[HN Gopher] 'Bomb Threat' That Justified Belarus Hijacking Came ...
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'Bomb Threat' That Justified Belarus Hijacking Came 24 Minutes
After
Author : maratc
Score : 220 points
Date : 2021-05-27 07:57 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thedailybeast.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thedailybeast.com)
| cbm-vic-20 wrote:
| Wow, they must of had a really good model that could predict a
| bomb threat that far in advance!
| unchocked wrote:
| Kid in high school did this - called in a bomb threat _after_
| getting his parents to excuse him from school for the bomb
| threat. Cheeseball dictators end up like disturbed high school
| boys.
| adontz wrote:
| I think Lukashenko just gave us moral right to treat himself as a
| Hamas leader. Not that I see much moral difference between them,
| he is known for torturing and raping Belarusian citizens in
| prisons.
| draw_down wrote:
| Flagged the story after seeing this comment. We don't need to
| be electing new leaders for Hamas on HN.
| bwilli123 wrote:
| https://twitter.com/MoonofA/status/1397863844740055052
| [deleted]
| bwilli123 wrote:
| Likely a timezone issue. Protonmail is in Switzerland (GMT+2)
| Minsk is (GMT+3) but could also depend on server clock setting
| on either side.
| maratc wrote:
| Protonmail confirms[0] mail was sent _after_ the plane was
| diverted.
|
| [0] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/email-bomb-threat-
| sent-...
| gcbirzan wrote:
| That makes no sense. Aside the confirmation from protonmail of
| the timestamp, that's not the proton mail UI, so it's at the
| destination. The timestamp says "Sunday 23...", so it's way
| more likely to be in the local timezone.
| [deleted]
| mzs wrote:
| a thread with more highlights:
| https://twitter.com/badc0fee/status/1397939894077505546
| OldGoodNewBad wrote:
| Who really cares? Didn't the CIA force the Peruvian President's
| plane to land in Austria to look for Assange? That's a precedent.
|
| Nations have every right to defend themselves from subversion.
| And this fella's so obvious in his subversion that he has CIA
| money bursting from his pockets and has a big giant neon hat that
| says OPEN SOCIETY SOROS SUBVERTER on it too.
| TheGigaChad wrote:
| Hey, how are the rats on board the Kursk doing?
| scatters wrote:
| The plane in that incident was not forced down; it was denied
| entry to NATO airspace. If Assange had been on board, it had
| more than enough fuel to make it back to Moscow. Landing in
| Austria was a political stunt.
| OldGoodNewBad wrote:
| Just saying I can't get too excited over Belarus arresting a
| spy on a subversion mission even if it involves forcing a
| plane down.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| For anyone still lusting to start bombing Belarus into
| compliance, Russia announced that any European Union flight that
| avoids Belarus airspace is prohibited from entering Russian
| airspace. Belarus and Russia are connected at the hip. Don't
| backdoor us into a nuclear holocaust because you think this is
| Libya or the Balkans. There are very dangerous escalations
| possible here if we're not careful. Are you really willing to
| kill thousands, millions, or even hundreds of millions over this
| issue? Belarus might as well be Russia in this situation. Would
| you advocate for bombing Russia over something similar? If not,
| learn more about the relationship between Russia and Belarus
| before pushing us for a course of action that could quickly get
| out of hand.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| It's good manners to refute posts instead of downvoting based
| on what you wish was or was not true.
| alephnan wrote:
| It seems HN has been downtrending ( no pun intended ) this
| way.
|
| This pattern is evident in posts criticizing the social
| justice climate dominating tech. Meanwhile, ad hominem
| attacks against Donald Trump are tolerated and even
| encouraged ( my very post here suggesting that ad hominem
| attacks are a logical fallacy would likely be downvoted
| without refutation, only further proving the point )
| alephnan wrote:
| > Leaving aside the fact that Hamas isn't for blowing up
| commercial airliners, the identity it chose for a Hamas
| representative was bizarre. Ahmed Yurlanov?
