundreds of victims families.

Re:"treating it as an accident"

[Anonymous Coward]

The US admitted fault and paid restitutions.

Re:"treating it as an accident"

[rahvin112]

In addition to admitting fault and paying restitution, the US punished the guy in charge of the boat (it ended his career), changed policy on shoot first and installed civilian radios in all anti-aircraft systems.

Re:"treating it as an accident"

[dunkelfalke]

ORLY?

The payment of compensation was explicitly characterized by the US as being on an ex gratia basis, and the U.S. denied having any responsibility or liability for what happened.

or that priceless quote of Shrub the senior:

I will never apologize for the United States of America, ever. I don't care what the facts are!

Re:US wars with Congressional approval since 1945:

[halivar]

13, actually. But please, continue with your rant.

Re:It's Putin's fault

[Nimey]

Was Bush smart enough to know he was lying?

Re:Who benefits

[abies]

The separatists still had no motive to shoot down a civilian airliner.

But we know they had no idea it was civilian plane - they were cheering destruction of military airplane on Twitter for some time, before realizing it was civilian.

And if the Kiev authorities are directing civilian aircraft to fly over an active war zone they are still to blame, whoever actually pulled the trigger.
(That is to say if they did. It might have been a pilot error.)

This is interesting thing to see. Have they been forced on this path by Ukraine air control? Or have they asked Ukraine for permission due to weather conditions (for example) and Ukraine just allowed? And according to latest developments it looks like BUK they got from Ukraine was indeed non functioning and one which was used was fresh import from Russia, so Ukraine (or at least civilian air control) could as well had no idea about capability to destroy high-flying targets.

Who knows, maybe it will even turn out that somebody in Ukraine has pushed this plane into dangerous territory hoping for trigger happy separatists. It would be quite bad and there will be political backlash - but still, people pulling the trigger are the ones which are truly responsible.

What is this?

[X.25]

What, exactly, is the point of this piece of shit? To stir more shit?

What in that ITAR-TASS article is "celebrating", exactly?

Whoever posted this "news" is a fucking idiot.

Re:Who benefits

[nedlohs]

Because never in all of military history has a civilian entity been attacked because it was thought to be a military target. Not even once!

Disgusting information wars

[guacamole]

Well, if the Russian information war machine wars just like described in the slashdot article, it's truly truly disgusting. Having said that, I do wonder why did an airliner have to fly through a war zone.

Re:Disgusting information wars

[guacamole]

Was it also mad men who shot down the Iran Air Flight 655? It's possible to argue that all people in the military are trigger happy mad men. Which is why civilian airliners have no business flying over war zones..

Re:Who benefits

[nemyax]

Have they been forced on this path by Ukraine air control?

Here's the airline's writeup: http://www.malaysiaairlines.co...

MH17 filed a flight plan requesting to fly at 35,000ft throughout Ukrainian airspace. This is close to the ‘optimum’ altitude. However, an aircraft’s altitude in flight is determined by air traffic control on the ground. Upon entering Ukrainian airspace, MH17 was instructed by Ukrainian air traffic control to fly at 33,000ft.

Looks like Ukrainian air control knocked them down a notch. BAM!

Re:Who benefits

[Kythe]

I won't even rate this one as "nice try".

Re:If only...

[gmhowell]

He's one cowboy away from a Brokeback Mountain.

Re:Who benefits

[Xest]

Worse, apparently the type of buk in question can be set into autonomous firing mode such that it fires at any aircraft approaching from it's frontal position.

The rebels could well have not realised civilian flights were still heading over Ukraine and could've set it into this mode and no human intervention would've even been necessary.

It's possible that by the time this aircraft was visible and they could see it didn't look like another AN-24 that the missile had already left it's rails and it was too late.

Truth is the first casualty of a war....

[tekrat]

And I am afraid that has always been the case, and always will be. And I'd swear that I first heard the headline of my post out of the mouth of Desslok of Gamilon, while watching an episode of Star Blazers as a kid. Go Star Force!

