HFU HF Underground
General Category => General Radio Discussion => Topic started by: R4002 on June 17, 2019, 1432 UTC
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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-48662279 (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-48662279)
Too much of a coincidence that it occurred on Argentina's election day and right after the New York Times reported on US Cyber Command's installation of sit-and-wait malware in the Russian power grid (in response to the Russians doing the same thing to us for years now - cf. https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/alerts/TA18-074A (https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/alerts/TA18-074A))?
While the various governments (Argentina mostly, but also parts of Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, etc.) seem to be willing to rule out cyberattack as the reason for the massive blackout that affected more than 40 million people (!!) it seems like somebody is doing another test, proof of concept, whatever you want to call it. Combine with the recent airnav GPS issues.
Time to buy more solar panels, batteries, and, of course, can openers. Also ammunition. Battery-powered HF and VHF/UHF capability.
Would have been nice to have a before/after waterfall image for MF/HF/VHF/UHF in Buenos Aires when the lights went out. See how much the noise floor drops (and see which broadcast stations, etc. went off the air).
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I thought blacking out Venezuela was their test run. The CIA's push for war is isolated to Venezuela as far as I know, so what gives?
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The Venezuelan power outage could very well have been a test run as well. Kommissar Putin likes Maduro, though.
I was more implying that the Russians or the Chinese were behind the most recent massive blackout.
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Maduro is perfectly able to blackout Venezuela on his own, without any assistance from the CIA ;D
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Maduro is perfectly able to blackout Venezuela on his own, without any assistance from the CIA ;D
Indeed. He's also blamed (list of every other problem in Venezuela) on the CIA.
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Used to be it took a racoon or squirrel in Canaduh to domino the entire eastern seaboard into darkness, today all it takes is a president, intel agency, or some nefarious hacker in a nefarious hoody with his or her nefarious laptop in mom's basement or some cyber cafe. I'd say that like the gps outage, someone is sending a message.
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I'm glad that somebody else sees the connection between the South American blackout and the GPS outage. Maybe sending a message, "hey, this can be done!" - I know that Russia did what you could easily call a "proof of concept" cyber-attack against portions of the Ukrainian power grid back in 2015. It can be done on various scales.
Nefarious intelligence agencies employing nefarious hackers in nefarious hoodies and nefarious black hats under the command of a nefarious president (Putin, Kim, etc.)
Maybe I'm a little paranoid, but I see this as the shape of things to come....and that scares me.
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I was more implying that the Russians or the Chinese were behind the most recent massive blackout.
As always, cui bono? Who benefits? Why would Putin do this, what does he gain?
Maduro is perfectly able to blackout Venezuela on his own, without any assistance from the CIA ;D
I appreciate the levity, but I don't personally find the situation in Venezuela a laughing matter. A CIA-trained and backed goofus stands up and says "I'm the Prez now," our entire media makes it a thing and gets behind him, and after a handful of incitements fail to provoke Maduro's hand at a massacre or get the Venezuelan military to turn, Senator Marco Rubio tweets a taunt at Maduro about the nationwide blackout minutes after it happens. If this were the extent of it we could all smirk about how out of shape the CIA has become since the 60s, but China and Russia immediately moved in to help fix and protect Venezuela's infrastructure. In other words, after the US lost the proxy war in Syria to Russia, they've pivoted to Venezuela and are losing there, as well.
And that brings us to last Thursday's absolute shitshow of a frame up on that Japanese tanker in the Middle East. Sure, our "intelligence agencies" are certain Iran did that, but how dense do you have to be to believe that Iran ordered a hit on a Japanese oil tanker at literally the exact time the Japanese premier was sitting down with Iranian premier?
I know my tone is aggressive and I apologize if it offends. However, I'm not excited watching my government provoke the planet's two other super powers in several theatres across the planet. I'm horrified at how few people can see what's going on. When the moves are this sloppy and stupid, everyone should be able to see through them.
You know the saying about the paranoid: "just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't to get you."
Just because you are a Latin American strongman doesn't mean the CIA isn't trying to regime change you.
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I was more implying that the Russians or the Chinese were behind the most recent massive blackout.
As always, cui bono? Who benefits? Why would Putin do this, what does he gain?
