5 ms·

Wuhan lab phone records show 'possible shutdown' in October

16 points by tankenmate 6y ago

Waterluvian 6y ago
What is the mechanism that enabled US intelligence to get this phone data?
- xxpor 6y ago
  I wouldn't be shocked if it came from NRO satellite data. The frequencies cell phones operate at will readily escape to space.
- simonh 6y ago
  It may well just be commercially available data from the carriers. In fact the quote from Rubio mentions "commercial telemetry data". Data like that is routinely collected and traded, depending on local regulations and that can happen in near real-time, like subscribing to a feed, so it's quite plausible it might be available.
mytailorisrich 6y ago
That's a typical FUD campaign. Reality is irrelevant to the narrative, and discussion is railroaded into drawing conclusions while accepting the premise without questions. It's Iraq's WMDs all over again but even weirder because it is a topic that has very little practical value. This is purely political. Now, if the US can really pinpoint mobile phone calls within a building, in the middle of China, surely that should be the scoop here. (Btw, the first week of October is a national holiday in China, and the Military World Games were held in Wuhan later that month)
- topkai22 6y ago
  The claim is that it’s “commercially available telemetry data”, which sounds fishy but could be true I guess.
- CyanLite2 6y ago
  This is what scares me the most--more so than the virus itself. Stupid Americans believing stupid conspiracy theories and rushing to war just to get an idiot re-elected.
  - mytailorisrich 6y ago
    The US cannot go to war with China. So that's at least a little relief.
kdtsh 6y ago
>Experts urged caution, suggesting the report may be based on limited commercially available mobile phone data, and that there could be other reasons for varying levels of phone usage. Is there much more to it than this? Much more will be read into this than should be. Investigate by all means, but everyone should really know that there’s only one answer that the present US administration is interested in with this investigation - that this virus did not develop but was released - the good intentions of researchers be damned.
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  It's much easier to write a report when you're told what conclusions to reach beforehand.
sdiq 6y ago
Assuming this is true knowing that there is no way to definitively find out, would it have been possible for China to limit the spread at the time? If is was true and they were open and transparent about it?
CyanLite2 6y ago
Good grief, so much propaganda here. This is HackerNews not FoxNews. The 2019 Military World Games, officially known as the 7th CISM Military World Games and commonly known as Wuhan 2019, was held from October 18–27, 2019 in Wuhan, Hubei, China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Military_World_Games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Military_World_Games This is why the roads were closed and phone usage changed its normal patterns.
- btown 6y ago
  The article, though, describes dates that do not overlap the games: > The report, carried out by private experts, suggested there may have been a "hazardous event", specifically at the institute's National Biosafety Laboratory, between October 6 and 11. Analysis of mobile phone data from around the institute also suggested roadblocks were in place between October 14 and 19. This doesn't rule out the possibility that the discrepancy comes from a drill or other preparation for the games. However, it does make this information worthy of deeper investigation.
  - mytailorisrich 6y ago
    The first week of October is a national holiday in China.
  - valuearb 6y ago
    The data is a small subset of actual cell phone use, making it misleading and useless.
thawaway1837 6y ago
So the whole 5 eyes report has basically been exposed as likely a fabrication at best, and they are coming up with some other nonsense now. It’s clear FUD. And all this does not change the fact that whether it escaped a lab or not is completely irrelevant (other than the fact that it makes the Trump admins decision to pull US researchers from the lab even worse, since if they hadn’t pulled them to save peanuts, and it did escape from a lab, the US and the world would have been aware of this in October). There is no reason to believe Western countries, many of which did not start acting until late March although information about the CoronaVirus has existed since the beginning of the year at the latest, and Asian countries had already started acting on it in mid Jan to Feb, would have behaved any differently.
foxyv 6y ago
Hmm, seems like cherry picking. How often do these events occur? Did it happen in September, August, etc? Did it happen last year at the same time? Seems a bit premature to draw conclusions immediately one way or the other.

