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Bullshit. If the genpop had any idea just how advanced the EMF weaponry the blackbudget type of orgs had they would shit bricks. One more thing I guarantee I'l

Bullshit. If the genpop had any idea just how advanced the EMF weaponry the blackbudget type of orgs had they would shit bricks. One more thing I guarantee I'll be saying "told you so" in 5-10 years when something on it leaks, just like the NSA spying before Snowden, and many other things. Mass hysteria is real (muh Russians via shareblue, for example) but I really don't think this is one of those cases. I love the careful logically falacious setup in the article though, very masterful. When you finally get to the meat of the claim, by a man who is selling books on hysteria (nail-hammer problem) he already discredits himself via the statement: “It is physically impossible to have brain damage caused by an acoustical device." Well that's just not correct. What else is he obviously not correct on? Has he seen the evidence from StateDep and CIA? Nope, so he's making claims without seeing all the evidence. Then immediately the article transitions from their baseless claim on this particular incident to saying "oh but even if it's hysteria it can still have real effects ala placebo". See how subtlely they pass over the problems of their own claim and manipulate the reader? And then to see the author is also the author of a "everything is a syndrome" book is just icing on the cake. Especially funny they mention the Taos hum... if only ya'll had any idea what that really was... HN isn't ready for such a truth bomb though. (I'll give you a hint. DUMBs)

tptacek 9y ago
I was at a smart grid workshop in VA a year after Obama took office; Steven Chu was there. It was mostly technical staff from grid operators. We were there because we'd been doing vulnerability research on smart meters, and a smart meter vendor had asked us to go. There was a guy talking exactly like your comment in our working group. We'd all be talking about some technical detail of, I don't know, off-peak power storage or something, and this guy would keep interrupting and demanding that we talk about EMF and EMF weapons. We all just looked at him like something was deeply wrong with him. Little did I know that years later I would read this comment and know the truth. (Schneier wrote about NSA spying. In Applied Cryptography. In the 1990s.)
- arca_vorago 9y ago
  >We all just looked at him like something was deeply wrong with him. Little did I know that years later I would read this comment and know the truth. tptacek, my sarcasm detector has been broken from birth, is this sarcasm? >(Schneier wrote about NSA spying. In Applied Cryptography. In the 1990s.) Schneier, Bamford, and Cryptome and some others (Prouty) were the origins of my knowledge of the NSA stuff since the 90's as well. At the time not many people listened and we were constantly derided as tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists... of course it would be logically fallacious to extrapolate that makes me right about another subject, (hence understandable if your comment is sarcasm), but I think it's worth remembering in context of similar claims of government technological overreach.
- acct1771 9y ago
  One time, I read a physics paper, but some of the words were the same as ones a vagrant fellow was using to try convince me he'd been abducted by aliens the previous week, glad I noticed when I did.
  - arca_vorago 9y ago
    I miss Slashdot sometimes, where anonymous cowards were labeled as such.
    - acct1771 9y ago
      Not understanding the hostility toward someone agreeing with you, but okay. Also not understanding how someone who's found this community doesn't also see the value of anonymous/pseudonymous identities for the security of freedom of expression.
    - dang 9y ago
      Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Valmar 9y ago
There's this, for a start: https://www.google.com/patents/US4349898 https://www.google.com/patents/US4349898 If there are patents, one can be sure that these things exist. And logically, the CIA and US military would love sonic weapons. They can target people and have others think they're just crazy and paranoid. Good way to take down your opponents and damage their credibility.
- tptacek 9y ago
  How about US6960975? So, what you're saying is that we've been wrong all along about perpetual motion machines.
- yorwba 9y ago
  There's also this patent for a "free" energy source: https://www.google.com/patents/US6362718 https://www.google.com/patents/US6362718 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_perpetual_motion_machines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_perpetual_motion_ma... has many more similar patents.) Patents do not require showing that the described invention actually works, it just needs to be different enough from prior art to qualify. That doesn't mean that sonic weapons don't work (I believe it's possible), but a patent alone is not enough.
Valmar 9y ago
Also, these: http://www.directedenergyweapons.net/p/patents.html http://www.directedenergyweapons.net/p/patents.html
IntronExon 9y ago
The only sites I can find in reference to “DUMB” are truly mad. Do you have any resources which aren’t trying to get me buy gold, guns, and bibles? The problem with th tinfoil set isn’t that they’re always wrong, but that it’s impossible to sift through the dross for kernels of valuable information. I’m always happy to explore ideas on the fringe, but based on reason, rationality, and ideally something like evidence rather than people screaming “sheeple” at me.

