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Russian Government Edits Wikipedia On Flight MH17
An anonymous reader writes A political battle has broken out on Wikipedia over an entry relating to the crash of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, with the Russian government reportedly removing sections which accuse it of providing 'terrorists' with missiles that were used to down the civilian airliner. A Twitter bot which monitors edits made to the online encyclopedia from Russian government IP addresses spotted that changes are being made to a page relating to the crash. All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (VGTRK) changed a Russian language version of a page listing civil aviation accidents to say that "The plane was shot down by Ukrainian soldiers." That edit replaced text – written just an hour earlier – which said MH17 had been shot down "by terrorists of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic with Buk system missiles, which the terrorists received from the Russian Federation."
They tried to edit slashdot to make this the first post
The crash scene is a crime scene and all the bodies and bits should be left in place. Russia lost all credibility the second they started moving bits around.
False equivalence.
Sides are not equally wrong, and truth is not somewhere in the middle. There is a very clear wrong side - Russian equipment operated by Russian-sponsored terrorists and/or Russian military misidentifying civilian aircraft and shooting it down. Anything else is intentional misinformation.
> Btw. does anyone here remember the USS Vincennes?
Actually yes, I do. There were various discussions about at what point the crew knew they'd just shot down an airliner, or at what point they should have known that they were targeting one. There've even been various conspiracy theories that they knew it was an airliner all along and shot it down intentionally to kill someone or another who was onboard. But the US has always admitted that it was the one who shot down that airliner.
At no point has the US government tried to re-write history and disavow the blame by claiming that it not the US who pulled the trigger; but some bunch of locals who somehow managed to capture (and figure out how to operate) the Vincennes.
Imagine all the people...
of course, russian govt is the most knowledgeable - they shot down the damn plane.
on the other hand, the rest of the world knows quite a lot - photos and videos on the ground, showing buk system moving around, intercepted terrorist conversations that include receiving of the buk, moving it around, then scrambling to react when they find out just what they just shot down.
that also includes public bragging about downed ukrainian plane, only to hastily remove all those comments once they figured out that it's a civilian plane.
after that they publicly try other idiotic statements like claiming that all passengers were dead in amsterdam already (yeah, happens in that city every now and then, right ?), or trying to find "weapons" in the remains of the plane.
then more intercepted conversations where they are given the orders from the "higher ups, from moscow, you know what i mean" not to let anybody who's not "theirs" near the crash site and above all - find all "black" boxes and ship them to moscow.
there is no "anti red agenda". there's a fascistic, aggressive country that invaded and annexed part of a european country. and there are lots of paid commenters who try to whitewash the crazy actions of russian state. (although some might be genuinely crazy and/or uninformed and do it for free)
Rich
The US government never admitted it's mistake, or apologised.
Certainly it admitted a mistake. The US government admitted shooting the plane down rather immediately, called it a mistake, and has since used it as a training case in the military for what not to do. You either weren't alive back then, or you have a twisted view of history...
Apologized is a different story. The idea of an apology became a bit of a political football during an election year, with Dukakis stating that the US should apologize and then Bush beating the crap out of Dukakis by saying we should never apologize for American troops. Bush won, and the apology never came. But Bush could be a bit of a douche. He did run the CIA.
It's pretty easy to determine if the Russian government is sharing knowledge as a primary source or knowingly disseminating false information. The edits implicate the government and military of Kiev, replacing statements that implicate the rebels as well as Moscow. So if the Russian side was in fact the truth, you would expect rebels and Moscow bending over backwards to assist with the investigation, and if the Russian side was a Big Lie, you would expect rebels and Moscow doing every to impede the investigation. It seems pretty clear the extent of assistance the investigation is getting.
But still, interpreted literally the new statement is far more factually correct and unbiased than what it replaced. Whoever shot down the plane, they were "soldiers" or fighters of some variety and almost certainly can be described as Ukrainian, given that everyone seems to agree that the fighters are actually eastern Ukrainians and at most Russia is supplying weapons to them.
Not exactly. There is a distinct difference between a soldier and a combatant. A soldier is trained and is a member of a standing military. The separatists can at best be described as "irregulars", or insurgents or rebels if you want to go with slightly more charged terminology. And who exactly is this "everyone" who are agreeing that they are all Eastern Ukranians? I have yet to see any reputable source make that claim. And Russia is not just supplying small arms to these groups. They are giving them tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery, and anti-air systems (both MANPADS and tracked systems). You don't just pick these systesms up and start using them. They are recieving training, either in Russia or locally from trainers that Russia has moved into Ukraine. And given the fact that the missiles were launched from inside territory controlled by the rebelsis a very important detail. Why would the Ukrainians have anti-air equipment deployed in an area they do not control, against an enemy with no air power? All evidence points to the missiles being fired by the separatists, which means Russia had a hand in at the very least training them on how to use the equipment if not providing that equipment as well as continuing to use their influence to keep the conflict going.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Twitter bots that monitor and call attention to things, or future AI tools we develop that provide similar functionality for monitoring what appears to be the cyber behavior of certain groups or certain people, have a downside, too. Everyone knows it isn't very hard for somebody with substantial financial resources (or a sysadmin who works at a particular ISP and has substantial political beliefs or alliances) to spoof the IP addresses that are thought to be associated with certain groups/nations. This evolving condition of intrinsic uncertainty around digital media and Internet communications needs new technical and social solutions. See: http://slashdot.org/submission...