Maduro is perfectly able to blackout Venezuela on his own, without any assistance from the CIA ;D
I appreciate the levity, but I don't personally find the situation in Venezuela a laughing matter. A CIA-trained and backed goofus stands up and says "I'm the Prez now," our entire media makes it a thing and gets behind him, and after a handful of incitements fail to provoke Maduro's hand at a massacre or get the Venezuelan military to turn, Senator Marco Rubio tweets a taunt at Maduro about the nationwide blackout minutes after it happens. If this were the extent of it we could all smirk about how out of shape the CIA has become since the 60s, but China and Russia immediately moved in to help fix and protect Venezuela's infrastructure. In other words, after the US lost the proxy war in Syria to Russia, they've pivoted to Venezuela and are losing there, as well.
And that brings us to last Thursday's absolute shitshow of a frame up on that Japanese tanker in the Middle East. Sure, our "intelligence agencies" are certain Iran did that, but how dense do you have to be to believe that Iran ordered a hit on a Japanese oil tanker at literally the exact time the Japanese premier was sitting down with Iranian premier?
I know my tone is aggressive and I apologize if it offends. However, I'm not excited watching my government provoke the planet's two other super powers in several theatres across the planet. I'm horrified at how few people can see what's going on. When the moves are this sloppy and stupid, everyone should be able to see through them.
You know the saying about the paranoid: "just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't to get you."
Just because you are a Latin American strongman doesn't mean the CIA isn't trying to regime change you.
Sounds like we're both a little paranoid, perhaps for different reasons. I see Maduro as a puppet of Putin and even his now-dead predecessor. Maybe the CIA killed Chavez too (maybe). Maduro also drove what was one of the most prosperous Latin American countries into a hell with record-breaking inflation and skyrocketing crime.
As far as the proxy war / baiting multiple super powers at once thing goes - you have a point. Jumping into several wars would be a nice distraction from the sooner-or-later economic slowdown/crash...but I'll stop there. Wag The Dog, etc. Gulf of Tonkin II? Maybe. I'm not sure. That's another direction though.
As far as how does Putin benefit? In several ways (presuming a Russian cyber-attack is behind both the GPS outage and the South American blackout here). First, he shows the folks who are paying attention (in both the United States and elsewhere) that his capabilities have increased past turning off the power for an hour or so in Kiev. Electronic saber-rattling, maybe...to paraphrase Josh, "to send a message". The benefit does not have to be immediate, or readily apparent. Putin is an ex-KGB man and is playing multiple angles. Yes, the CIA have been involved in regime change in Latin America in the past...but I still rank the KGB and its successor agencies as worse. If only because the FSB and SVR serve the Russians and the CIA and the NSA serve the United States (read into that how you like). The Russians are still the bad guys in my eyes. At no point in history when both the United States and Russia were/are superpowers were we on completely friendly terms (save for World War II, maybe, but even then there was mistrust). There are reasons for that...
A day long blackout is more of an inconvenience and malfunctioning GPS is annoying but combine those things with cyber-attacks that cause longer-lasting damage and you have a formidable weapon of war. If you draw the comparison between cyber-weapons and conventional weapons the "who benefits?" question gets closer to answering itself.
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Does Target sell ammo? Nevermind... ;D
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Edesur, an Argentinian energy company, said the power failure started between two power stations, in Yacyretá and Salto Grande. That set off safeguards at the power plants, which ultimately forced the shutdown that affected the entire grid.
But it’s still unclear what caused that transmission disruption. Argentina’s energy secretary, Gustavo Lopetegui, told the media that the investigation could take up to 15 days.
Lopetegui also said authorities did not believe a cyberattack sparked the outage, though they’re not ruling out any possibilities just yet. “It’s very extraordinary that this happened,” he told reporters. “It has never happened in the history of Argentina.”
https://www.vox.com/2019/6/17/18681989/argentina-blackout-uruguay-electricity-macri
Vox is pretty much as far away from an organ of the CIA as you can get ;D
Maduro also drove what was one of the most prosperous Latin American countries into a hell with record-breaking inflation and skyrocketing crime.
Chavez started that with nationalizations of virtually every sector of the economy, as well as chronic mismanagement of their cash cow, PDVSA, the state run oil company. Maduro was just the last guy driving the bus. Pun intended. (No doubt Maduro has accelerated the process, he's a Chavez with less charisma and even less grasp of economics, which I agree is surprising)
A CIA-trained and backed goofus stands up and says "I'm the Prez now," our entire media makes it a thing and gets behind him, and after a handful of incitements fail to provoke Maduro's hand at a massacre or get the Venezuelan military to turn
Unfortunately the Venezuelan opposition extremely fractured with no real unity. BTW Juan Guaido has been recognized as the legitimate president of Venezuela by, in addition to the US, most members of the EU, Canada Australia.... the list goes on.
