13 ms·

How The New York Times Verified the Iran Missile-Strike Footage

245 points by danso 7y ago

RandomBacon 7y ago
The first link in that article has a lot of video of the incident I haven't seen before, including the missle launch, detonation, and a close-up of parts flying through the air after the plane impacts the ground: https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/middleeast/100000006911696/iran-crash.html https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/middleeast/1000000069116...
PinguTS 7y ago
#funfact: Currently, I am looking for a property to buy myself. Most of the realtors do not publish the exact address of their listed properties. I have gotten very good in spotting the properties and finding out the exact address by basically applying the same techniques.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  Aren’t they all visible on Redfin/trulia/Zillow anyway if they’re in the MLS data?
  - true_religion 7y ago
    Not all properties are in MLS, and even when they are intended to go in it, there will be some lag time. How much lag depends on your area. MLS isn’t well coordinated.
  - hyperbovine 7y ago
    You assume this person is in the US.
- Chris2048 7y ago
  Why do they not publish the address?
  - yomly 7y ago
    I would have presumed privacy Edit: With detached houses the obfuscation is harder/less valuable, but ideally I'd rather not have images and price and exact location of my property be linked online essentially forever. Price is one thing, but internal layout and floorplan coupled with exact address is ropey.
    - dahfizz 7y ago
      Isn't all of that public record anyway?
      - PinguTS 7y ago
        Actually not in Germany. Because of privacy the register is not allowed to tell anybody who is the owner of the property. The register is only allowed to give out this information for valid reasons. Buying is not such a reason. A broken pipe would be a valid reason. Any of such request needs to be recorded and the owner needs to be informed.
      - ghaff 7y ago
        In the US, internal layout is not generally available (may vary by locale) and may not even exist on paper. Square footage/location/owner is--although, speaking for my own case, details about the house in the public record aren't necessarily accurate.
  - rmu09 7y ago
    To claim commission I suppose.
    - Chris2048 7y ago
      They have a non-exclusive deal with the owner?
      - blackearl 7y ago
        There are properties that get listed by an agency and it's totally free game for who sells it. I've had a realtor tell me that I should "use her exclusively" because she would get me better deals. Don't do that, it's incredibly stupid.
- mattlondon 7y ago
  In London this also happens frequently. Often the "location" of the property is shown on a map. A lot of the time, this is often quite inaccurate. The cynical might observe that this often happens to suggest that the property is not immediately next to a train station/sewage works/night club etc. I don't know why the bother - I am going to find out that the property is not actually in the much-more-desirable location 250 metres away when I go see it. I'll immediately see it is next to the crematorium or whatever and immediately nope-out. It just wastes everyone's time.
  - joncrane 7y ago
    It's the exact same reason people post misleading pictures on their dating profiles. Because it works some of the time, due to the sunk cost fallacy (people have already invested in something so they stick with it even after the deception is revealed).
    - blackearl 7y ago
      I've found that people lookup sites use that sunk time technique. Try going on one that's a little more shady like been verified. Once you put in a name and place, it "scans" through their databases, and it "scans" through social media, it also "scans" through criminal history, etc. It takes 10 minutes easily (I left it running out of curiosity). Then it tells you, voila! We have that info! But it'll be $19.99 to access it. You've already sat through so much, might as well go all in. Meanwhile, if you use the opt-out link, it instantly shows at least the name, location, age, etc.
flippyhead 7y ago
"Also, there’s the sound. There was a delay from seeing the explosion to the sound reaching the camera. We knew the approximate altitude that the plane was flying at from the flight information. We knew the location from the flight path. So we were able to calculate the distance and the altitude—and, therefore, the hypotenuse between them and the camera—and calculate how long the sound of an explosion would take to travel that distance. And it was roughly what we were seeing and hearing in the video, about 10 or 10.5 seconds." Neat!
- darkwater 7y ago
  Actually the sound analysis doesn't prove it's a real video, it just cannot prove it is fake. One could totally make up a video keeping sound propagation times in mind. The most important thing is tracking the footage real location and checking that the plane or missile weren't edited in.
  - aaron695 7y ago
    No one is faking footage. They are just re-posting old footage of different incidents. IE in the Australian fires atm. It's to hard to fake footage. You are just checking it's the right location, right time. It's entropy. Real leaks are way easier than fake leaks.
    - mamon 7y ago
      >> Real leaks are way easier than fake leaks. Maybe for the private person. For a certain three letter agency looking to start a war with Iran it is quite easy to produce fake.
      - smabie 7y ago
        I don’t think anyone wants a war with Iran, buddy. Not even the Saudis.
    - darkwater 7y ago
      Faking footage will only get cheaper and easier. But yeah, right now probably the most used fake sources are simply different, older incidents.
fapjacks 7y ago
It's interesting to me that it seems mostly only a very recent trend that these sorts of basic techniques (which fall under the category of intelligence known as OSINT -- Open Source INTelligence) of identification and verification are being talked about by mainstream mass media content producers like the NYT. Interesting because it must follow at least partly from the intrinsic network that exists between those people fighting wars and those reporting on them. Also interesting because these are old techniques that have been public for decades. Preceding and coincident to this, there has also been a push in Western militaries to train members in OSINT techniques -- and not just members in traditional intelligence job specialties -- following recent doctrinal themes of much more decentralized, individual "generalist" warfighters (think traditional special forces) than big blocks of maneuver elements on a sand table. This is a side effect of the messy, multilayered future of cyberpunk combat.