16 points by tankenmate 6y ago

Waterluvian 6y ago

What is the mechanism that enabled US intelligence to get this phone data?

xxpor 6y ago
I wouldn't be shocked if it came from NRO satellite data. The frequencies cell phones operate at will readily escape to space.
simonh 6y ago
It may well just be commercially available data from the carriers. In fact the quote from Rubio mentions "commercial telemetry data". Data like that is routinely collected and traded, depending on local regulations and that can happen in near real-time, like subscribing to a feed, so it's quite plausible it might be available.

mytailorisrich 6y ago

That's a typical FUD campaign. Reality is irrelevant to the narrative, and discussion is railroaded into drawing conclusions while accepting the premise without questions. It's Iraq's WMDs all over again but even weirder because it is a topic that has very little practical value. This is purely political. Now, if the US can really pinpoint mobile phone calls within a building, in the middle of China, surely that should be the scoop here. (Btw, the first week of October is a national holiday in China, and the Military World Games were held in Wuhan later that month)

topkai22 6y ago
The claim is that it’s “commercially available telemetry data”, which sounds fishy but could be true I guess.
CyanLite2 6y ago
This is what scares me the most--more so than the virus itself. Stupid Americans believing stupid conspiracy theories and rushing to war just to get an idiot re-elected.
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  The US cannot go to war with China. So that's at least a little relief.

kdtsh 6y ago

>Experts urged caution, suggesting the report may be based on limited commercially available mobile phone data, and that there could be other reasons for varying levels of phone usage. Is there much more to it than this? Much more will be read into this than should be. Investigate by all means, but everyone should really know that there’s only one answer that the present US administration is interested in with this investigation - that this virus did not develop but was released - the good intentions of researchers be damned.

mytailorisrich 6y ago
It's much easier to write a report when you're told what conclusions to reach beforehand.

sdiq 6y ago

Assuming this is true knowing that there is no way to definitively find out, would it have been possible for China to limit the spread at the time? If is was true and they were open and transparent about it?

CyanLite2 6y ago

Good grief, so much propaganda here. This is HackerNews not FoxNews. The 2019 Military World Games, officially known as the 7th CISM Military World Games and commonly known as Wuhan 2019, was held from October 18–27, 2019 in Wuhan, Hubei, China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Military_World_Games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Military_World_Games This is why the roads were closed and phone usage changed its normal patterns.

btown 6y ago
The article, though, describes dates that do not overlap the games: > The report, carried out by private experts, suggested there may have been a "hazardous event", specifically at the institute's National Biosafety Laboratory, between October 6 and 11. Analysis of mobile phone data from around the institute also suggested roadblocks were in place between October 14 and 19. This doesn't rule out the possibility that the discrepancy comes from a drill or other preparation for the games. However, it does make this information worthy of deeper investigation.
- mytailorisrich 6y ago
  The first week of October is a national holiday in China.
- valuearb 6y ago
  The data is a small subset of actual cell phone use, making it misleading and useless.

thawaway1837 6y ago

So the whole 5 eyes report has basically been exposed as likely a fabrication at best, and they are coming up with some other nonsense now. It’s clear FUD. And all this does not change the fact that whether it escaped a lab or not is completely irrelevant (other than the fact that it makes the Trump admins decision to pull US researchers from the lab even worse, since if they hadn’t pulled them to save peanuts, and it did escape from a lab, the US and the world would have been aware of this in October). There is no reason to believe Western countries, many of which did not start acting until late March although information about the CoronaVirus has existed since the beginning of the year at the latest, and Asian countries had already started acting on it in mid Jan to Feb, would have behaved any differently.

foxyv 6y ago

Hmm, seems like cherry picking. How often do these events occur? Did it happen in September, August, etc? Did it happen last year at the same time? Seems a bit premature to draw conclusions immediately one way or the other.