China's loaned Venezuela tens of billions of dollars, many of these loans were not approved by the national assembly (before Maduro dismantled it), they're obviously concerned an opposition led government would refuse to repay them. So you can see their vested interest in keeping Maduro in charge.
Keeping this radio related... It's unfortunate the assorted Venezuela shortwave outlets are long gone, they would be interesting to listen to. Ecos del Torbes was one of my favorites. Well, assuming they had electricity to say on the air, and Maduro let them. Both of which are unlikely. No shortwave clandestine stations have popped up on the air, nor medium wave (there was one rumored some time ago but it never materialized), which probably tells us what we didn't want to hear - radio is indeed dying.
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Maduro also drove what was one of the most prosperous Latin American countries into a hell with record-breaking inflation and skyrocketing crime.
I don't argue this point, but I want my country to get out of the business of toppling regimes. Who the people of another nation vote into power, and what that person then does to his own people aren't our problem.
First, he shows the folks who are paying attention (in both the United States and elsewhere) that his capabilities have increased past turning off the power for an hour or so in Kiev.
It's not a sound strategy to unveil secret weapons and capabilities to send messages unless your back is against the wall and you hope to tell the other guys you can and will with the next provocation, so if it's really Putin and it's really a message, I find it concerning.
The Russians are still the bad guys in my eyes.
I was raised in a similar bath of anti-Russian media, but when I count all the ways my own government is oppressing me vs. how many ways the Russian government is oppressing me, Uncle Sam looks like the bad guy.
A day long blackout is more of an inconvenience and malfunctioning GPS is annoying but combine those things with cyber-attacks that cause longer-lasting damage and you have a formidable weapon of war.
I've read an analysis that concluded if the US and Russia were to both hack the other's grid, the US would be on the losing side. The author said that while the US was flush with cash and modernized and computerized everything they could, Russia is behind the curve due to the collapse of the Soviet Union, i.e. they have less to hack, less of their infrastructure would stop functioning.
If you draw the comparison between cyber-weapons and conventional weapons the "who benefits?" question gets closer to answering itself.
So this would be like Russia igniting another Tsar Bomba, or shooting some brand new particle weapon off the coast of California, or some other shot across the bow. It's a very bold move which, I think, points to the conflict about to go hot.
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Chavez started that with nationalizations of virtually every sector of the economy, as well as chronic mismanagement of their cash cow, PDVSA, the state run oil company. Maduro was just the last guy driving the bus.
I'm not arguing that he's a bad leader, I'm saying that there is plenty of evidence as I listed that the grid was brought down by hostile forces in order to get the CIA stooge into power.
BTW Juan Guaido has been recognized as the legitimate president of Venezuela by, in addition to the US, most members of the EU, Canada Australia.... the list goes on.
Guaido wasn't voted into power or recognized by any political machinery of the sovereign state of Venezuela. It doesn't matter what the US (and its NATO puppets), the country that is actively and illegally trying to unseat him have to say.
It concerns me to see my countrymen support what are effectively wartime actions against a country that is not a threat to us, and with which we are not at war. Bringing down a nation's power grid for purposes of unseating a legitimate leader is dirty business, and once you factor in the antagonism of these actions against two nuclear superpowers, it becomes pure unhinged recklessness.
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[Bringing down a nation's power grid for purposes of unseating a legitimate leader is dirty business, and once you factor in the antagonism of these actions against two nuclear superpowers, it becomes pure unhinged recklessness.
I agree with you, that would be reckless behavior. But in the case of Venezuela, it was chronic mismanagement and lack of maintenance that caused that major outage (brush fire around a major transmission line). Their grid has become extremely fragile, the smallest problem quickly cascades. It looks as though the South American outage was somewhat similar, several generation plants going offline resulted in a cascade effect, shutting down the entire grid. Power grids can be very finicky beasts, the larger and more interconnected they are, the greater ability to share excess generation capacity and overall reduce costs, but the greater the chance for something major to go wrong. We've had problems here in the US as well, although not on that scale. Perhaps Texas is smart to stay disconnected from the rest of the national grids ;D
We've got another example closer to home - Puerto Rico. Even before the hurricane, they had frequent major outages, even on a sunny day. Again, the cause was lack of maintenance. PR's state run utility practically gives away electricity to many users, resulting in insufficient funds to properly maintain the system.
Sometimes, Hanlon's Razor applies.
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I hope it's just that. The stakes are too high otherwise.