Re: It's Putin's fault

[Adriax]

And this is how bush got away with so much. They cultivated an image of him being a frat boy idiot so the general populace would shrug things off as "oh he's too stupid to know what he's doing".
Which is a horrible thing to accept from a president, but apparently it worked.

It would not surprise me if that image comparing faces bush made to faces monkeys make was created by his PR team.

Re:US wars with Congressional approval since 1945:

[TangoMargarine]

If you consider "military engagements authorized by Congress" to be the same thing as "war."

If they wanted a war and could get a war declared, why not fucking do it already?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...

Re:Who benefits

[satuon]

Separatist have motive - they are trying to shoot Ukrainian military planes

I agree to that, I had come to say the same. The whole thing doesn't make sense if done intentionally by Russia, because it makes them look bad - they don't gain anything from it.

The most likely thing is that they mistook the civilian plane for military, and just shot.

Re:Who benefits

[TangoMargarine]

Because 35,000 vs. 33,000 is going to make so much difference to a missile battery with a maximum engagement altitude of 72,000, sure.

Re:It's Putin's fault

[erikkemperman]

And his head should roll. Exactly the same way GWB's head should roll for Iraq.

I have no love for the man, but it is utterly hypocritical of Washington to say Russia is "destabilizing Ukraine". Which is not to say that they aren't trying to influence the situation, militarily and politically, but let's not forget that it were Western forces that backed, funded, armed the coup in Kiev -- and in so doing supported some decidedly unsavoury types (Svoboda, Right Sektor).

What exactly do we expect the Russians to do here, given that a majority of the population in the Eastern Ukraine self-identify as Russian? How are they supposed to take seriously any diplomatic efforts on the part of the West? Even if we with our luxury induced attention span deficiency have forgotten, they probably remember a promise by Bush I and Baker that NATO wouldn't expand "as much as a thumb’s width further to the East".

Re:US wars with Congressional approval since 1945:

[halivar]

If you want to talk about whether formal declarations of war should precede any military action, that's a different discussion. The GP intimated that all US military conflicts were done unilaterally by the executive, without consultation of the legislature, and that is demonstrably false.

Re:US wars with Congressional approval since 1945:

[TangoMargarine]

We're arguing semantics. His original statement that the U.S. has engaged in 0 wars with Congressional approval since 1945 was correct. There have been 13 engagements with Congressional approval, however you want to qualify that.

Give me a break

[WaffleMonster]

Listening to Putins own remarks he has already lost. When your strategy is invoking same tired logic Israeli's use with no success to deflect responsibility for inflicting civilian causalities nobody who matters cares.

Has anyone considered

[sls1j]

It seems to me that the US and Russian leaders are just drumming up public support for an all out war. First it was Syria, then Crimea, and now this plane get shot down. I wouldn't be at all surprised if our dear POTUS and Putin are working closely together to escalate the situation and are just laughing at all the pawns jumping onto the national bandwagon.

I also wouldn't be surprised if the CIA really shot the jet down, or were somehow involved with both sides.

Reading the news from the US, Ukrainian, Russia, BBC, Israel, and China I can't help but think there is something deeper going on. They all are saying about the same thing, though assigning blame according to their own national propaganda.

If public opinion becomes strong enough and national hate is built to sufficient levels in both countries war is going to happen, and millions will die.

Please people don't get sucked into to the nationalist propaganda!

Re:US wars with Congressional approval since 1945:

[Anubis IV]

You don't need a formal declaration of war (i.e. to put the nation itself in a "state of war") to be engaged in a war, but I do agree that there is not a one-to-one correlation between military engagements and war. Saying we've been engaged in 13 wars with Congressional approval since 1945 is bit of an overstatement on halivar's part, since many of those were minor encounters in the grand scheme of things, but your seeming suggestion that none of those military engagements were also wars is a misstatement on your part. We may not have made a formal declaration of war against Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, or Afghanistan, but we were still engaged in the Vietnam War, Korean War, Iraq War, and the War in Afghanistan, all of which were done with Congressional approval.