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.md/843S6
| kungito wrote:
| Is there a not paywalled version?
| makepanic wrote:
| https://archive.is/843S6
| srg0 wrote:
| Firefox reader view
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| The ,,excuse" to hijack is probably bad on purpose, to add insult
| to injury.
|
| Same goes for chosing a name of Jewish orgin (Ahmed Yurlanov) as
| the alledged sender of the bomb threat.
|
| It's done basically to tease the EU, saying ,,look at how
| obviously fake our pretense to hijack your plane was, and you
| still won't do anything about it!"
|
| Same story with the two Russian agents who murdered Skripal in
| the UK. When they were found on security cams walking around the
| cathedral (where Skripal was later murdered at) and questioned,
| they said they were a gay couple (from Russia of all places!)
| that were just on a touristic visit. They even cited that the
| cathedral is one if the most special because it's tower is built
| in a special way, ridiculous.
|
| Again, it's adding insult to injury.
| zkid18 wrote:
| Ahmed Yurlanov is sounds more like a Chechen or Ingush name.
| misja111 wrote:
| I thought the same at the time. Also the way they tried to
| murder Skripal, same like they did earlier with Alexander
| Litvinenko: by poisoning with Polonium.
|
| They could have chosen many other ways which would look less
| spectacular and wouldn't put the suspicion so obviously on
| Russia. But obviously it was there intention that it was clear
| that they were behind it: both to scare any remaining
| dissidents and to impress some part of the Russian population
| with their power.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Skripal was poisoned with Novichok, not polonium.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| If you don't actually know you're looking for a radioactive
| substance, poisoning someone with polonium might not be so
| "in your face" after all. They may have been going off
| previous successes (which, by definition, we wouldn't know
| about).
| jtylr wrote:
| Just to clarify, Sergei Skripal is still alive, the
| assassination failed but instead did kill an unrelated woman
| later named Dawn Sturgess.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > Again, it's adding insult to injury.
|
| I think, here it is a case of overestimating their intelligence
| level.
|
| Goondas running ex-USSR states are polar opposites of Western
| stereotype of "brilliant villains." For example Putin is said
| to be comically bad with arithmetics. Nasarbayev's verbal
| eloquence is so poor that regime lieutenants themselves often
| go on censoring him. Belarusian KGBs probably don't even know
| from where that Hamas comes from.
|
| I'd say "shrewd, yes -- smart, no" but the saying also goes
| "Folly is a more dangerous enemy to the good than evil."
| cookieswumchorr wrote:
| i'm going with Hanlon's razor here
| proxysna wrote:
| This exactly how it is. The way they covered up murders
| during protests is very descriptive of their ability to do
| such things.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Alexander_Taraikovsky
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Surely Hanlon's "don't assume malice" falls down a bit in
| _state sponsored assassinations_?
| 88 wrote:
| Yes, but when the question is whether they're deliberately
| giving the impression they're incompetent to add insult to
| injury, I'm inclined to assume they're just plain
| incompetent.
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| But they do that a lot in other contexts, like using
| novichok agents or traceable radioisotopes for state
| assassinations, then 'denying' it was them.
| [deleted]
| bitcurious wrote:
| > Same goes for chosing a name of Jewish orgin (Ahmed Yurlanov)
| as the alledged sender of the bomb threat.
|
| Ahmed is Arabic, while Yurlanov is a generic Slavic name. I
| think the intent was to communicate Chechen not Jewish.
| proxysna wrote:
| Not generic slavic surname at all but central asian/caucasus
| origin. Other than that you are right.
| proxysna wrote:
| Russian spies and their coverups != Belarussian KGB\OAC and
| their coverups.
|
| Russians have the ability act bold on purpose because of their
| oil and money. They have a massive propaganda machine that will
| scream all kinds of bs in all directions. Paid politicians all
| over the world will also side with Russia.
|
| Belarus, does not have that kind of leverage. They have no
| propaganda machine to create coverups and have to act sneaky.
| Like with Pavel Sheremet's murder [3] in Ukraine, they
| organized it well enough to avoid detection up until 2021. Or a
| Minsk metro bombing [5] where they just grabbed some dudes and
| executed them not even a year later. They often fail ofc. They
| failed with a cover up of Alexander Taraikovsky's [0] murder
| and later with Raman Bondarenko's [1]. How they failed with
| staging a coup attempt with russian PMC soldiers shortly before
| the election[2] and released all "terrorists" a few months
| later without any punishment or comments [6].
