8 ms·
Acoustic Kitty
- WorldPeas 6y agoglad to see my tax dollars being put to use on such a practical exercise
- eqvinox 6y agoAre you old enough to have paid taxes in the 1960s? :)
- pfundstein 6y agoHe used present tense so I'm not sure he was aware it occurred in the 1960s before jumping the gun to complain about taxes.
- eqvinox 6y agoYou have grasped the purpose of my tongue-in-cheek comment! (And given me an opportunity to make another one!) Really, though, ... there's worse things tax dollars have been spent on in the 1960s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States#1960s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentatio...
- hexbinencoded 6y agoIf they are to add the word "were," it would be consistent. ;)
- tuckerconnelly 6y agoNope, young enough to be paying interest on the debt ;P
- usefulcat 6y agoNo worries, the interest on the debt is being paid with more debt. You're off the hook!
- ARandomerDude 6y agousefulcat comments on the Accoustic Kitty thread. Wheels within wheels! :)
- nullc 6y agoThe poster being old enough to have paid taxes that paid for bonds which funded those activities doesn't seem unlikely.
- raverbashing 6y agoDon't worry, your tax dollars are fulfilling much more noble goals today like subsidising fossil fuels or autonomous attack drones.
- ENOTTY 6y agoThese sort of exercises have motivated investments in miniaturization of electronics so they can end up being practical on occasion.
- colecut 6y ago"the equipment was taken out of the cat; the cat was re-sewn for a second time, and lived a long and happy life afterwards" Men in Black memory flash
- pfundstein 6y agoYeah, I felt that was a bit contrived as well. Which would seem to add credibility to the taxi theory.
- dundarious 6y agoQuite interesting that they (apparently) didn't think to train or find a "suitable" cat first. Instead they _first_ went with the (at the time) advanced miniature surveillance tech R&D and costly bio-modification. Poor thing.
- spicybright 6y agoRight? You could easily have 10 people try and train 10 different cats for a particular task, and pick the best one. Cats are basically free, and I imagine it wouldn't be hard to find 10 employees willing to adopt and train a cat. Seems like a waste of time to strap equipment onto any old cat and hope it works.
- moron4hire 6y agoYou're not understanding: the wasteful spending is the feature.
- konjin 6y agoThis being the time period that it was they were on LSD. That is not a joke, CIA agents would dose each other as pranks.
- enzanki_ars 6y agoIf you have never seen Tom Scott's Citation Needed, I highly recommend the comical take on this article. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcRJr9xQSAE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcRJr9xQSAE
- notRobot 6y agoThis is one of my favorites of the entire series :)
- herbstein 6y agoIs something weird going on with the YouTube algorithm. In the last few days there have been a few posts here on HN that reference various Citation Needed episodes. Most notably the Cyberdyne post from this week. Maybe it's just Baader-Meinhof syndrome, and it's all conincidental, but it's still super strange.
- vsareto 6y agoThese days you can just have mobile (random) pentesting platforms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMNSvHswljM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMNSvHswljM
- _def 6y agoIs there a credible list of disclosed secret projects like this? Would make a fun read
- cocoapuffs7 6y agoCategory links on the wiki article? Down at the bottom
- benbreen 6y agoI'm a historian of science working on a journal article/ possibly a magazine article on the topic. There's a ton of misinformation, but one place to start that's really fun to browse and, presumably, a legit source of documents is the CIA's own recent FOIA release from last year, about their "Animal Partners" program: https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/collection/animal-partners?page=1 https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/collection/animal-pa... By the way, on the off chance that anyone reading this was involved in or has a friend or family member involved in this kind of work, please let me know if you think they might want to talk to me! I'm currently interviewing people. Contact info in my profile.
- dynamite-ready 6y agoWhen exploring 'disclosures' of this kind, what proof is there for the existence of such work? Take the common attitude to somewhat more contemporary conspiracy theories... They seem far more believable than a scheme like this. Yet the government appears to ratify this story. Might it not just be a more sophisticated layer of misinformation?
- rsynnott 6y agoThis particular example is far too embarrassing to make up. Why would you make up something which shows you being so incompetent?
- shoes_for_thee 6y ago/shrug. i can think of any number of totally hypothetical reasons why demonstrating incompetence would be a strategic or tactical win. - now your enemy is complacent, secure in the knowledge that you are super super dumb - now your enemy is on the lookout for dog and cat listening devices rather than the 5th generation bird listening devices - now your enemy is indeed paranoid about any stupid animal roaming about and has to meet in enclosed spaces - you, knowing that experimenting on cute cats is unethical, seek to terminate the practice by devising an experiment that fails so embarrassingly as to never be tried again etc
- pontifier 6y agoProbably easier to use honeybees now, and use a wiggle dance robot to direct them.