Suggesting otherwise is just playing semantics and missing the point, since the OP's implication was that the President hasn't received Congressional approval since 1945 for these sorts of things, which is patently false.

Data is sent by satellite ...

[perpenso]

Data is sent by satellite in some newer aircraft. Recall the French jet that went down in the South Atlantic. When abnormal events occurred the aircraft sent some text messages to the airline. Full telemetry would be very expensive. However occasional texts for abnormal events, and maybe an occasional gps coordinate, would be reasonable.

That said, black boxes and such telemetry would be of limited to no value in the Ukrainian shoot down case. The black box won't tell us what type of missile destroyed the aircraft and where it was launched from.

Re:Data is sent by satellite ...

[Alien1024]

They are still useful. For example, they might shed some light on whether this is true or not.

Re:Data is sent by satellite ...

[sumdumass]

I see what you did there. Interesting to say the least. This could be the first internet salvo toss in the war of information as the topic says. Nice job working it in there. I'll even add some skepticism for free.

If it is true that Ukrainian jets were flying behind the Malaysian jet, they could have mistaken it as a Russian cargo plane transferring supplies to the rebels.

It could have been a false flag operation in which the plan all along was to induce blame on the rebels and Russia in order to convince Europe nations to implement the sanctions they were rejection because of fears of what it would do to their local economies. This later also has the benefit of encouraging outsiders to support Ukraine and help them fight off the nasty Russian backed rebel scum.

But as long as we are speculating, I'm going to punt and claim it was a bizarre meteor strike like the one seen in Russia and North Carolina recently- except it hit the plane in one seriously incident of bad luck.

Re:US wars with Congressional approval since 1945:

[TangoMargarine]

Yeah, I just laughed when I saw the OP say "0 wars" and halivar say "13 wars." I can't help but twitch every time they talk about "Internet wars," either.

Re:Who benefits

[Sobrique]

Depends how much they knew about the thing they were shooting at. I mean, Boeing make military aircraft too. Are B52s still in service? What does one of those look like from 10km away or on a radar?

Re:If only...

[ehiris]

He isn't. Russia has laws about that and he is a law-abiding citizen!

Re:Who benefits

[Sobrique]

B52s are made by Boeing and still in service I believe? OK, so the B777 might not look _too_ similar, but if you're not expecting a civilian flight, you might make that mistake.

Re:Who benefits

[ehiris]

"Ukraine later said that they won't be able to operate them"

Obviously they didn't. They shot anything that the missile was able to lock onto. Hence a civilian airplane was taken out.

Re:Who benefits

[oobayly]

And no clue this is rerouted civilian plane...

I beg to differ with the assertation that it was rerouted - I heard that it was much further North (by 300mi) from somebody on the BBC, so decided to check. I downloaded all the tracks from flightradar24, and imported them into Google Earth - the red track is the final flight, and the popup is the final placemark. You'll also see that the tracks were all within 110km zone, and the final flight was bang in the middle. The track to the South was the 27th May flight.

Google Earth of MH17 flights since May 14

Re:Who benefits

[oobayly]

Have a look at this image - A track of all MH17's flights since May 14 - Id definiteyly wasn't rerouted into a dangerous area - it flew the same route over and over again (which incidentally is very close to the great circle between Amsterdam and KL).

Re:US wars with Congressional approval since 1945:

[halivar]

The implication of the statement: "US wars with Congressional approval since 1945: 0" is false by the common sense understanding of the word "war". That it is defensible only by a technical legal definition of "war" that does not, in fact, include real, actual wars means that such defenses are picking nits to win debate class, not proffering an actual point.