|
| Do not over sophisticate these people. Belarusian KGB today, in
| general, is not what it used to be even 20 years ago. Times of
| people dissapearing into thin air (Zaharenko, Zavadski, Gonchar
| to name a few [4]) are gone, just like most of the people who
| were able to pull off stuff like that. Today's state of it is
| due to negative selection where the most loyal get to the top,
| and not the most talented or capable.
|
| [0] https://voicesfrombelarus.medium.com/what-we-know-about-
| the-...
|
| [1] https://www.rferl.org/a/belarus-bandarenka-
| lukashenka/311691...
|
| [2] https://www.rferl.org/a/russian-diplomats-meet-detained-
| vagn...
|
| [3] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-belarus-
| journalis...
|
| [4]
| https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/120000/eur4901320...
|
| [5] https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/minsk-bombers-
| executed-...
|
| [6] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/20/world/europe/belarus-
| russ...
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| >Belarus, does not have that kind of leverage.
|
| Apparently it does now as Russia is forbidding EU fights into
| its airspace if they avoid Belarussian airspace. Russia and
| Belarus have disagreements, most of which seem to be due to
| the egos of their respective leaders, but it's foolish for
| the rest of the world to not recognize the special
| relationship between the two. Belarus is like the loud mouth
| scrawny kid on the playground who stirs up trouble because he
| knows his oversize muscular brother nearby will back him up
| in a fight.
| vasac wrote:
| Your narrative about Russian PMC staging coup attempt (link
| 2) isn't true. That was failed SBU operation.
|
| http://euromaidanpress.com/2021/02/12/the-wagner-affair-
| in-b...
| h2odragon wrote:
| "Russia is poisoning people with Novichok" is this lovely meme
| that everyone seems to accept as Gospel; doesn't it seem they'd
| have had more success, at least? The targets and the evidence
| and the circumstances surrounding these incidents aren't as
| clear cut as the common interpretation, I think.
|
| "Novichok" is a great boogeyman; no one's ever seen any but
| apparently everyone knows what it is, anyway.
| mthoms wrote:
| >no one's ever seen any but apparently everyone knows what it
| is, anyway
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novichok_agent#History_and_dis.
| ..
| DangerousPie wrote:
| Just because they're bad at it doesn't mean they aren't doing
| it. And that's assuming their intent is actually to kill, and
| not to just send a message.
| lixtra wrote:
| > It's done basically to tease the EU, saying ,,look at how
| obviously fake our pretense to hijack your plane was, and you
| still won't do anything about it!"
|
| At least EU closed their airspace.
|
| https://mobile.twitter.com/flightradar24/status/139752053792...
| pydry wrote:
| >When they were found on security cams walking around the
| cathedral (where Skripal was later murdered at) and questioned,
| they said they were a gay couple (from Russia of all places!)
| that were just on a touristic visit.
|
| From what I remember Russia suggested that they might have been
| a gay couple, a claim which they rebutted almost _more_
| fervently than they did the claim that they were spies.
|
| I figured at the time that along with the cringey interview
| they did were probably both punishments for being shit at their
| job.
|
| >They even cited that the cathedral is one if the most special
| because it's tower is built in a special way, ridiculous.
|
| It is a decent cathedral to be fair. Salisbury is very much the
| kind of place that appeals to Russians - hence why Skripal
| retired there.
| jen20 wrote:
| > Salisbury is very much the kind of place that appeals to
| Russians
|
| Why? I lived not very far from Salisbury for much of my adult
| life and rarely encountered Russians.
| throw14082020 wrote:
| Skripal is not dead?
| jen20 wrote:
| No. He recovered from the poisoning.
| CaptainZapp wrote:
| A good friend of mine left Czecheslovakia in 1968 to study in
| Switzerland.
|
| After Russia "liberated" the country[1] citizens living abroad
| were ordered back to the motherland. For him this was a really
| tough decision, since people who refused were criminalized and he
| would have faced jail if he returned to the country.
|
| He told me that whenever he went from Zurich to Vienna he took
| the train, which takes 9 - 12 hours compared to the flight, which
| takes roughly an hour.
|
| His reasoning was that if the plane, for whatever reason, is
| diverted to Bratislava he would be truely and royally fucked.
|
| At the time he told me the story I thought he was a bit paranoid.
| Looking at what happened in Belarus I'm no more so sure. And he
| was just a potential convict not a prominent disident.