RayMan1 7y ago
They actually didnt verify anything. Plenty of Twitter accounts verified the story some 10-ish hours before NYT reported this ground breaking information. These reporters are sitting behind their desks (like you and me) and are sifting through Twitter feed and they stumbled upon what was already geolocated video+ several images of missiles. But this became a story only when a big media (in this case NYT) published it.
- tyingq 7y ago
  Are you saying they didn't do the analysis they said they did, but copied it from someone else? I agree the analysis doesn't "verify", but it did lend more credibility to the (then) suspected root cause. It had value. They weren't claiming they were the source of the posted videos.
  - rvnx 7y ago
    Yes the flight path + sound analysis and all these things were already on Twitter. So, NYT article should be more "how we copied Twitter users without crediting them"
- shusson 7y ago
  > Plenty of Twitter accounts verified the story some 10-ish hours before NYT the point is people trust NYT more than a group of twitter accounts. >they actually didnt verify anything The article clearly points out how they verified the footage. Including how they geolocated it.
- mzs 7y ago
  No, in addition to verifying one telegram video* the NYT paid for satellite imagery to verify other parts of the story and I believe they were given the CCTV footage showing both launches independently. After the reported arrest of an earlier videographer they are understandably vague in the provenance of the later video. * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22066346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22066346
- elfexec 7y ago
  Same thing with Theranos. It was people on the internet who discovered theranos was shady and WSJ was the one that "broke the story". At least the WSJ acknowledged and credited the people on the internet who first pointed out the shadiness at theranos.
shusson 7y ago
I did not realise how close the impact was to the airport. It looks like the plane took a normal flight path. I thought Iran said the plane entered a restricted area. Does anyone know if that was true?
- SiempreViernes 7y ago
  I think it's simply an accident due to the ground crews being very nervous and expecting an attack at any moment, followed by the inevitable attempts to cover it up by those most directly responsible. Entering a restricted area might simply mean entering the airspace visible to a particular AA battery.
  - saberdancer 7y ago
    Ground crew is on a mobile SAM vehicle and was posted to reinforce Tehran area. Probably reason why they did not know it is a regular flight path from an airport. Everything else is smoke and mirrors by Iran trying to find excuses for the shootdown.
  - vkou 7y ago
    This is most likely to be the correct answer. I'm not sure people realize what it's like to be living in the expectation that your country might get bombed by the USAF any moment.
- KuiN 7y ago
  The plane did not deviate from its flight plan. FlightRadar24 published[0] the track of the plane vs the other commercial planes taking off from IKA around the same time and vs previous flights of PS752. The plane made no movements that would lead an observer to believe it was anything other than a civilian passenger jet following its flight plan. [0] - https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/ukrainian-flight-ps752-crashes-shortly-after-take-off-from-tehran/ https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/ukrainian-flight-ps752-cr... (under 'Other relevant flight information')
- mzs 7y ago
  Later Iranian gov official statement corrected an earlier one that claimed the plane turned toward a restricted military installation. Also that correction stated that the crew thought the 737 was a cruise missile. A cruise missile approaching a target is not climbing to 8000ft but with how poor the export market Tor mk1 RADAR is I guess it's plausible the crew was spooked https://gfycat.com/pastelcourageouseeve https://gfycat.com/pastelcourageouseeve
oxplot 7y ago
Very cool. For fun, I once verified the actual speed of a motorbike in a youtube video. The video was a first person POV which also showed the speedometer clocking at 300km/h on a German autobahn. There were various comments on the video claiming it was fake. So I decided to verify it myself. I went on Google satellite imagery and looked at a few autobahns to see how far apart the line markings were. I then measured how many lines the bike passed by going through the video frame by frame. Did the math and it turned out that the bike was actually moving at about 290 km/h. It was either measurement error on my part, measurement error on the bike's part, or that the bike's wheels were slipping at that speed (which was something I didn't know before this). I didn't look into it any further. It was a fun experience.
- pintxo 7y ago
  For the next time: the line markings "Leitlinie" on the Autobahn are 6m long and spaced 12 meters apart [1]. The poles to the side "Leitpfosten" are spaced 50m apart. And by law [2] all speedometers for ~German~ European cars + and bikes usually shows a too high speed: > The indicated speed must never be less than the actual speed, i.e. it should not be possible to inadvertently speed because of an incorrect speedometer reading. > The indicated speed must not be more than 110 percent of the true speed plus 4 km/h at specified test speeds. For example, at 80 km/h, the indicated speed must be no more than 92 km/h. [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stra%C3%9Fenmarkierung https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stra%C3%9Fenmarkierung [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedometer#International_agreements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedometer#International_agre...
- CraigJPerry 7y ago
  IIRC there’s a script written in the RC model aircraft community that verifies claimed speed of models by assessing the doppler shift from the video sound track as the plane passes. /me googles https://youtu.be/DZZWtT32ymY https://youtu.be/DZZWtT32ymY
  - kthejoker2 7y ago