tptacek 9y ago

I was at a smart grid workshop in VA a year after Obama took office; Steven Chu was there. It was mostly technical staff from grid operators. We were there because we'd been doing vulnerability research on smart meters, and a smart meter vendor had asked us to go. There was a guy talking exactly like your comment in our working group. We'd all be talking about some technical detail of, I don't know, off-peak power storage or something, and this guy would keep interrupting and demanding that we talk about EMF and EMF weapons. We all just looked at him like something was deeply wrong with him. Little did I know that years later I would read this comment and know the truth. (Schneier wrote about NSA spying. In Applied Cryptography. In the 1990s.)

arca_vorago 9y ago
>We all just looked at him like something was deeply wrong with him. Little did I know that years later I would read this comment and know the truth. tptacek, my sarcasm detector has been broken from birth, is this sarcasm? >(Schneier wrote about NSA spying. In Applied Cryptography. In the 1990s.) Schneier, Bamford, and Cryptome and some others (Prouty) were the origins of my knowledge of the NSA stuff since the 90's as well. At the time not many people listened and we were constantly derided as tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists... of course it would be logically fallacious to extrapolate that makes me right about another subject, (hence understandable if your comment is sarcasm), but I think it's worth remembering in context of similar claims of government technological overreach.
acct1771 9y ago
One time, I read a physics paper, but some of the words were the same as ones a vagrant fellow was using to try convince me he'd been abducted by aliens the previous week, glad I noticed when I did.
- arca_vorago 9y ago
  I miss Slashdot sometimes, where anonymous cowards were labeled as such.
  - acct1771 9y ago
    Not understanding the hostility toward someone agreeing with you, but okay. Also not understanding how someone who's found this community doesn't also see the value of anonymous/pseudonymous identities for the security of freedom of expression.
  - dang 9y ago
    Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Valmar 9y ago

There's this, for a start: https://www.google.com/patents/US4349898 https://www.google.com/patents/US4349898 If there are patents, one can be sure that these things exist. And logically, the CIA and US military would love sonic weapons. They can target people and have others think they're just crazy and paranoid. Good way to take down your opponents and damage their credibility.

tptacek 9y ago
How about US6960975? So, what you're saying is that we've been wrong all along about perpetual motion machines.
yorwba 9y ago
There's also this patent for a "free" energy source: https://www.google.com/patents/US6362718 https://www.google.com/patents/US6362718 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_perpetual_motion_machines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_perpetual_motion_ma... has many more similar patents.) Patents do not require showing that the described invention actually works, it just needs to be different enough from prior art to qualify. That doesn't mean that sonic weapons don't work (I believe it's possible), but a patent alone is not enough.

Valmar 9y ago

Also, these: http://www.directedenergyweapons.net/p/patents.html http://www.directedenergyweapons.net/p/patents.html

IntronExon 9y ago

The only sites I can find in reference to “DUMB” are truly mad. Do you have any resources which aren’t trying to get me buy gold, guns, and bibles? The problem with th tinfoil set isn’t that they’re always wrong, but that it’s impossible to sift through the dross for kernels of valuable information. I’m always happy to explore ideas on the fringe, but based on reason, rationality, and ideally something like evidence rather than people screaming “sheeple” at me.