|
| Thankfully he could return after the velvet revolution[2] and he
| now lives in Prague.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Pact_invasion_of_Czecho...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_Revolution
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Czechoslovak political emigrants quite often moved far away
| from the Iron Curtain (e.g. from Munich, Vienna to Britain,
| Canada, Australia) "just in case".
|
| StB (the secret police, a Czechoslovak equivalent of the
| better-known Stasi) definitely had capabilities to abduct
| someone, but the longer the way back, the more complicated the
| task was. They probably would not bother snatching you in
| Sydney. Vienna was tempting, though.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| In this case, though, the flight from Greece to Lithuania went
| directly over Belarus. If I were Roman Protasevich, I would
| definitely not want to fly in the airspace of the country that
| wanted to get me.
|
| There is no path from Zurich to Vienna that flies over Czech
| airspace. Furthermore, during the Cold War an act of a Warsaw
| Pact country hijacking a Nato country's plane over Nato
| airspace would have very likely led to something at least as
| bad as the Cuban Missile Crisis, if not WWIII.
| CaptainZapp wrote:
| Hijacking the plane was not really a tought. But what happens
| if Vienna airport needs to close its runways (say it's
| blocked by a broken plane or an accident) and the plane needs
| to be diverted?
|
| Bratislava is just 55km from Vienna. It's an obvious choice
| if the plane needs to divert to a different airport.
|
| It's not an unreasonable fear.
| dmix wrote:
| Reminds me of this story which had a great documentary but
| extremely sad ending of 7 young people trying to flee
| communist Georgia:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroflot_Flight_6833
|
| Here is the documentary by a local Georgian director that
| stuck in my head for a long time:
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0818087/
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUkluq8oPvY
|
| These were kids of the Georgian intelligentsia, including
| trained doctors, painters, and an actor, doing something
| naive and stupid (hijacking a plane to go to the nearest
| capitalist country). It turned out even the pilots were
| armed, shot at them, and turned the flight right back to
| Georgia.
|
| The head of local KGB then got Georgian soldiers to shoot
| up the plane "so it wouldn't leave", killing the pilots "by
| accident" and injuring innocent passengers. The plane was
| then raided by Soviet Alpha group (basically their US Delta
| Force).
|
| The communist leader of Georgia at the time wanted to make
| an example of them and gave death sentences, even despite
| their ages, except of course the one girl got 15yrs. The
| parents didn't find out they were executed by the state for
| five years (nor did the media obviously).
|
| The desire to leave the Iron Curtain countries lead to some
| crazy stories and near suicidal attempts. And these stories
| were quickly forgotten.
| Spare_account wrote:
| > _The communist leader of Georgia at the time wanted to
| make an example of them and gave death sentences, even
| despite their ages. The parents didn 't find out they
| were executed by the state for five years (nor did the
| media obviously)._
|
| These two sentences appear to contradict each other. Why
| would their executions be low-key if they were to be made
| examples of?
| tut-urut-utut wrote:
| And that's how you spot a made up story.
|
| Plus that Georgia as a country didn't exist back in the
| time of this dirty, and its ,,communist leader" was just
| a minor Soviet apparatchik, who couldn't make such
| decision on his own.
| canadianfella wrote:
| > except of course the one girl got 15yrs.
|
| Why of course?
| nradov wrote:
| Switzerland and Austria were not NATO members.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| There is no path from Zurich to Vienna that flies over Czech
| airspace, but Vienna is so close to Bratislava that (if there
| was a compelling need for it), a more intelligent adversary
| than the current Belarusian government could devise a plan to
| divert the plane onto Czechoslovak airspace and force it to
| land. Probably overly cautious to hedge against that
| possibility (just like it was not cautious enough on
| Pratasievich's part to take a flight that takes it over
| Belarus's airspace without any diversions). But I wouldn't
| fly out of Vienna if I were a prominent Czechoslovak emigre.
| A little too geographically close for comfort.
| Dah00n wrote:
| The plane was in Belarusian airspace so it isn't really
| comparable to "a Nato country's plane over Nato airspace" but
| if what happened in and around Cuba didn't start WW3 then a
| single plane diverted (and maybe a dissident or two
| kidnapped) would hardly register in the big picture. In fact
| several planes did get diverted and some even shot down
| during the Cold War and it rarely caused any further
| incidents.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Planes can be diverted for other reasons; serious failure of
| something on board, bomb scare at the destination airport
| (that is how the worst air disaster ever on Tenerife happened
| [0]), very bad weather over the destination etc.