Re:US wars with Congressional approval since 1945:

[halivar]

Semantics. The Korean War was not a "police action." Neither was the Vietnam War. Funny how both of those have "war" in the name. Both, BTW, had congressional approval.

Re:Who benefits

[Rei]

Yes, it is. According to the transcripts, they thought it was an AN-26 military transport plane.

It's not really hard to put two and two together.

* For the past week, Ukraine has been bombing - without success - the rebel stronghold of Snizhne, trying to break a key link between the two rebel bases of Donetsk and Luhansk.
* For the past couple days, Ukranian military planes have suddenly started falling out of the sky at high altitude, something that had never happened before. Ukraine seemed confused and blamed Russia for shooting them down, either a surface missile or a jet; the rebels had previously only had MANPADs.
* On Thursday, an AP reporter reports seeing a BUK launcher in Snizhne
* On Thursday, several hours before the shootdown, Strelkov (the top rebel commander) posted a message on multiple social media sites which he regularly posts from saying not to mess with "our skies".
* The plane is shot down and crashes in a field just northwest of Snizhne
* Strelkov posts again cheerful posts claiming that his forces have downed a military plane, literally minutes after the plane gets shot down, and brags about how they brought it down in fields near a mine in the area that the plane crashed in.
* A video gets posted showing rebels in Snizhne cheering about their shootdown
* The two later-released Ukranian phone intercepts are dated from this time period - first of Strelkov and a commander discussing the shootdown of what they think is a military plane, then confused commanders coming to the realization that it's a civilian jet.
* Strelkov deletes his previous posts from social media
* A large number of eyewitnesses interviewed say that they saw a rocket come up from Snizhne and hit the plane
* Another video gets posted showing a BUK driving on the road from Snizhne toward the Russian border.

Even if you doubt the Ukranian phone releases, even if you doubt every witness and video, I really don't know how much more damning you could get than that.

Re:Who benefits

[Rei]

I work with air traffic control systems and I think it's ridiculous people are trying to fault the ATC here. There's a *lot* of pressure from companies to fly the most direct, fuel-efficient route - they really don't like to divert. And controllers don't like diversions either. When Eyjafjallajökull erupted it diverted a large chunk of the traffic from the North Atlantic through our airspace, which made for some *very* busy, very overworked controllers. And unhappy sysadmins as well. Unless you think you have to, you don't close airspace. The costs for doing so are massive.

Re:Who benefits

[HornWumpus]

B52s are flown by the USA only.

The Russian missile crew knew that the Americans weren't attacking because they weren't _on fire_. The first wave of an American attack is HARM anti-radar missiles and electronic warfare aircraft.

That goes on for days, before the B52s are allowed in.

It's counterpropaganda to crap from western media.

[boorack]

Russia nor novorussian rebels had nothing to gain from this shooting - except for political disaster for themselves. On the other hand, Kiev government had a lot to gain. First I describe current situation because for some strange reason there is nothing about this in western mainstream media.

Current situation:

In the last few days rebels managed to do a heavy spanking to ukrainian army and national guard (ie. right sector). Large number of their soldiers (approx 3-6 thousands, 10% of army!) have been trapped in a cauldron north of Saur Mogila, between Doneck/Lugansk and russian border without supply, being constantly shelled by rebels: entire batallion has been nearly wiped out (72th or 79th), 24th battalion has also been decimated. Lots of those soldiers dropped weapons and uniforms and tried to escape to Russia. In Lugansk airport at least two ellite groups are trapped, Ukies tried to establish corridor to get them out but their column suffered heavy losses - some of them managed to get to the airport but they failed to keep up corridor open, so they're trapped there as well. Rebels are constantly pounding them with mortars and artillery. Between 9th and 15th july, according to Ukie defence ministry they had more than 1500 soldiers killed in action, more than 4500 wounded, lost almost 40 tanks and more than 100 trucks plus several planes (they were losing approx. 2 planes a day over several days). Ukies started retreating and begain fortifying outside Lugansk/Doneck oblasts. To sum it up, they've suffered catastrofic losses, almost strategic defeat. There are suspicions that Kiev govt now fears that their military can turn against them, align with rebels, mop up right sector and national guard and overthrow Poroshenko government.