    But to the point of faking it seems like it'd be even easier to generate a fake audio "shift" of your claimed speed.
marvin 7y ago
Just an ancillary point: this highlights that free access to group messaging apps makes it much harder than before to suppress facts about what has happened somewhere. Especially if there's video. The Iran regime of 1990 would have had a much easier time keeping this mistake under wraps. I think the whole "fake news" and related propaganda strategies we see in the West are what happens when people in power try to adapt to this new reality, by attacking at the weak spots of the new information infrastructure.
- pjc50 7y ago
  Yes. Rather than attempt to suppress it in the West, we'd see a lot of conflicting reports, allegations of fake news, unrelated smear attempts, questioning of loyalties, and attempts to arrest whistleblowers. The US never did admit liability for shooting down an Iranian jet in similar circumstances: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
  - dougweltman 7y ago
    There's a gap, between admitting to downing a plane and "admitting liability" for it, in which the US places its downing of Flight 655. But the parallel you would need to draw here is of the former: admitting to downing the plane.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - loufe 7y ago
    For flight 655, while they never admitted guilt, they did settle paying the victim's families "ex-gratia" a non-negligible sum. While it is not the same as directly admitting you are responible, espcecially to the victims, for most intents and purposes that counts as an admition in my books.
    - misterman0 7y ago
      >> they never admitted guilt >> they did settle >> that counts as an admition Oh how good you look in those rose tinted glasses of yours. Edit to self: never try to change HN. It's already optimized, not for conversation but for promotion of things that are PK. That is a good thing.
martin_a 7y ago
Somewhat offtopic, but I'd be interested in an answer. Do non-military planes have some kind of missile detection capabilites? Like: Did the pilots know what was about to happen or that something was approaching them with high speed and whatnot or were they just blown out of the sky without the slightest idea?
- kreft 7y ago
  El-Al planes do. "Since the early 2000s, El Al has been the only commercial airline to fit its planes with systems to defend against anti-aircraft missiles." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Al#Onboard_missile_defense_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Al#Onboard_missile_defense_...
- mkagenius 7y ago
  And how difficult it is to identify a civilian plane vs a weapon? Few months back India shot down its own Helicopter and now Iran shot a whole air plane. And they spend gigantic amount of money on defense. How lacking is the technology!
  - chii 7y ago
    > And how difficult it is to identify a civilian plane vs a weapon? if there is such a way, then your enemy planes can just as easily masquerade as a civilian craft and evade the missile!
    - mkagenius 7y ago
      > easily masquerade as a civilian craft How does one do that easily?
      - martin_a 7y ago
        Well, if it's only some "signature" that is broadcasted (or not), one could flip a switch and appear as a civilian aircraft.
    - 7y ago
russfink 7y ago
Why was someone shooting video of the sky at that exact moment, unless they were somehow connected to the strike?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- wmblaettler 7y ago
  Apparently there were two missiles fired, this video could have been of the second one with the person starting to film after having seen or heard the launch or impact from the first one.
- lolc 7y ago
  I assumed it was the second strike. So after the first missile, an observer would have started recording and managed to catch the second.
  - saberdancer 7y ago
    No need to assume it. There is a surveillance video that shows both launches and hits. When you cross reference it with the other video you can confirm that the video with the dog was filmed after first missile already hit the aircraft (and knocked out the transponder).
- swebs 7y ago
  >in the video, you can see a person standing beside what looks like a small cabin. And there’s a little metal tower with sort of cross sections, almost like a ladder, with a light on top. It looks like a security light illuminating the area. And there’s very distinctive rows of buildings that are all identical in the distance. Sounds like an average security camera setup to me. Was probably recording 24/7 with rotating files.
- ssully 7y ago
  While some of the other responses to your post are more likely right (they saw the first explosion, and caught the second one), I will add that my house is close to a handful of flight paths for a near-by airport. I have plenty of pictures and videos of planes flying in.
makomk 7y ago
Iran then appparently arrested the person who they thought filmed this video: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-51114945 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-51114945
- tyingq 7y ago
  "But an Iranian journalist based in London who initially posted the footage has insisted that his source is safe, and that the Iranian authorities have arrested the wrong person." Ugh. Even worse.
  - altcognito 7y ago
    Unless your point is to send a message. But yes, still even worse.
  - csunbird 7y ago
    or the actual source is the one being arrested and the journalist is trying to trick the government to release the person.
    - frandroid 7y ago
      I thought about that too but media have a lot to lose in terms of credibility if it gets exposed. I'd bet you there was a NYT lawyer in touch with that journalist ASAP when they published that tweet if the journalist hadn't been in touch with legal beforehand.
anthonybsd 7y ago
They mention Bellingcat in the article but what they don't mention is that their "verification" essentially piggy-backed on top of identical Bellingcat verification of a the same video that got released 14 hours prior [1]. This seems strange to me. [1]. https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2020/01/09/video-apparently-showing-flight-ps572-missile-strike-geolocated-to-iranian-suburb/ https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2020/01/09/video-appare...
- ourcat 7y ago
  Exactly. Glad someone else mentioned them. I was reading through the article, thinking "Erm... I'm pretty sure Bellingcat did all this."