|
| In that case, Bratislava would be a possible backup airport,
| especially if the plane did not have much fuel.
|
| For regular Western citizens, that would be just a slight
| annoyance, but anyone who escaped the Soviet Bloc without
| formally parting ways with their country of origin (that
| could be done, but not many people did, [1]) would be royally
| fucked. Several years of prison and eternal pariah status
| after discharge would follow. ( _No good jobs for you,
| traitor, go dig trenches, even if you are a doctor._ )
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconcilee
| anotheryou wrote:
| amateurs XD
| diimdeep wrote:
| IMHO regimes like in Belarus or Turkmenistan is so dysfunctional
| and live in delusional bubble, they generate quality comedy
| material for outside world, we don't need sketchy spy or
| political satire anymore, just read the news.
| dboreham wrote:
| > like in Belarus or Turkmenistan...delusional bubble
|
| Uhh...we don't need to look far geographically and only a few
| months back in time to see something similar closer to home.
| SignalNotSecure wrote:
| They aren't dysfunctional in the sense you imagine. Their state
| is fighting for survival in the face of foreign agents and
| interference. They are in a weak position to defend themselves
| so you see them lashing out in less subtle ways. Civilians are
| unfortunately caught in the crossfire.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Also, er, fighting for survival against its own people.
| SignalNotSecure wrote:
| Correct
| baybal2 wrote:
| > Civilians are unfortunately caught in the crossfire.
|
| Not a crossfire, but a very directed one. It's critical to
| such regimes to never let anything the West does happen
| without it hitting their own civilians.
|
| If the population see Western sanctions benefiting them, and
| visibly harming the regime, people will be ready to take
| bigger sacrifices, knowing that the regime will loose much
| more than they do.
|
| It is equally critical for the West to communicate loud, and
| clear to Belarusian people that they are doing those actions
| to support their resistance, and not just because they want
| to hit Lukasenka.
| odiroot wrote:
| It's not a comedy if you share a border with them, and EU does.
| NAG3LT wrote:
| It's tragicomedy. Their justifications are the comedy, while
| their attacks on people and operating a nuclear power plant
| so close to the border is the reason for worry.
| CaptainZapp wrote:
| While I don't disagree with you the key sentence is "outside
| world".
|
| If you happen to live in the "inside world" of such despicable
| excuses of human trash then the situation is rather less funny.
| diimdeep wrote:
| Political discussions is walking really thin line :)
|
| I meant to say, world outside of group of people behind the
| cogs of regime.
|
| > word regime originates as a synonym for any type of
| government, modern usage has given it a negative connotation,
| implying an authoritarian government or dictatorship.
|
| 'Inside world' would mean inside government. Outside world -
| civilians, even inside said countries.
| CaptainZapp wrote:
| I meant the entire country of Belarus with "inside world".
| And I hope you didn't get the impression that I'm dumping
| on you.
|
| Seeing Lukashenko in one of his ridiculous uniforms, for
| example, certainly is pure comedy. But if you're imprisoned
| by his thugs it's far less funny. That's what I meant to
| express.
| ibaikov wrote:
| del
| maratc wrote:
| I guess it needs to store your mails to show them to you. This
| includes your sent mails so protonmail can show them to you in
| your "sent" view.
| gcbirzan wrote:
| The claim is that they only store emails encrypted with a key
| for which they don't have the password.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| The content of the email may be encrypted, the metadata by
| definition cannot be. If the people orchestrating this
| "bomb threat" only sent out one or two emails, it's
| _trivial_ for the email hoster to check the send timestamps
| of these.
| gcbirzan wrote:
| Yeah, mentioned this in another commentm, at least SOME
| metadata is needed, in particular the date, so you know
| how to sort them. I see that you can search by sender for
| received messages (not a big proton user), so I guess it
| does store that unencrpyted as well
| DocTomoe wrote:
| Information on when an email is sent, transmitted, and received
| is part of the email header, which is shown in part by MUAs by
| default, the full transcript being shown by good MUAs on
| request.
| gcbirzan wrote:
| The logs of what emails were sent is probably stored by the
| email servers, as well as, probably, metadata about when emails
| were sent, if not to whom, is stored in the db unencrypted.
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