Losing badly, Kiev desperately needs something that would change the course. Direct NATO intervention would be ideal for them, if not then at least some ceasfire, so they can regroup and go on with some new plan. Shooting down civilian plane with 300 passengers and blame rebels and Russia for this plays ideally into their hand. Having said that, I strongly suspect that Kiev government is behind this tragedy - if not shooting directly, then indirectly by directing this plane into territory where military action is going on.

Lies and damn lies

[mi]

That Russia's officialdom is lying is a given. What is truly troublesome is that the vast majority of citizenry not only accept these lies, but are passionately spreading them around. Decades ago this phenomenon was blamed on the "Iron Curtain" — which no longer exists. Though Russian ISPs are blocking certain sites, most of the Internet is perfectly accessible to Russians. But they choose to believe the TV instead — and independent TV-channels no longer broadcast in Russian Federation.

It would seem, neither the Iron Curtain nor even the Great Firewall are necessary — as long as the government controls the media, whatever foreigner enemies, spies, and subversives may say on the Internet will be derided and discarded.

Re:Lies and damn lies

[ray-auch]

Or not, depending on context. See, stuff like "Russian sources now stating that the rebels do not posses such air defenses" could in fact be perfectly true, to understand just add "now" or "anymore".

"we do not have such air defences now - momma bear took our new toys away because we made big mess with them"

Re:Lies and damn lies

[mi]

There are as many liars in Washington DC as there are in Moscow.

Except American media is, decidedly, not controlled by American government. DC's liars may be lying to us and each other, but other liars stand ready to catch them at it.

Not in Moscow — where anti-government speech is non-existent.

Re:Who benefits

[yukam]

And Putin threatened with asymmetrical answer to West's sanctions.

Another motive.

Re:It's Putin's fault

[HornWumpus]

The Iraq war is a success. The Sunnis and Shias are back at war. Yeah GWB!

Re:If only...

[Rakarra]

Oh come on now, how could anyone mistake this guy for being gay?

Hey now, I'd like to ride shirtless in the warm weather on the back of a horse. Who wouldn't?

I am pretty gay, though.

Irrelevant for this situation

[Mr_Wisenheimer]

The plane was shot down by a missile. It was a civilian aircraft with limited or non-existent countermeasures. I'm not sure what we could learn from the flight data recorder other than what profanities the aircrew screamed as they were falling out of the sky.

Re:It's Putin's fault

[Rakarra]

Are you going to include John Kerry and Hilary Clinton for voting to support GWB on Iraq?

Please don't tease.

Obama: “Looks like it may be a terrible trag

[Vinegar Joe]

I could carve a better man out of a banana.

Re:US wars with Congressional approval since 1945:

[david_thornley]

I'm actually not certain a declaration of war is legal any more under the UN. In any case, a declaration is not necessary for a war. In WWII, Germany was not at war only with the US, and I'm pretty sure that (a) Germany declared war only on the US, and (b) the French, Poles, Russians, British, etc., thought it was a war.

Re:US wars with Congressional approval since 1945:

[TangoMargarine]

Timeline of World War II (1939) -- #3 -- Britain and France both declared war on Germany. Apparently it was a final ultimatum which if not satisfied constituted war. I was under the impression if one or the other side declared it a war, the other side's opinion didn't really matter.

Another interesting note is that Japan actually sent a message for their ambassador to the U.S. to deliver to more or less declare war, that was supposed to be delivered 30 minutes before the planes hit Pearl Harbor for maximum surprise, but he couldn't transcribe it fast enough and didn't deliver the message until after the first wave hit. The U.S. et al. reciprocally declared war on Japan.