- dewey 7y ago
  https://www.nytimes.com/by/christiaan-triebert https://www.nytimes.com/by/christiaan-triebert > Prior to joining The Times in 2019, Mr. Triebert worked as a senior investigator and lead trainer at the investigative group Bellingcat.
- drcongo 7y ago
  If you've not listened to it yet, the Bellingcat podcast is absolutely fantastic.
sbmthakur 7y ago
I guess the page is taking time to load due to hug of death. https://archive.ph/TXyXV https://archive.ph/TXyXV
deanclatworthy 7y ago
It's worth pointing out that since the incident Iran has arrested those responsible for downing the jet - in an attempt to place blame on to individuals - who I'm certain are devastated at accidentally killing their countryman. I suspect they will be labelled traitors and never seen again. They have also arrested the person who filmed this video [2]. Whilst we might celebrate this investigative journalism, this video changed the course of the narrative and forced Iran to come clean, we should also be aware of the consequences of it. [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51114945 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51114945
- boutad 7y ago
  Why did BBC put quotes around the word arrested in the title?
  - dharmab 7y ago
    BBC's style guide puts quotes around any part of a headline that is reporting on what others have said.
  - cavanasm 7y ago
    Probably because there's a dispute over whether anyone was actually arrested, or if they arrested the wrong person, because the journalist who received the video says his source has not been arrested.
  - testvox 7y ago
    Generally when newspapers put quotes around a word like that it means they are using a word quoted directly from a source.
- chii 7y ago
  > we should also be aware of the consequences of it. which is that an authoritarian regime is never a good thing. Society requires that bad actors be publicly visible and called out, as this creates a pressure for them to act sensibly. The first thing an authoritarian regime implements is censorship and apply any chilling effect they can, because they know this is the only way they can hide their acts from the public at large.
jliptzin 7y ago
Anybody who is in the unfortunate position of deciding whether the target they’re aiming at is a missile or passenger plane needs to do the following simple calculus: if you are even slightly unsure, don’t do anything (especially if the object is not even threatening your life). If it turned out to be a hostile missile, your country then goes on the offensive against whoever fired it and it’s just another attack. No one is going to come after you for being cautious (maybe you get dishonorably discharged but that’s it). But if you go the other way and accidentally take down a passenger jet, not only do you kill a bunch of innocent people, the international community will be out for your blood.
- cloverich 7y ago
  I think the international community generally recognizes that this is the fault of conflict escalation and scapegoating. I doubt anyone outside Iran directly blames the person who fired the AA strike at this point. Moreover, if you are the one manning it, remember that _not_ firing the missile could mean not just your countrymen but your colleagues may be getting killed (by the bombs). War is ugly and there's no good choices. People die by definition.
- shaabanban 7y ago
  The thing is, the probable first set of targets in a war with Iran would be air defense targets. “If it turned out to be a hostile missile” that could mean imminent death. It’s very possible the air defense operator panicked and acted out of perceived self preservation.
  - zaroth 7y ago
    Two missiles. Fired approximately 30 seconds apart. Hitting a 737. Which was ascending. On a registered flight path. They are supposed to be a trained military employing lethal force. What they are in fact is a failed regime playing with Russian hardware. This wasn’t panic, or an accident. This was pure utter incompetence compounded by total apathy for the civilian population.
spyspy 7y ago
I highly recommend following Malachy Browne on Twitter[0] for more investigations like this. He's also the narrator on other NYT video investigations[1] [0] https://twitter.com/malachybrowne https://twitter.com/malachybrowne [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krr4u6uGdzc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krr4u6uGdzc
catacombs 7y ago
The Times kept saying they "obtained" the video, as if it was leaked to them by a confidential source. That's not the case. They found it, like many others, including Bellingcat, on a Telegram group. I'm glad they reported the video, but to make it seem like _they_ were the ones to find it first is misleading and grandstanding.
- mzs 7y ago
  No NYT was able to track down the person that posted that video on telegram and that individual got them in contact with the original videographer and the NYT verified those people. https://twitter.com/trbrtc/status/1215397996545835010 https://twitter.com/trbrtc/status/1215397996545835010
- pimlottc 7y ago
  I don’t read “obtain” to imply anything more than getting the video through some means.
- lm28469 7y ago
  obtain = get = acquire It sounds fancier but it means the same.
briandear 7y ago
The video was unnecessary, just looking at the crash photos of the wings —- and the holes in them, were indicative of a shoot down. The video was icing on the cake and helps sell the story’s truth to those who don’t know much about airplane damage.
mzs 7y ago
There was an NPR story that mentioned US has satellites which can detect RADAR and I wondered about that, so I asked on twitter. Here are two nice threads of explanations I got in response: https://twitter.com/M_R_Thomp/status/1217510002723893250 https://twitter.com/M_R_Thomp/status/1217510002723893250 https://twitter.com/gbrumfiel/status/1217506180303663104 https://twitter.com/gbrumfiel/status/1217506180303663104
chiefalchemist 7y ago
The headline is deceptive or perhaps poorly worded. The NYT evidently verified the plane was shot down by a missile fired within Iran's borders. That's it. Whether Iran itself was an active participant iss not something the NYT could have verified. I'm being selective because this involves journalism, and words matter.
uncoder0 7y ago
This was verified by online communities within 3 hours of the footage being known to western forums. NYT just copied the math or they did it themselves much later.