Poor shills are on their 3rd straight day without sleep, and over-time pay is reduced to only 6 extra potatoes due to sanctions. Remember to take a rest, comrades. Next week when the satellite and black box data come out you will be needed even more.
Actually the US "STILL" hasn't admitted fault in that incident. They blamed it on the hostilities in Iran and then proceeded to cover up the whole incident as best they could, like the location of the ship, breach of orders, no court marshal despite blatant crew failings etc.
There is a big difference between admitting fault and admitting a fact. The US never denied shooting down the plane.
Claiming that an incident where nobody is even raising their hand as to who shot it down is the same as the Iran Air incident makes you sound like the kind of person that wants the vilify the US wherever they can.
False equivalence.
Sides are not equally wrong, and truth is not somewhere in the middle. There is a very clear wrong side - Russian equipment operated by Russian-sponsored terrorists and/or Russian military misidentifying civilian aircraft and shooting it down. Anything else is intentional misinformation.
"Terrorist" is the wrong word, it's obvious from the intercepts this was a tactical error on someone's part.
Terrorism isn't defined by actions so much as the reason. For the love of Jebus, it has a well understood meaning folks, look it up.
Terrorists? I've seen them called both separatists and I think Militia. I haven't heard them called terrorists until now, and whilst I'm not fully educated on their movement, treatment of civilians in the area and other matters, I don't know if they should morally be classified as terrorists by the international community, that is unless they shot the airliner down on purpose or performed other heinous acts of terror.
The looting of MH17 on the other hand is a terrible and those doing it should be held accountable
The way Israel has been behaving lately looks more like a terrorist organisation than the Ukrainian separatists.
Actually I suspect that the launch of the missile was monitored by one or more of the many satellite/radar systems eyeing the region, its trajectory was known, the position of the plane and all other air traffic was known, the type of missile and launcher used and their origins are known, conversations between the "rebels" and their handlers in Moscow were intercepted, and I further suspect that follow-up conversations regarding the cleanup/coverup of the site were recorded. This all tracks with what was already known: the "rebels" are supported by Russia and include covert agents and/or troops. They are not an organic/grassroots response to Ukrainian actions, they are the direct result of Russian influence, because Putin has less control over Ukraine than he did in the past.
There's little confusion about what happened. What's confusing is what to do next. The EU may finally be spurred to approve more sanctions on Russia, but Russia can sell gas to China and other partners instead. The "BRICS" movement is a strategy to reduce American and European influence on world affairs, reduce reliance on the U.S. dollar and the World Bank, IMF, and other Western dominated institutions, and it has picked up steam in recent years as China and Russia grow more weary of being told what to do. Influencing Putin on Ukraine requires giving him a way to save grace and not appear weak to his sheeple back home, which may be impossible. Best case scenario, Putin will back off slowly and broker a peace deal between his cronies and Ukraine, while the Russian government-dominated media continue to lie about MH17, claim that Ukraine shot at Putin's plane, etc.
There's also question of motivation. Why would soldiers waste expensive missiles for some irrelevant passenger plane?
To shoot down Ukrainian military aircraft. They had already shot down a Ukrainian transport plane and a Ukrainian fighter within the previous week. They were on a roll.
Why would be there a plane over a warzone in the first place? That just doesn't make sense.
It was a major air route. There were over 50 civilian airliners over eastern Ukraine at the time MH-17 was shot down. And about 24 aircraft flew through the precise area MH-17 was hit, over the previous day. There was a Singapore Airlines jet close enough to MH-17 at the time for the pilots to see it explode.
Aircraft are currently flying over northern Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Israel...
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
The commander of the eastern Ukrainian militia is a Moscow native and "former" GRU (Russian military intelligence) officer with no ties to Ukraine prior to the war.
No-one disputes that. Not on either side, Ukraine or Russian. The only dispute is over that "former". The Ukrainian government says he's still an active duty officer taking direct orders. They even know the name of his immediate GRU commanding officer in Moscow. Russia claimed he "retired" a month before he entered Ukraine.
The "Prime Minister" of the break away territory is a Moscow native. He ran a right wing news service for several years, with the protection and support of the Russian government. He was widely believed to be FSB. He had no ties to Ukraine before the war. He was sent into Crimea as a political "consultant" on behalf of Moscow during crisis there, then "retired" and moved on to eastern Ukraine.
