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Hearing Loss of US Diplomats In Cuba Is Blamed On Covert Device (bostonglobe.com)
bsharma shares a report from The Boston Globe: The two-year-old U.S. diplomatic relationship with Cuba was roiled Wednesday by what U.S. officials say was a string of bizarre incidents that left a group of American diplomats in Havana with severe hearing loss attributed to a covert sonic device. In the fall of 2016, a series of U.S. diplomats began suffering unexplained losses of hearing, according to officials with knowledge of the investigation into the case. Several of the diplomats were recent arrivals at the embassy, which reopened in 2015 as part of former President Barack Obama's reestablishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba. Some of the diplomats' symptoms were so severe that they were forced to cancel their tours early and return to the United States, officials said. After months of investigation, U.S. officials concluded that the diplomats had been exposed to an advanced device that operated outside the range of audible sound and had been deployed either inside or outside their residences. It was not immediately clear if the device was a weapon used in a deliberate attack, or had some other purpose.
Another mishipment by the ACME Corporation.
Immunity and protection are the precepts of diplomatic law. Without them there are no diplomatic relations. Time to take our ball and go home.
> Odumba had no clue about foreign policy.
As opposed to... what?
What?
"They sent us some Kanye West cd's, let's pay them back in kind"...?
Cubans are known for their DIY, improvised repairs that has kept together their infrastructure even during decades of economic hardship and an embargo. Could this just be a poorly done local electronic repair job on a power transformer, for example? The locals may well be suffering from the same issue health issues, but given the communist mindset, no one had the courage to complain. I'd wager more on poorly done electronic repair job than cloak and dagger spy tricks.
If the commies are harming our diplomats, why did Odumba normalize relations with them? As usual, Odumba had no clue about foreign policy. Castro may be dead, but the antics haven't changed. I expect the Democrats to attack me for asking this, but the question needs an answer.
Yeah, you seem like you're up for a reasoned, civil debate...
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
I think it is very doubtful it was the Cuban government. They want money from the USA, in the form of tourism, the ability for people in the USA to send money back home to family in Cuba, etc. Obama already set all that in motion and gave it to them for free (IE without any worthwhile conditions or concessions from the Cuban government). The Castros should be tickled pink with the state of things - they still have full control, yet are now getting some respect and official acknowledgement from the superpower next door, and money, goods and services are beginning to flow into their country.
So it makes absolutely no sense for them to do something as petty as this - injuring diplomats from the USA for no good reason whatsoever, with the only possible result being harm to relations between the two countries. If the Cuban government didn't want these diplomats there, they would simply tell them to leave - it is a dictatorship after all.
IMO this is the action of some other government, with sophisticated technology and deep covert capability, doing this because it is in their best interest for Cuba and the USA to not have good relations. I'll leave the exercise of figuring out who those players could be to you.
Better known as 318230.
Yes, because "odumba" could have predicted something that would happen two years after relations with Cuba were re-opened and they would be using a "sonic device" the likes of which are unproven to exist. If Obama was actually that powerful, you really should be afraid of him like you're pretending to be.
The US government has has sonic weapons since the 60's. Obama was a terrorist infiltrator, no other reason every single policy he implemented would be made to harm the US, even the libtards get things right on occasion if only by chance.
LOL, where do you guys get this stuff?
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politic...
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
I don't know if you've noticed, but in Cuba they drive cars that are from the 40's and 50's. There is no way they have this advanced tech.
I don't know if you noticed, but most of those cars retain little of what was originally there other than the frame and the original shape of the car. Most have engines that are from more modern (though not the latest tech) Russian, EU and Japanese manufacturers. Besides, the US had such weapons in the 1960's. So it's not like you would need a bleeding edge chip fab in order to do this.