245 points by danso 7y ago

The first link in that article has a lot of video of the incident I haven't seen before, including the missle launch, detonation, and a close-up of parts flying through the air after the plane impacts the ground: https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/middleeast/100000006911696/iran-crash.html https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/middleeast/1000000069116...

PinguTS 7y ago

#funfact: Currently, I am looking for a property to buy myself. Most of the realtors do not publish the exact address of their listed properties. I have gotten very good in spotting the properties and finding out the exact address by basically applying the same techniques.

lotsofpulp 7y ago
Aren’t they all visible on Redfin/trulia/Zillow anyway if they’re in the MLS data?
- true_religion 7y ago
  Not all properties are in MLS, and even when they are intended to go in it, there will be some lag time. How much lag depends on your area. MLS isn’t well coordinated.
- hyperbovine 7y ago
  You assume this person is in the US.
Chris2048 7y ago
Why do they not publish the address?
- yomly 7y ago
  I would have presumed privacy Edit: With detached houses the obfuscation is harder/less valuable, but ideally I'd rather not have images and price and exact location of my property be linked online essentially forever. Price is one thing, but internal layout and floorplan coupled with exact address is ropey.
  - dahfizz 7y ago
    Isn't all of that public record anyway?
    - PinguTS 7y ago
      Actually not in Germany. Because of privacy the register is not allowed to tell anybody who is the owner of the property. The register is only allowed to give out this information for valid reasons. Buying is not such a reason. A broken pipe would be a valid reason. Any of such request needs to be recorded and the owner needs to be informed.
    - ghaff 7y ago
      In the US, internal layout is not generally available (may vary by locale) and may not even exist on paper. Square footage/location/owner is--although, speaking for my own case, details about the house in the public record aren't necessarily accurate.
- rmu09 7y ago
  To claim commission I suppose.
  - Chris2048 7y ago
    They have a non-exclusive deal with the owner?
    - blackearl 7y ago
      There are properties that get listed by an agency and it's totally free game for who sells it. I've had a realtor tell me that I should "use her exclusively" because she would get me better deals. Don't do that, it's incredibly stupid.
mattlondon 7y ago
In London this also happens frequently. Often the "location" of the property is shown on a map. A lot of the time, this is often quite inaccurate. The cynical might observe that this often happens to suggest that the property is not immediately next to a train station/sewage works/night club etc. I don't know why the bother - I am going to find out that the property is not actually in the much-more-desirable location 250 metres away when I go see it. I'll immediately see it is next to the crematorium or whatever and immediately nope-out. It just wastes everyone's time.
- joncrane 7y ago
  It's the exact same reason people post misleading pictures on their dating profiles. Because it works some of the time, due to the sunk cost fallacy (people have already invested in something so they stick with it even after the deception is revealed).
  - blackearl 7y ago
    I've found that people lookup sites use that sunk time technique. Try going on one that's a little more shady like been verified. Once you put in a name and place, it "scans" through their databases, and it "scans" through social media, it also "scans" through criminal history, etc. It takes 10 minutes easily (I left it running out of curiosity). Then it tells you, voila! We have that info! But it'll be $19.99 to access it. You've already sat through so much, might as well go all in. Meanwhile, if you use the opt-out link, it instantly shows at least the name, location, age, etc.

flippyhead 7y ago

"Also, there’s the sound. There was a delay from seeing the explosion to the sound reaching the camera. We knew the approximate altitude that the plane was flying at from the flight information. We knew the location from the flight path. So we were able to calculate the distance and the altitude—and, therefore, the hypotenuse between them and the camera—and calculate how long the sound of an explosion would take to travel that distance. And it was roughly what we were seeing and hearing in the video, about 10 or 10.5 seconds." Neat!

darkwater 7y ago
Actually the sound analysis doesn't prove it's a real video, it just cannot prove it is fake. One could totally make up a video keeping sound propagation times in mind. The most important thing is tracking the footage real location and checking that the plane or missile weren't edited in.
- aaron695 7y ago
  No one is faking footage. They are just re-posting old footage of different incidents. IE in the Australian fires atm. It's to hard to fake footage. You are just checking it's the right location, right time. It's entropy. Real leaks are way easier than fake leaks.
  - mamon 7y ago
    >> Real leaks are way easier than fake leaks. Maybe for the private person. For a certain three letter agency looking to start a war with Iran it is quite easy to produce fake.
    - smabie 7y ago
      I don’t think anyone wants a war with Iran, buddy. Not even the Saudis.
  - darkwater 7y ago
    Faking footage will only get cheaper and easier. But yeah, right now probably the most used fake sources are simply different, older incidents.

fapjacks 7y ago

It's interesting to me that it seems mostly only a very recent trend that these sorts of basic techniques (which fall under the category of intelligence known as OSINT -- Open Source INTelligence) of identification and verification are being talked about by mainstream mass media content producers like the NYT. Interesting because it must follow at least partly from the intrinsic network that exists between those people fighting wars and those reporting on them. Also interesting because these are old techniques that have been public for decades. Preceding and coincident to this, there has also been a push in Western militaries to train members in OSINT techniques -- and not just members in traditional intelligence job specialties -- following recent doctrinal themes of much more decentralized, individual "generalist" warfighters (think traditional special forces) than big blocks of maneuver elements on a sand table. This is a side effect of the messy, multilayered future of cyberpunk combat.