No-on disputes any of that. The only dispute is whether he's FSB and whether he's still working for the FSB.
It seems that it's only really the western media which persists in treating it like a spontaneous uprising by local (ethnic-Russian) Ukrainians.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
This is way out of Bob the arms dealer's league.
Bob9113 here. Don't tell my potential customers what I can and can't supply. You don't know my inventory, nor my procurement abilities. Though you are right that the price would be substantially above $50,000.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
it doesn't really take cia classified intel to realize where the rebels military equipment is coming from, just a few pictures is enough. furthermore hey, it's just a few months after they did the same shit in Crimea with the little green men from mars(who weren't russian but used Russian military equipmen and spoke Russian and came from Russia..).
and the cossack leader is insane.. last he tried to pass off was that the plane was loaded with dead bodies and that its a pr operation by the ukrainean government.
basically, the fucks don't understand anything about the world beyond 50 kilometers from their home, which pretty much explains why they so much want to be part of russia(since they're speaking russian) and not the EU, even if they're likely to receive bigger economical benefits from the EU and buy stuff then with more money from Russia if they so desire Russian things. Maybe Russia now has to change the cossack leader to someone else and think a little bit about who it lets press the big red buttons.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Janes the defence intelligence organisation disagrees with you FWIW. They claim that IFF in the Buk systems simply asks if it's a friendly and if it doesn't reply with a friendly signature it assumes it's a foe.
I know you claim you've been trained in the system but I'd rather believe Janes given that their description makes much more sense. If what you said is true that surface to air missile systems can be disabled from firing at a target by simply claiming to be civilian in their IFF response then they'd be less than useless as every military jet would be flying around pretending to be civilian.
See here:
http://www.janes.com/article/4...
Quote in question:
"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."
So who profits? The key question remains, of course, cui bono? Only the terminally brain dead believe shooting a passenger jet benefits the federalists in eastern Ukraine, not to mention the Kremlin.
You have made a very basic logic error.
The realization of, or failure to realize, a profit is *not* the key question. The key question is who *expected* a profit when the action was committed, whether they were successful or not is an entirely different matter. Its the expectation that motivates action.
The simple fact is that the Russian backed separatists *believed* they were firing at a Ukrainian military transport. Shooting down such a military transport would benefit the Russian backed separatists. The Russian backed separatists initially took credit for shooting down a Ukrainian military transport, until they discovered they had actually shot down a commercial aircraft not a military transport. The shoot down of a commercial aircraft was not intentional, a commercial aircraft was mistaken for a military aircraft. That said, being unintentional in no way relieves the Russian backed separatists from responsibility, legal or moral. They fired the missile at a mistaken target, it was their negligence and incompetence that killed hundreds of innocents.
I've realised why people keep quoting this. FlightAware provides a low resolution track of the flights - about 100 points* for a flight between Amsterdam and KL. FlightRadar24 provide a track with a 1 minute resolution (~600 points, with large sections missing where there is no ADS-B or MLAT coverage).
* They now seem to have slightly improved resolution, but now highlight where the track is actually known. Check for yourself - the tracks where data is available is in green, then they draw a great circle where the track is unknown.
MH17 2014-07-15
MH17 2014-07-16
MH17 2014-07-17
This is the data I originally compiled from FlightRadar24 - All MH17 flights since 14th May - and as you can see, they have data points provided every minute, as opposed to guessing where the aircraft was.
Basically, you've a choice of using a website that provides low resolution lat/lon pairs (FlightAware), or a website that provides timestamped lat/lon data, along with speed, course, altitude and area (FlightRadar). If you're going to use rubbish data to support a hypothesis, you'll end up with a rubbish hypothesis. In fact, you're doing it wrong if you need to use rubbish data to "prove" your hypothesis.
As for the altitude, it's true that the pilots request FL350, but were refused - this could have been for any given reason - congestion (apparently there have already been reports of near misses over Russia due to congestion due to aircraft avoiding Ukraine airspace - I'm trying to find where I read that), weather (which has been suggested by a pilot's group). However seeing as an SA-11 has an altitude range of 60 - 25,000m, 600m isn't going to make a difference if you're attempting to shoot down a civilian airliner.
Russia or the separatists in Eastern Ukraine might have done this
That's a distinction without a difference.
although no-one is sure what they would stand to gain from it.
It looks like they thought it was a Ukraine military plane and were a bit too trigger happy, not realising it was a civilian aircraft until too late.
Ukraine's own military might have done it (they've done it before and denied it vehemently until it was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt).
Here's the thing: if the Ukraine were responsible, then Russia would have a vested interest in a visibly transparent investigation and be in a position to ensure that it happened. If they could convincingly portray the Ukraine as having shot down a civilian aircraft then that would significantly alter the political sympathies in the current conflict. Instead, they have done everything in their power to block it.
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