Back to radio: I've noticed when I tune to 6000 to check propagation RHC sounds distorted, like it's overdriven. A couple months back it wasnt like this. It happens across all my receivers and antenna systems. Any ideas what could cause this? It's a really strong signal, it just sounds like it is put through a clipping tube fuzz pedal.
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Back to radio: I've noticed when I tune to 6000 to check propagation RHC sounds distorted, like it's overdriven. A couple months back it wasnt like this. It happens across all my receivers and antenna systems. Any ideas what could cause this? It's a really strong signal, it just sounds like it is put through a clipping tube fuzz pedal.
The same thing on multiple radios makes me suspect it's on their end.
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Maduro's big problem was and is the bottom falling out of the oil market a few years back. That was the only egg in Venuzuela's economic basket.
Guaido and the U.S. have a big problem getting Maduro out of power. Guaido has to do one simple thing by international law, take and hold a piece of Venezuelan territory long enough to call for a powerful ally to intervene. (Guess who?) He's not popular enough to get it done. That was the scheme used at the Bay of Pigs. The door was wide open, but JFK hid in the White House until the Cuban rebel force was taken prisoner or killed.
And people wonder why JFK was assassinated? That turd pissed a lot of people off in his short term in office.
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Maduro's big problem was and is the bottom falling out of the oil market a few years back. That was the only egg in Venuzuela's economic basket.
Guaido and the U.S. have a big problem getting Maduro out of power. Guaido has to do one simple thing by international law, take and hold a piece of Venezuelan territory long enough to call for a powerful ally to intervene. (Guess who?) He's not popular enough to get it done. That was the scheme used at the Bay of Pigs. The door was wide open, but JFK hid in the White House until the Cuban rebel force was taken prisoner or killed.
And people wonder why JFK was assassinated? That turd pissed a lot of people off in his short term in office.
Brigade 2506! Gotta love the Monroe Doctrine, sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn’t....I do hope that I was just being paranoid re: another cyber warfare attack (do we actually know if the GPS issue was a cyber attack?) vs. poor maintenance and cascading failure prone power grids.
If the Russians were to go full-on cyber attack, I will agree with i_hear_you, we have more to lose than the Russians do.
Target doesn’t sell ammunition, but there are dozens and dozens of reputable online ammunition retailers (if buying ammunition online is legal in your state, of course),
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Why should we necessarily think it's our government, or even the Russians, for that matter? Why would either country take out the grid to Buenos Aires? There is no geopolitical or strategic benefit.
Al Qaeda took down the twin towers, and they were a non-state actor. There are plenty of nefarious, non-state actor groups out in the wild that are tech savvy.
Then again, all it takes is drooping lines, or something similar, to blackout an entire region. If the grid supporting Buenos Aires alone were taken out, that cuts power to millions of people -- I think B.A. has just less than half of the population of Argentina living there. 15 million in the metro alone.
I'm aware that Russia and the US have been playing hacker towards each other, but I don't think that either would try to take out the other's grid except in time of war, because one Trident sub has enough firepower to turn European Russia into a radioactive wasteland (and vice versa).
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Why would either country take out the grid to Buenos Aires? There is no geopolitical or strategic benefit.
I'm aware that Russia and the US have been playing hacker towards each other, but I don't think that either would try to take out the other's grid except in time of war, because one Trident sub has enough firepower to turn European Russia into a radioactive wasteland (and vice versa).
This is the sentiment I tried and failed to succinctly communicate: firstly, that the tactical and strategic value of taking down power grids in uninvolved third-world countries escapes me, and secondly that this would be an act of war, the likes of which will probably signal things going kinetic.
R4002 and I are clearly tuned to the same frequency and his ammo comments have me wondering: grid goes down, what's the next comms step for those of you prepared for this? It's the reason I got involved in HAM. And while I have the gear, energy and skills to communicate, I don't have a gameplan besides listening on calling frequencies and waiting.
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Why should we necessarily think it's our government, or even the Russians, for that matter? Why would either country take out the grid to Buenos Aires? There is no geopolitical or strategic benefit.
Al Qaeda took down the twin towers, and they were a non-state actor. There are plenty of nefarious, non-state actor groups out in the wild that are tech savvy.
Then again, all it takes is drooping lines, or something similar, to blackout an entire region. If the grid supporting Buenos Aires alone were taken out, that cuts power to millions of people -- I think B.A. has just less than half of the population of Argentina living there. 15 million in the metro alone.
I'm aware that Russia and the US have been playing hacker towards each other, but I don't think that either would try to take out the other's grid except in time of war, because one Trident sub has enough firepower to turn European Russia into a radioactive wasteland (and vice versa).