RayMan1 7y ago

They actually didnt verify anything. Plenty of Twitter accounts verified the story some 10-ish hours before NYT reported this ground breaking information. These reporters are sitting behind their desks (like you and me) and are sifting through Twitter feed and they stumbled upon what was already geolocated video+ several images of missiles. But this became a story only when a big media (in this case NYT) published it.

tyingq 7y ago
Are you saying they didn't do the analysis they said they did, but copied it from someone else? I agree the analysis doesn't "verify", but it did lend more credibility to the (then) suspected root cause. It had value. They weren't claiming they were the source of the posted videos.
- rvnx 7y ago
  Yes the flight path + sound analysis and all these things were already on Twitter. So, NYT article should be more "how we copied Twitter users without crediting them"
shusson 7y ago
> Plenty of Twitter accounts verified the story some 10-ish hours before NYT the point is people trust NYT more than a group of twitter accounts. >they actually didnt verify anything The article clearly points out how they verified the footage. Including how they geolocated it.
mzs 7y ago
No, in addition to verifying one telegram video* the NYT paid for satellite imagery to verify other parts of the story and I believe they were given the CCTV footage showing both launches independently. After the reported arrest of an earlier videographer they are understandably vague in the provenance of the later video. * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22066346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22066346
elfexec 7y ago
Same thing with Theranos. It was people on the internet who discovered theranos was shady and WSJ was the one that "broke the story". At least the WSJ acknowledged and credited the people on the internet who first pointed out the shadiness at theranos.

shusson 7y ago

I did not realise how close the impact was to the airport. It looks like the plane took a normal flight path. I thought Iran said the plane entered a restricted area. Does anyone know if that was true?

SiempreViernes 7y ago
I think it's simply an accident due to the ground crews being very nervous and expecting an attack at any moment, followed by the inevitable attempts to cover it up by those most directly responsible. Entering a restricted area might simply mean entering the airspace visible to a particular AA battery.
- saberdancer 7y ago
  Ground crew is on a mobile SAM vehicle and was posted to reinforce Tehran area. Probably reason why they did not know it is a regular flight path from an airport. Everything else is smoke and mirrors by Iran trying to find excuses for the shootdown.
- vkou 7y ago
  This is most likely to be the correct answer. I'm not sure people realize what it's like to be living in the expectation that your country might get bombed by the USAF any moment.
KuiN 7y ago
The plane did not deviate from its flight plan. FlightRadar24 published[0] the track of the plane vs the other commercial planes taking off from IKA around the same time and vs previous flights of PS752. The plane made no movements that would lead an observer to believe it was anything other than a civilian passenger jet following its flight plan. [0] - https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/ukrainian-flight-ps752-crashes-shortly-after-take-off-from-tehran/ https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/ukrainian-flight-ps752-cr... (under 'Other relevant flight information')
mzs 7y ago
Later Iranian gov official statement corrected an earlier one that claimed the plane turned toward a restricted military installation. Also that correction stated that the crew thought the 737 was a cruise missile. A cruise missile approaching a target is not climbing to 8000ft but with how poor the export market Tor mk1 RADAR is I guess it's plausible the crew was spooked https://gfycat.com/pastelcourageouseeve https://gfycat.com/pastelcourageouseeve

oxplot 7y ago

Very cool. For fun, I once verified the actual speed of a motorbike in a youtube video. The video was a first person POV which also showed the speedometer clocking at 300km/h on a German autobahn. There were various comments on the video claiming it was fake. So I decided to verify it myself. I went on Google satellite imagery and looked at a few autobahns to see how far apart the line markings were. I then measured how many lines the bike passed by going through the video frame by frame. Did the math and it turned out that the bike was actually moving at about 290 km/h. It was either measurement error on my part, measurement error on the bike's part, or that the bike's wheels were slipping at that speed (which was something I didn't know before this). I didn't look into it any further. It was a fun experience.

pintxo 7y ago
For the next time: the line markings "Leitlinie" on the Autobahn are 6m long and spaced 12 meters apart [1]. The poles to the side "Leitpfosten" are spaced 50m apart. And by law [2] all speedometers for ~German~ European cars + and bikes usually shows a too high speed: > The indicated speed must never be less than the actual speed, i.e. it should not be possible to inadvertently speed because of an incorrect speedometer reading. > The indicated speed must not be more than 110 percent of the true speed plus 4 km/h at specified test speeds. For example, at 80 km/h, the indicated speed must be no more than 92 km/h. [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stra%C3%9Fenmarkierung https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stra%C3%9Fenmarkierung [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedometer#International_agreements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedometer#International_agre...
CraigJPerry 7y ago
IIRC there’s a script written in the RC model aircraft community that verifies claimed speed of models by assessing the doppler shift from the video sound track as the plane passes. /me googles https://youtu.be/DZZWtT32ymY https://youtu.be/DZZWtT32ymY
- kthejoker2 7y ago
  But to the point of faking it seems like it'd be even easier to generate a fake audio "shift" of your claimed speed.

