Russia Prepares For Internet War Over Malaysian Jet 503
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.
Black box data streaming (Score:5, Insightful)
It is the fault of.. (Score:2, Insightful)
.. Nationalism: the single biggest source of evil on this planet.
Let loose the dogs of misinformation! (Score:5, Insightful)
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
04.10.2010 (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Propaganda won't help this time (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
To me it's pretty clear. (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
The Kremlin are busted (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Black box data streaming (Score:3, Insightful)
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 (Score:4, Insightful)
That's a good point, but its a small percentage of flights that have Internet access. Even in the US.
Wrong priority! (Score:5, Insightful)
... 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:If only... (Score:2, Insightful)
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.)
Re:Black box data streaming (Score:5, Insightful)
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:04.10.2010 (Score:5, Insightful)
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... [wikipedia.org]
And Ukraine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... [wikipedia.org]
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:Russia has no choice (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Casualties (Score:4, Insightful)
"In war, the first casuality is truth".
Aeschylus (525 BC - 456 BC)
Res eo magis mutant quo manent.
Re:Black box data streaming (Score:3, Insightful)
US and UK "spreading the blame"?? (Score:5, Insightful)
From the summary:
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?
Ooo...not an INTERNET war...ooo... (Score:4, Insightful)
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:Black box data streaming (Score:4, Insightful)
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:Russia has no choice (Score:4, Insightful)
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:Black box data streaming (Score:3, Insightful)
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:meanwhile overnight... (Score:5, Insightful)
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... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.