I wonder if it had any similarities to The Thing, a Soviet listening device that required no power...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
-=Lothsahn=-
And US diplomats go around the world trying to work issues out to prevent war. Now, I don't agree with invading everyone who doesn't see things our way, but you're complaining that attacks on the people we put out there to help up see eye-to-eye with other nations so we're not inclined to invade them is news?
Huh. What's the point of your comment, again?
Are you implying that, because we're so quick to go to war, we should just start right on with the invasion and bombings and not make any attempt at diplomacy?
Would that be better for you?
Because, when our diplomats start being harmed on foreign soil, that quickly becomes the only option. That's why this is news; and quite important news, at that. My only hope is that we take a moment to step back and figure out who actually did this before we start dropping bombs (again, because I know we will, not because I think we should), because there's no way in hell Cuba has that technology.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
LOL, where do you guys get this stuff?
You know, marijuana has been legalized in some states, and soon to be in Canada. Maybe he's starting to show some side effects.
Being nice to d-bags only gives them permission to continue being d-bags. Same applies to Maduro, North Korean, Putin, Iran, ISIS, Al Qaeda, and Boko Haram. That last only always reminds me of "Temple of Doom"
I too make up shit about Obama, unprovoked, and for no apparent reason.
(I'm assuming you're not Iranian because while the Iranian government has, unlike Obama, described Cuba as "an important partner", it's not their diplomats who have been injured.)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
The article mentions that the "officials familiar with the probe said investigators were looking into the possibilities that the incidents were carried out by a third country such as Russia, possibly operating without the knowledge of Cuba’s formal chain of command."
Of course it doesn't mention that the device could have come from the second party. Hint: I'm talking about the USA spy agencies. Because all US embassies have strange spying devices in or (mostly) on top of them, And do those of the other four "Five Eyes" countries - including Canada...
But then again: could a whistle blown into a telephone cause hearing problems for "US diplomats" listening in on Cuban phone calls?
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
The story is sensationalist but like 90% of the stuff from Fox news and CNN and MSNBC and The New York Times it is Fake news, and yet tries to point to all the other news and call it fake. It would be better if they showed at least one iota of proof here, but apparently that is too much to ask! I don't buy it, sorry guys!
There. fixed that for ya.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Cuba is a valuable member of the international community, and an important partner of the US. Or at least that's what our last President said.
Yeah, and our current President says the same thing about Russia.
I'm sure you hold the same high burden of proof for this alleged assault on our diplomats by Cuba as you do for Russian interference in the election, correct?
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
For me, it's the inaudible part that doesn't add up.
Regarding the laser microphone :
If this device emits in the inaudible part of the spectrum, how can it jam speech ?
The most obvious counter-counter-measure, would be to clean the sound spectrum from the laser, amplifying the frequencies mostly found in human voice, and masking frequencies out of this frequency-band (thus masking all frequencies beyond hearing range but still somewhat picked up by the mic).
Or is the anti-laser counter-measure banking on output so much noise (out of spectrum sounds), that the signal (speech) is swamped by the jamming, and the laser mic mostly picks up noise.
i.e.: make the signal/noise ratio suck a lot hoping that the mic won't pick up the interesting (voice) frequencies against the ultra loud background.
so after frequency isolation, the resulting voice would be completely distorted due to poor mic response.
(But probably there are no publically available detailed analysis of the response of laser mics)
(Though signal processing science tells us that if the analog stage - the lase part of the mic - is able to pick higher frequencies than the digitizer - which probably could be limited to hearing range - the signalling will be strongly distorted in the hearing range - which also the single reason of existance of 192kHz ADC)
Regarding the hearing loss :
How the hell is hearing loss possible with a out-of-spectrum noise ?
By definition sound outside the audible spectrum is sound outside the frequency response of the human auditory system.
I.e.: frequencies which physically can't interact with the inner ear.
By which mechanism could they still harm the hearing if we can't hear them ? (= if they can't manage to interact with the inner ear)
By damaging the middle ear (the small bones that work as transducers to transmit sound to the inner ear ?)
I can't manage to find a thing about it.