marvin 7y ago

Just an ancillary point: this highlights that free access to group messaging apps makes it much harder than before to suppress facts about what has happened somewhere. Especially if there's video. The Iran regime of 1990 would have had a much easier time keeping this mistake under wraps. I think the whole "fake news" and related propaganda strategies we see in the West are what happens when people in power try to adapt to this new reality, by attacking at the weak spots of the new information infrastructure.

pjc50 7y ago
Yes. Rather than attempt to suppress it in the West, we'd see a lot of conflicting reports, allegations of fake news, unrelated smear attempts, questioning of loyalties, and attempts to arrest whistleblowers. The US never did admit liability for shooting down an Iranian jet in similar circumstances: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
- dougweltman 7y ago
  There's a gap, between admitting to downing a plane and "admitting liability" for it, in which the US places its downing of Flight 655. But the parallel you would need to draw here is of the former: admitting to downing the plane.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- loufe 7y ago
  For flight 655, while they never admitted guilt, they did settle paying the victim's families "ex-gratia" a non-negligible sum. While it is not the same as directly admitting you are responible, espcecially to the victims, for most intents and purposes that counts as an admition in my books.
  - misterman0 7y ago
    >> they never admitted guilt >> they did settle >> that counts as an admition Oh how good you look in those rose tinted glasses of yours. Edit to self: never try to change HN. It's already optimized, not for conversation but for promotion of things that are PK. That is a good thing.

martin_a 7y ago

Somewhat offtopic, but I'd be interested in an answer. Do non-military planes have some kind of missile detection capabilites? Like: Did the pilots know what was about to happen or that something was approaching them with high speed and whatnot or were they just blown out of the sky without the slightest idea?

kreft 7y ago
El-Al planes do. "Since the early 2000s, El Al has been the only commercial airline to fit its planes with systems to defend against anti-aircraft missiles." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Al#Onboard_missile_defense_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Al#Onboard_missile_defense_...
mkagenius 7y ago
And how difficult it is to identify a civilian plane vs a weapon? Few months back India shot down its own Helicopter and now Iran shot a whole air plane. And they spend gigantic amount of money on defense. How lacking is the technology!
- chii 7y ago
  > And how difficult it is to identify a civilian plane vs a weapon? if there is such a way, then your enemy planes can just as easily masquerade as a civilian craft and evade the missile!
  - mkagenius 7y ago
    > easily masquerade as a civilian craft How does one do that easily?
    - martin_a 7y ago
      Well, if it's only some "signature" that is broadcasted (or not), one could flip a switch and appear as a civilian aircraft.
  - 7y ago

russfink 7y ago

Why was someone shooting video of the sky at that exact moment, unless they were somehow connected to the strike?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
wmblaettler 7y ago
Apparently there were two missiles fired, this video could have been of the second one with the person starting to film after having seen or heard the launch or impact from the first one.
lolc 7y ago
I assumed it was the second strike. So after the first missile, an observer would have started recording and managed to catch the second.
- saberdancer 7y ago
  No need to assume it. There is a surveillance video that shows both launches and hits. When you cross reference it with the other video you can confirm that the video with the dog was filmed after first missile already hit the aircraft (and knocked out the transponder).
swebs 7y ago
>in the video, you can see a person standing beside what looks like a small cabin. And there’s a little metal tower with sort of cross sections, almost like a ladder, with a light on top. It looks like a security light illuminating the area. And there’s very distinctive rows of buildings that are all identical in the distance. Sounds like an average security camera setup to me. Was probably recording 24/7 with rotating files.
ssully 7y ago
While some of the other responses to your post are more likely right (they saw the first explosion, and caught the second one), I will add that my house is close to a handful of flight paths for a near-by airport. I have plenty of pictures and videos of planes flying in.

makomk 7y ago

Iran then appparently arrested the person who they thought filmed this video: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-51114945 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-51114945

tyingq 7y ago
"But an Iranian journalist based in London who initially posted the footage has insisted that his source is safe, and that the Iranian authorities have arrested the wrong person." Ugh. Even worse.
- altcognito 7y ago
  Unless your point is to send a message. But yes, still even worse.
- csunbird 7y ago
  or the actual source is the one being arrested and the journalist is trying to trick the government to release the person.
  - frandroid 7y ago
    I thought about that too but media have a lot to lose in terms of credibility if it gets exposed. I'd bet you there was a NYT lawyer in touch with that journalist ASAP when they published that tweet if the journalist hadn't been in touch with legal beforehand.

anthonybsd 7y ago

They mention Bellingcat in the article but what they don't mention is that their "verification" essentially piggy-backed on top of identical Bellingcat verification of a the same video that got released 14 hours prior [1]. This seems strange to me. [1]. https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2020/01/09/video-apparently-showing-flight-ps572-missile-strike-geolocated-to-iranian-suburb/ https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2020/01/09/video-appare...

ourcat 7y ago
Exactly. Glad someone else mentioned them. I was reading through the article, thinking "Erm... I'm pretty sure Bellingcat did all this."
dewey 7y ago
https://www.nytimes.com/by/christiaan-triebert https://www.nytimes.com/by/christiaan-triebert > Prior to joining The Times in 2019, Mr. Triebert worked as a senior investigator and lead trainer at the investigative group Bellingcat.
drcongo 7y ago
If you've not listened to it yet, the Bellingcat podcast is absolutely fantastic.