- hexbinencoded 6y agoRoaches, ants, cats, rats, bats, pigeons, and possums all seem modern candidates for site infil. It sounded like screening and training needed more work though.
- ausbah 6y agomost people laugh at stuff like this, but I think it's absolutely brilliant! it's just one of those high risk high reward projects that is like "this is crazy but if it would work it would be of amazing use". and for all the ethical quanderies of the military and intelligence offices, projects like this are one area where they excel. looking at the internet, GPS, etc. and my own experience with some of those departments
- BostonEnginerd 6y agoI'm not sure that the cat agrees with you.
- INTPenis 6y agoEver heard the expression "like herding cats"?
- Igelau 6y agoThere's an alternate universe where the USA held onto superpower status with acoustic cats and bat bombs.
- shoes_for_thee 6y agoand this one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_bomb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_bomb
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- w0mbat 6y agoGovernment scientists discover that cats don't follow orders, do whatever the hell they want.
- LukeLambert 6y agoThis CNET article features a diagram of how the cat was wired up. Pretty crazy that 1960s surveillance tech would be miniature enough to go unnoticed inside a cat. https://www.cnet.com/pictures/crazy-cia-spy-tech-from-the-50s-60s-and-70s/2/ https://www.cnet.com/pictures/crazy-cia-spy-tech-from-the-50... Also, I hope anyone looking for a band name is taking note of this project's name.
- rkagerer 6y agoInteresting projects. I'm skeptical of that letter extractor... the target would notice the paper has an odd tendency to curl.
- dang 6y agoIf curious see also a small thread from 2019: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19353746 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19353746 and another from 2009: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=907190 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=907190
- IndySun 6y agoNot high risk high reward. Not funny. Not clever. Not successful. Dumb. Sad. Deeply cruel. The generally casual way it is discussed here is not surprising.
- konjin 6y agoBecause of all the fucked up things the CIA did this isn't even in the top 1e5.
- himinlomax 6y agoArming South American deathsquads with drug money is one thing, but harming fluffy kittens ... now that's outrage time!
- HenryBemis 6y ago>the cat was re-sewn for a second time, and lived a long and happy life afterwards Seeing/knowing how much secret service orgs (of all countries) value human life (near-zero), I will go ahead and assume that somewhere in Moscow there is a hole with 100 dead cats.
- Joker_vD 6y agorolls the eyes By the middle 1920-ies there were quite a lot of stray cats and dogs in the Moscow (y'know, after all those events in the span of 1914-1922), and then the city management finally got means and funds to do something with it. So I assure you, there are a lot of holes with hundreds of dead cats in Moscow (and other cities too), without any secret orgs involved.
- konjin 6y agoI doubt that, the cats and dogs would have been eaten.
- MisterTea 6y ago> I will go ahead and assume that somewhere in Moscow there is a hole with 100 dead cats. I'm pretty sure there are a few barrels full dead cats and dogs sitting in the back of shelters all over the USA right now. Waiting for their turn through rendering plant shredder.
- jw1224 6y agoBoth the US and Russia are known to train dolphins and other marine mammals in military espionage, even to this day. Video of an alleged Russian spy whale: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-48090616 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-48090616 And a fascinating report about how this works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA1qPdeeJ5s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA1qPdeeJ5s
- krisoft 6y agoAlso fascinating satellite images of the suspected Russian beluga pens: http://www.hisutton.com/Russia_Navy_Beluga_Whale_update.html http://www.hisutton.com/Russia_Navy_Beluga_Whale_update.html
- Timpy 6y agoThe Cold War forced US and Russia into a technological arms race that pushed us leaps and bounds into the future. An absolutely reckless use of resources sent humans into space and to the moon way earlier than our technological timeline should have allowed for, as evidenced by our lack of return visit. The spy technology that Americans and Russians came up with in this time is like something out of fiction. Here's an interesting one I learned about on HN: The Great Bug Seal (aka The Thing) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)
- dangerbird2 6y ago"The Thing" was invented by Leon Theramin, who invented the eponymous Theramin, one of the first mass-produced electronic instrument.
- meatsock 6y agohis interests in rf extend to pop music - he also invented the theremin
- bsenftner 6y agoThis needs a "Men Who Stare At Goats" style film, but with the cast of "Cats". It would be interesting.
- Dahoon 6y agoPure evil.