- There's only a 2013 study in Germany on 21 individuals that reported a change in spontaneous otoaccoustic emissions (the noise that the ear it self is making) when people were subject to 90 sec. bursts of infra sounds.
- Wikipedia page on "Ultrasound" mentions a 120dB safety limit, but the cited source is dead.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
As a kleptocracy, they would be vastly more interested in opening up ties with the west than remaining dependent on other broken kleptocracies. You can get a lot more hard, western cash that way.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The story is sensationalist but like 90% of the stuff from Fox news and CNN and MSNBC and The New York Times it is Fake news, and yet tries to point to all the other news and call it fake. It would be better if they showed at least one iota of proof here, but apparently that is too much to ask! I don't buy it, sorry guys!
There. fixed that for ya.
CNN and MSNBC have a lot of content that is political commentary by pundits. Whenever you see a split screen on CNN, it's not news, it's opinion. Even so, the anchors tend to correct or point out when the pundits state fake information or use false facts. Fox news doesn't even try. Also, just because you don't like or agree with the news that is being covered (i.e. the Trump leaks, the Russia investigation, etc.) doesn't mean that the news is fake.
The Russia, investigation, for example may find nothing. It doesn't mean that the news outlets shouldn't cover the activity associated with it. But don't confuse the news about the investigation (i.e. the FBI raid of Paul Manafort) with the political commentary (split screen talking heads).
Personally, I think that all news outlets should be focusing more on the military action in Afghanistan and the fight against ISIS. But they obviously get more ratings with political commentary and they have to serve their advertisers. It's one of the bad things about commercial news vs publicly funded news organizations like the BBC and CBC.
LOL, where do you guys get this stuff?
For most of us there's a clear barrier between imagination and reality, dreams and being awake, fact and fiction. For some, that barrier is broken. You can see that there's "fashions" in lunacy, like after Roswell lots of people claimed to have been abducted by aliens. People read about being abducted by little grey men, then they get abducted by little grey men. A lot of the seed stories aren't created by loons though, like for example there's good indication that Roswell was about making money. And it worked extremely well, maybe they weren't exactly your average tourist but a lot of people came and spent a lot of money they'd never have otherwise.
Which is why I'm pretty sure most of the political conspiracy theories are plants, because even if they're nuts at some point Obama had to spend time and resources disputing the lunacy. And once the ball is rolling everyone can add their own flavor. Father born in Kenya? Let's start a birther theory. Middle name Hussain? Let's start some theories that he's a Muslim... and a terrorist. Black man? Let's start some "Malcom X" theories for white people, some "Uncle Tom" theories for black people. Probably some Illuminati/NWO too, that works for all people in power. The conspiracy theorists tend to love it when you pile it on. And once you get a big enough ball rolling, you start setting off the "no smoke without fire" alarms even in more reasonable people.
The Internet has been a great boon for conspiracy theorists, because even though it's made people with very narrow interests make contact with like-minded all over the world it's also enabled echo-chambers with their entirely own alt-reality. And a lot of people think doing "research" on say #pizzagate is reading all the drivel and watching all the YouTube videos about it. Then you have the semi-reputable sites like Breitbart feeding the fire by keeping an arm's length distance from the actual conspiracies while driving people to them. So plants are the spark, conspiracy nuts the kindling and alt-sites bring the firewood. And the rest of the world wonders why the fires are so hard to put out...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I don't know at this stage how anyone could think the Russians didn't try to meddle with the election. The Russians have also attempted to muck about with recent European elections as well. The Russians are not the West's friends, and seeking division and chaos among the Western powers is critical, seeing as economically they are a midget, and even militarily they could not hope to meet the power of NATO. They have nukes, cheap oil and hackers.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The embargo is still in place. Only Congress can roll that back.