Dec 11, 1941 - "Germany and Italy declare war on the United States. The United States reciprocates and declares war on Germany and Italy."

Re:US wars with Congressional approval since 1945:

[TangoMargarine]

Well, technically under the Kellog-Briand Pact war itself is illegal, but I doubt the U.N. would make it illegal for you to warn the defender in advance.

Re:Who benefits

[radarskiy]

B52s are only operated by the US Military, and have 8 jet engines.
B777 have two jet engines and are not operated by any military.
An24/26 that had been previously shot down have 2 turboprop engines and also are incapable of flying at 33,000 feet.

Act of war?

[melting_clock]

There is scope for this to become a very real world war. These terrorists are backed by Russia and there is strong evidence that serving Russian drops are fighting in the conflict. It seems easy to argue that Russia has just committed an act of war agonist all of the countries represented in the civilian casualties.

Hopefully a world wide war is not the result of this evil act. Either way, Russia is going to feel a lot more pain from the sanctions that must follow.

Re:Who benefits

[Xest]

I don't know exactly how these identification systems work, but I presume they have to be pre-loaded with known radar/electronic signatures to be able to offer any form of reasonable identification.

This launcher is likely older than the Boeing 777 (as it's a 70s/80s design, whilst the 777 didn't fly until the 90s) and so if it's not been kept uptodate it's possible also that not knowing what the fuck a Boeing 777 was it assumed it was something like an AN24.

Re:US wars with Congressional approval since 1945:

[david_thornley]

Actually, the Japanese didn't compose a declaration of war until after the Pearl Harbor attack. The message you refer to was long, mendacious, and thoroughly inflammatory, and it sure looked like it should end with a declaration of war. In actual fact, it was a breakoff of negotiations.

Black box data streaming

[Jerome from Layton]

They already have it for ships. A friend of mine showed me where the Maersk Alabama was (West of Singapore), the course heading and speed (270 degrees and 14 Knots). By the way, this data stream doesn't need to involve the on board recorders ("black" boxes).

Re:US wars with Congressional approval since 1945:

[TangoMargarine]

Not if they find it to be manslaughter, no, not really.

Re:US wars with Congressional approval since 1945:

[TangoMargarine]

Hence why I said "more or less declare war." They wanted to save face internationally while still maximizing their element of surprise, so they had to warn the U.S. without warning them.

Are you saying they further declared war "for real this time" later?

Russia wont win fuck

[Optali]

There is no way that the fucking Russians win a fuck. They have already fucked it up to such extend that they can do what they want. Even if it happens to be true and the aricraft was downed by an UFO filled with Nazis from Outer Space no fucking body will believe these bastards no matter how much bullshit they spew.

The Russians are always depicted as ruthless and intelligent, but they are showing that they are just a bunch of idiotic assholes with no fucking idea of diplomacy or how to by sneaky.

They already got what they needed, the Krim, raised the pensions of everybody to the Russian standards and everybody is happy, the Ukrainans could have lived with that, the EU didn't gave a flying fuck (but made believe we did), the gas pipelines were kept open and everybody was happy.

why the fuck do these idiots keep on waging war and supporting the separatists? They have nothing to win, there are no strategic bases, no oil, no nothing, just a bunch of retarded shitheads and whores.

But no, they had to continue supporting them and stretching the situation until it broke.

Sorry for all the swearing, four of the victims were from my town, Hilversum, and it utterly angers me. Stupidity always anger me, but this just brings me to the point of explosion.

Fuck you Putin.

WTF

[NewYork]

Just drop a "Heat bomb" in Antarctic Ice Shelves. You'll drown the World.

logic implies

[ortiooo]

If it were rebels by accident, it is a truly sad tragedy, but rebels are at state of war and they would never do this in purpose, given the circumstances BUT! If it were Ukraine for political reasons and to blame the opposite side – this is a crime! Knowingly sacrificing 196 innocent human lives for a frame-up and provocation is intolerable.