I was implying that if it was a cyber-attack, it was simply a "test", or "proof of concept" - or, to paraphrase Josh again, "to send a message". Your point about non-state actors is an excellent one though. Then there's the gray area of non-state actors that are backed by states to various degrees.
I imagine the infrastructure in Argentina isn't in that great of shape (maybe it is?) but a cascading failure can happen regardless, given the way electrical grids are interconnected and running close to 100% capacity at given points in the 24 hour day cycle and the annual/yearly cycle (increased air conditioning and/or heating demands during certain seasons). I did make the point that the blackout happened on election day in Argentina, but that could very well be a coincidence.
Of course any KiwiSDR online probably went offline but the moment the power got cut, I bet that noise floor dropped down to basically nothing when all the cheap switching supplies and LEDs went off at once.
R4002 and I are clearly tuned to the same frequency and his ammo comments have me wondering: grid goes down, what's the next comms step for those of you prepared for this? It's the reason I got involved in HAM. And while I have the gear, energy and skills to communicate, I don't have a gameplan besides listening on calling frequencies and waiting.
Presuming you have back up power, HF-SSB for long-haul comms and lots of monitoring of your local radio chatter (CB, FRS/GMRS and MURS as well as amateur and the various land mobile services).
I have the relevant HF frequencies/nets written down on paper and included in my copies of the US Army Survival Manual and US Army FM 24-18 communications field manual - https://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm24-18.pdf (https://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm24-18.pdf)(which has lots of great info on building field-expedient antennas, NVIS propagation and other HF topics in addition to local VHF comms). Both of those manuals/frequency lists are part of my grab-and-go emergency bags (the bags also include several VHF/UHF handhelds, AM/FM/SW portables, medical gear, and the usual assortment of survival equipment/emergency food and water purification equipment).
If you're going to stay where you're at, lots of monitoring should probably be done to get an idea of what's going on around you. Having a list of the calling frequencies and emergency nets puts you way ahead of most folks. When I think about a lot of people my age (I'm in my early 30s)...I know that most of them don't even own a portable AM/FM radio anymore. They get all their information from their smartphone.
As far as supplies go - I make a point to spend a small amount of every paycheck on emergency preparedness supplies, generally ammunition, batteries, emergency food rations and similar things. I'm lucky enough to live in a place where you can order ammunition online.
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Obviously this is all part of a plot by the Amish. If they knock out the power grids, they can easily take over. An Amish family just moved in a mile away. They're located near a major high tension power transmission line. Coincidence? I think not.
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Obviously this is all part of a plot by the Amish. If they knock out the power grids, they can easily take over. An Amish family just moved in a mile away. They're located near a major high tension power transmission line. Coincidence? I think not.
Amish hackers in black hats indeed.
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Ask Andy Yoder about the Great Amish Conspiracy, he grew up around them.
BTW, there is a small but sizable Mennonite population in Paraguay. You don't think they've raised the dams on their mill ponds and cut off water flow to the hydro dams that generate power in those Southern Cone countries, do you?
Where's Al to panic about the penguin involvement? They do reside and breed in Argentina
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"As always, cui bono? Who benefits? Why would Putin do this, what does he gain?"
He has an agenda like any other foreign politician, to enrich himself and his family and to steal all he can from the ignorant American taxpayer - the last aim largely supported by his fellow citizens. Also keep in mind he has nukes aimed at our cities. Also keep in mind if Russia, or Israel can get away with it and have some other country take the fall, the more the better for their national agenda, say Russia crashes our grid and North Korea or Iran take the blame. What country wants to see Iran get bombed by the US? The sauds and Israel as well as a few other middle eastern nations are scared of Iran, but too scared to do the right thing and do the job themselves so why not false flag an attack on the US or Europe and let the world burn?
Also keep in mind cyberwarfare is likely the best bang for the buck ever. For example, Iran and North Korea spend a lot on cyberwarfare as a percentage of their total military expenditure. Everyone (int agencies, mil agencies, etc) is in each others nets, and the utility infrastructure is a prime target. Stuxnet is a classic example of this. And then there's the literal nefarious hacker in nefarious hoody with nefarious laptop and those are found in every country with a net connection. These people cause shit just because they can and think they have the right.
Also it wouldn't surprise me to find soros and vox as well as huff compost and most if not all mass media to be cia financed, just like cia financed al quada and isis, no agency has tried to destroy the American way of life more than cia. With the media editors getting their talking points from cia, you're not told the news, you're told what to think, just as in most schools today where one isn't taught how to think but rather what to think.