The executive could eliminate the travel ban and normalize diplomatic relations. And that's what was done.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
I'm amazed at what kind of technology has existed for so long but has never been made public.I tried searching but was unable to find any resources online about this. Anyone heard of a device that causes deafness? Side note - I agree with previous posts, definitely not the Cuban government. They don't have the motive. CIA does since it would create a distraction from all the chaos and turmoil surrounding president Trump. Russia obviously does not want US and Cuba to be on good terms since Cuba is their foothold to the US.
I mean; it is scary that such a device is capable of existing, and you can be physically attacked/damaged over time without noticing it.
It is a cruel sort of weapon victims have no chance of defending against with high potential of grave accidental collateral damage, so it should clearly be banned; same with any weapon using light outside human visible range with no visible warning.....
Also, is there some kind of monitoring system that can be installed, and portably carried that could detect such kind of devices in operation?
They got their uranium and ran, without further concern of the election.
Yep, I never spell check.
More incorrect spellings can be found he
Fox news doesn't try because it has never been their intention to offer just the news. Fox has always been about presenting a conservative view point.
CNN, etc, may frequently have a liberal slant to their stories but that's less to do with deliberately trying to be a "liberal" news source and more to do with the fact that they have liberal journalists and editors.
Fox is deliberately right wing with the stated purpose of being right wing. CNN is accidentally left wing (but actually have stories that cover the spectrum).
To me there is a notable difference in trying and failing to deliberately being a propaganda source.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
What, Cuba may have done something to physically injure US diplomats? Unthinkable! Cuba is a valuable member of the international community, and an important partner of the US. Or at least that's what our last President said.
And friends don't physically assault other friends' diplomats.
To be fair we don't know that Cuba has done anything. It could be a neutral party- or we could have done it to ourselves accidentally.
If our own counter-spying technologies relied on confusing listening bugs by drowning them out in ultrasound noise we could have made our own diplomats go deaf.
Right now it's impossible to know.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Jesus Christ, why not just bring up Pizzagate while your at it?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
In related news, 89% of all statistics are made up ad hoc. On Slashdot, it's 98.6% of all statistics, though.
It's probably something left around from the 60's and no one today was ever trained to operate it properly. I bet it's a listening device that is just transmitting at a bad frequency.
The wrong Castro died. Fidel Castro wasn't really a communist, at least initially. Heck, in his later years, he admitted what everyone knew - that communism was a failure (his handlers quickly claimed he was "misquoted".) Raul Castro and Che Guevara were extreme communists. Raul Castro is in charge now and he shut down the economic reforms his brother put in place before his death.
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The linked story is such crap. It has gotten us talking about sonic weapons, and Cuba's access to them, and on top of that, it suggest, without any sign of evidence that Russia may be the culprit.
Here are a few things that I think are hard to argue against:
1) It only takes some decent knowledge of biology and some 50s tech to create something that deliberately harms a person's hearing.
2) Neither Russia nor Cuba has any interest in harming US or Canadian diplomats
3) There are quite a few parties (Cuban immigrants, unfettered government agents, Cubans hating Americans) who may want to harm US diplomats, whether to destroy Cuban-US relations, or simply to take perceived revenge on Americans.
4) There exist, and have existed for decades, listening devices which are technically passive, but get used through remote application of power. Think a resonating plane or chamber read through lasers, EM radiation, etc. For all I know, some may require inaudible (to humans) sonic waves to operate.
So, as far as I am concerned, the three most likely possibilities are, in no particular order.
0) There's nothing going on, this is all due to a parasite infection, an accident with a misused device belonging to the embassy, etc.
1) Some asshole, working contrary to Cuban interests, deliberately harmed the diplomats, possibly with a low tech, hand made device.
2) The Cubans or Russian fucked up, and harmed the diplomats while trying to spy on them
But nasty Commies deliberately targeting diplomats? I can't see their angle. I'm not saying they would not do it, I am saying I cannot see how they would profit.
No good deed goes unpunished...
