8 ms·
No matter what the physical cause of the injury is, it's trivial to create false attribution with it. It happened first in Cuba, so Cuba got a lot of blame. Now
by Shank 8y ago
No matter what the physical cause of the injury is, it's trivial to create false attribution with it. It happened first in Cuba, so Cuba got a lot of blame. Now it's happening in China. Did China come up with the same brilliant idea? Buy it from Cuba? Or did they both just end up with shoddy surveillance equipment?
If I had to guess, it's probably the latter. No matter the cause, though, if you knew how to do it you could pull off the attack in [insert questionable country here] and create suspicion for that country. It would be a really fast and effective way to create diplomatic tension for a third party who stands to gain from the breakdown of communication.
- Iwan-Zotow 8y agoThe only common ground to those cases are americans in US consulates. So logical conclusion is it is case of self-shooting in the foot - Us spy equipment malfunctioning etc
- burger_moon 8y agoWouldn't they (US gov't) want to keep this out of the media then? Does it make sense to have it run around the media if it was from malfunctioning equipment. This is under the assumption they would realize it's their equipment before publicizing the event.
- armitron 8y agoIt's hard to keep something like this out of the media and trying to do so could backfire and create an even bigger mess. Going public is really the only response that makes strategic sense, irrespective of the causal factor.
- Chaebixi 8y ago> So logical conclusion is it is case of self-shooting in the foot - Us spy equipment malfunctioning etc A logical conclusion, not the logical conclusion. I think this comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17135012 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17135012) does a better job of starting to enumerate the possible causes.
- danielvf 8y agoThe Cuba “attacks” took place at houses and hotel rooms, not actually in or around government buildings.
- cgh 8y agoNo, Canadians were also affected. https://globalnews.ca/news/3956401/eight-canadians-sickened-in-mysterious-cuba-attacks-rcmp-leading-investigation/ https://globalnews.ca/news/3956401/eight-canadians-sickened-...
- natch 8y agoThat doesn't say much, because it's not beyond the realm of possibility that the US shares some equipment (made up example: ultrasonic or other anti-jamming technology) or other technology with Canada. If it was a country way less friendly to the US than Canada (or even less friendly, if you want to make the questionable argument that Canada is not friendly to the US), that would be a better indicator.
- cgh 8y agoI was objecting to the phrase "only americans in US consulates", when clearly it's not. Kind of pedantic, I know. That said, asserting that it's not "beyond the realm of possibility" that this phenomena might affect US allies because of shared equipment is pure conjecture. Many things about this are not beyond the realm of possibility.
- Iwan-Zotow 8y ago5 eyes inter-agency cooperation? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA_Agreement
- Chaebixi 8y ago> It would be a really fast and effective way to create diplomatic tension for a third party who stands to gain from the breakdown of communication. Assuming they can keep their involvement secret, which is not a given.
- solnet99 8y agoA simple google maps search shows that the US Consulate and the Cuban Consulate in Guangzhou are exactly 1 block away from each other. Don't dismiss the Cubans from responsibility.
- thawkins 8y agoWhat about shoddy US anti-surveillance equipment (ultrasonic microphone jammers), after all the only common denominator here is "US Embassy".