sbmthakur 7y ago

I guess the page is taking time to load due to hug of death. https://archive.ph/TXyXV https://archive.ph/TXyXV

deanclatworthy 7y ago

It's worth pointing out that since the incident Iran has arrested those responsible for downing the jet - in an attempt to place blame on to individuals - who I'm certain are devastated at accidentally killing their countryman. I suspect they will be labelled traitors and never seen again. They have also arrested the person who filmed this video [2]. Whilst we might celebrate this investigative journalism, this video changed the course of the narrative and forced Iran to come clean, we should also be aware of the consequences of it. [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51114945 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51114945

boutad 7y ago
Why did BBC put quotes around the word arrested in the title?
- dharmab 7y ago
  BBC's style guide puts quotes around any part of a headline that is reporting on what others have said.
- cavanasm 7y ago
  Probably because there's a dispute over whether anyone was actually arrested, or if they arrested the wrong person, because the journalist who received the video says his source has not been arrested.
- testvox 7y ago
  Generally when newspapers put quotes around a word like that it means they are using a word quoted directly from a source.
chii 7y ago
> we should also be aware of the consequences of it. which is that an authoritarian regime is never a good thing. Society requires that bad actors be publicly visible and called out, as this creates a pressure for them to act sensibly. The first thing an authoritarian regime implements is censorship and apply any chilling effect they can, because they know this is the only way they can hide their acts from the public at large.

jliptzin 7y ago

Anybody who is in the unfortunate position of deciding whether the target they’re aiming at is a missile or passenger plane needs to do the following simple calculus: if you are even slightly unsure, don’t do anything (especially if the object is not even threatening your life). If it turned out to be a hostile missile, your country then goes on the offensive against whoever fired it and it’s just another attack. No one is going to come after you for being cautious (maybe you get dishonorably discharged but that’s it). But if you go the other way and accidentally take down a passenger jet, not only do you kill a bunch of innocent people, the international community will be out for your blood.

cloverich 7y ago
I think the international community generally recognizes that this is the fault of conflict escalation and scapegoating. I doubt anyone outside Iran directly blames the person who fired the AA strike at this point. Moreover, if you are the one manning it, remember that _not_ firing the missile could mean not just your countrymen but your colleagues may be getting killed (by the bombs). War is ugly and there's no good choices. People die by definition.
shaabanban 7y ago
The thing is, the probable first set of targets in a war with Iran would be air defense targets. “If it turned out to be a hostile missile” that could mean imminent death. It’s very possible the air defense operator panicked and acted out of perceived self preservation.
- zaroth 7y ago
  Two missiles. Fired approximately 30 seconds apart. Hitting a 737. Which was ascending. On a registered flight path. They are supposed to be a trained military employing lethal force. What they are in fact is a failed regime playing with Russian hardware. This wasn’t panic, or an accident. This was pure utter incompetence compounded by total apathy for the civilian population.

spyspy 7y ago

I highly recommend following Malachy Browne on Twitter[0] for more investigations like this. He's also the narrator on other NYT video investigations[1] [0] https://twitter.com/malachybrowne https://twitter.com/malachybrowne [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krr4u6uGdzc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krr4u6uGdzc

catacombs 7y ago

The Times kept saying they "obtained" the video, as if it was leaked to them by a confidential source. That's not the case. They found it, like many others, including Bellingcat, on a Telegram group. I'm glad they reported the video, but to make it seem like _they_ were the ones to find it first is misleading and grandstanding.

mzs 7y ago
No NYT was able to track down the person that posted that video on telegram and that individual got them in contact with the original videographer and the NYT verified those people. https://twitter.com/trbrtc/status/1215397996545835010 https://twitter.com/trbrtc/status/1215397996545835010
pimlottc 7y ago
I don’t read “obtain” to imply anything more than getting the video through some means.
lm28469 7y ago
obtain = get = acquire It sounds fancier but it means the same.

briandear 7y ago

The video was unnecessary, just looking at the crash photos of the wings —- and the holes in them, were indicative of a shoot down. The video was icing on the cake and helps sell the story’s truth to those who don’t know much about airplane damage.

mzs 7y ago

There was an NPR story that mentioned US has satellites which can detect RADAR and I wondered about that, so I asked on twitter. Here are two nice threads of explanations I got in response: https://twitter.com/M_R_Thomp/status/1217510002723893250 https://twitter.com/M_R_Thomp/status/1217510002723893250 https://twitter.com/gbrumfiel/status/1217506180303663104 https://twitter.com/gbrumfiel/status/1217506180303663104

chiefalchemist 7y ago

The headline is deceptive or perhaps poorly worded. The NYT evidently verified the plane was shot down by a missile fired within Iran's borders. That's it. Whether Iran itself was an active participant iss not something the NYT could have verified. I'm being selective because this involves journalism, and words matter.

uncoder0 7y ago

This was verified by online communities within 3 hours of the footage being known to western forums. NYT just copied the math or they did it themselves much later.