That's what I thought too. Hearing loss is caused by the little hairs in your ear that sense the frequencies to be bent over due to too much sound pressure at that frequency. If the frequency is so high that you cannot hear it, then you really aren't missing anything if those hairs fall over. Maybe they just put NAIR in the water.
It's from a sonic device, beyond his range of hearing, sending him subliminal messages that Obama was a lizard bent on world destruction and Trump was sent back in time to stop him, but Trump got distracted by reality TV and forgot his mission for 8 years.
I laugh every time someone here on slashdot posts a Youtube video link and says "here watch this, it will change your mind and prove I'm right!"
They had a BBC quiz about which recent crazy quotes were from Trump and which were from Kim Jong Un. It was way too easy: short simplistic sentences were from Trump.
Ridiculous conspiracy theory, just to cover up these diplomats went deaf from too much masturbation.
(what with all those jineteras...)
Or the electronic whine from the 60s era transformers/tubes in the listening devices caused the problem.
I got hearing loss listening to cable news shows.
Or not...
http://www.snopes.com/hillary-...
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Holy fuck! You have a 12 year old neighbour that already has a son that can talk! Fucking future genius!
I'm no fan of Obama, but making fun of someone's name hasn't seemed clever to me since I was about six years old. Next time you might try being clear rather than clever. You will improve your critical thinking skills as well as your chances of convincing someone.
I wouldn't say fake news. I don't think I've ever heard about something being outright fake on Fox. The same cannot be said for CNN or MSNBC. What they do have a tendency to do is insert their bias into the story and emphasize some details while downplaying or leaving out others. Just like every other media outlet does. I like Fox for their conservative viewpoint, but I also tune into CNN for the counter point as well as other publications both foreign and domestic. The bottom line is no one gives the straight unadulterated facts. And even for looking at disparate sources there are still details that very few if any know about in some situations.
I don't believe in karma, I just call it like I see it.
I was going to try to "moderate" this thread, but I have only five mod points. EVERY comment in this thread deserves to be marked as "TROLL"; probably including this one.
Hearing damage in a particular sound range is consistently found to be from noise in that range. That they'd come up with the idea of "hearing" damage from an ultrasonic weapon is about as plausible as fetuses getting hearing damage from an ultrasound or humans suffering color blindness from being exposed to X-rays.
A more probable cause would be chemically induced hearing loss as some medications are known to cause hearing loss: aspirin and other NSAIDS (like ibuprofen), some antibiotics, some cancer drugs and some high-blood pressure meds -- especially in combination with other potentiators.
Since it is only diplomats being affected, I'd look at possibilities of prescribed drugs for state personnel visiting Cuba or Caribbean countries & interactions.
Don't know if you've noticed, but they have the internet in Cuba. They are not in total isolation, dumbass. Just a leftist "utopia". If you're there and don't like that utopia, you won't have to worry for long. People like that have a short life expectancy.
Nuke 'em? Don't be such a dumbass. Nothing like that is necessary. All they really need is a gentle push the right way and it'll all come crumbling down. We could have hotels, nice vacation spots and a paradise there before Trump's term ends. Get rid of the failure that Communism is.
I'd go down there, get Fidel's urn, dump his ashes in the local sewage treatment plant where they belong.
I have to scratch my head. WTF? Are you really that stupid? Did you even RTFA? No, of course not.
40 years ago there was a discount store, Fed Mart IIRC in Tucson. They installed ultrasonic burglar alarms and left them on during the day. I could no longer shop there because the intensity was so high it was like an ice pick in the ear. When I complained, the people who worked there said they had the same pain for a while and then the effect went away (as they became deaf I suppose).
End MGM. Get prospective parents of boys to Google: Men do complain
Apparently they didn't learn from previous experiences with communist countries. SovUnion comes to mind.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
Could be a us anti Eve's dropping device that had unfortunate side effects. The Dumbo's who deployed it couldn't acknowledge they screwed up without confirming the existence of the devices
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