[Lord Dave]

There isn't enough information in that chat to save the target or stop the missiles. We basically just have a country and a time.

Holy fuck.... Is that really your argument?  They don't know specifically whose gonna be hit so it's useless information?

So if I were to say "I'm gonna kill one of your family members in one hour" you would say "welp, he didn't say who so no point in doing anything"?

This tells every one of them to move location.   Go somewhere else.  Run and hide.  Find a fortified area.  Man the radar.  Set up scouts to watch the skies.

Fucking hell, it even says one is coming from sea, which narrows the locations being hit.

An early warning of an attack is absolutely helpful, regardless of high big or small the possible targets are.

[Tom Bishop]

There isn't enough information in that chat to save the target or stop the missiles. We basically just have a country and a time.

Holy fuck.... Is that really your argument?  They don't know specifically whose gonna be hit so it's useless information?

So if I were to say "I'm gonna kill one of your family members in one hour" you would say "welp, he didn't say who so no point in doing anything"?

This tells every one of them to move location.   Go somewhere else.  Run and hide.  Find a fortified area.  Man the radar.  Set up scouts to watch the skies.

Fucking hell, it even says one is coming from sea, which narrows the locations being hit.

An early warning of an attack is absolutely helpful, regardless of high big or small the possible targets are.

Trump had already recently announced specifically that he was attacking them. They were already "watching the skies" on high alert. The only thing we have new here is a specific time within a couple of hours that an unknown person, somewhere, was going to be blown up.

I suppose it is theoretically possible that the enemy had pagers or a group chat where they could instantly tell their thousands of people, including missile engineers (which this apparently targeted), to duck and cover in a safe room at moment notice.

The likelihood of them having a spy in the Signal chatroom was low, however, and would only result in the Yemen spies who we found out post-bombing were following the missile engineer to his girlfriend's apartment building, to instead follow the target to the secret rebel bunker for additional bunker-blaster kill points.

[Action80]

Just a question? Did the attack work?

Just askin...

Karoline Leavitt explains during her press conference today.



Seems the attack came off without a hitch.

[DuncanDoenitz]

Despite contaminating these hallowed pages with my presence for the last few years, I'm not really very social-media-savvy; I only participate in one other forum (it's profession-related) and I don't text much.  I only say this in the hope that you'll forgive my naivity if this is already circulating. 

Apparently there's a thing called sane-washing.  It's when acolytes and disciples of a Guru or "Influencer" feel obliged to excuse His actions, behaviour and messaging, by explaining and rationalising to the wider public, either in press releases or by use of social media.  The more odd the Principal's behaviour, the more bizarre the rationalisation. 

Of course to be on-message and before beginning the apologist behaviour (whether they consciously acknowledge the fact or not) the acolytes have to understand what is happening, what is being said, and come to terms with the fact that the Guru is actually behaving and acting like a complete fuck-wit. 

[Action80]

Hopefully, the process of sane-washing can clearly be discussed during a prayer meeting in the UK.

Seems serious.

[honk]

Despite contaminating these hallowed pages with my presence for the last few years, I'm not really very social-media-savvy; I only participate in one other forum (it's profession-related) and I don't text much.  I only say this in the hope that you'll forgive my naivity if this is already circulating. 

Apparently there's a thing called sane-washing.  It's when acolytes and disciples of a Guru or "Influencer" feel obliged to excuse His actions, behaviour and messaging, by explaining and rationalising to the wider public, either in press releases or by use of social media.  The more odd the Principal's behaviour, the more bizarre the rationalisation. 

Of course to be on-message and before beginning the apologist behaviour (whether they consciously acknowledge the fact or not) the acolytes have to understand what is happening, what is being said, and come to terms with the fact that the Guru is actually behaving and acting like a complete fuck-wit.

I would expect nothing less from an acolyte or disciple than to try and excuse their hero's words and actions. The real culprits when it comes to sanewashing Trump are the media, because they're lying down on their job. There's of course no way to know for sure, but I think it's very likely that many of the swing voters who went for Trump this time around because of a very superficial, surface-level appreciation of Trump being a straight-talking businessman who doesn't seem to be like other politicians might have changed their minds if the media had honestly presented the many occasions of Trump spewing deranged bullshit as just that, rather than dressing it up with "Trump expresses concerns about..." headlines. The media has a big problem with both-sides false equivalencies, and they seem to be deeply uncomfortable with the fact that one side of the political aisle is normal (not ideal, or even necessarily good, just normal) while the other is off-the-wall out of their minds, so they're trying to "normalize" the discrepancy in their reporting.

[AATW]

Seems the attack came off without a hitch.

I walked across a busy road blindfolded.
I didn’t get hit.
Therefore crossing busy roads blindfolded is a good and safe idea.

That’s how stupid you sound.

[AATW]

Holy fuck.... Is that really your argument?

He doesn’t have an argument.
He’s either trolling or mental, either way it’s not worth engaging with. We all know how Tom would be reacting had this happened under Biden.

[Tom Bishop]

Seems the attack came off without a hitch.

I walked across a busy road blindfolded.
I didn’t get hit.
Therefore crossing busy roads blindfolded is a good and safe idea.

That’s how stupid you sound.

Considering that this organization is many generations behind in technology than the US, and with far less resources, it's more like walking blindfolded across a road of mice. It is possible that your ankles will be bit and suffer some small annoyance, but you have a rabies shot and a flame thrower to easily annihilate them otherwise.

In essence, you are bawwing to us about irrelevancies related to Pete Hegseth's war against mice. This is an incredibly weak opponent and there is little that could have gone wrong to cause a coherent loss to America in this. It is part of the job of the Secretary of Defense to weigh operational risks, and communicating out vague "war plans" to his superiors on a non-classified but government approved encrypted application was within tolerances.

[Lord Dave]

There isn't enough information in that chat to save the target or stop the missiles. We basically just have a country and a time.

Holy fuck.... Is that really your argument?  They don't know specifically whose gonna be hit so it's useless information?

So if I were to say "I'm gonna kill one of your family members in one hour" you would say "welp, he didn't say who so no point in doing anything"?

This tells every one of them to move location.   Go somewhere else.  Run and hide.  Find a fortified area.  Man the radar.  Set up scouts to watch the skies.

Fucking hell, it even says one is coming from sea, which narrows the locations being hit.

An early warning of an attack is absolutely helpful, regardless of high big or small the possible targets are.

Trump had already recently announced specifically that he was attacking them. They were already "watching the skies" on high alert. The only thing we have new here is a specific time within a couple of hours that an unknown person, somewhere, was going to be blown up.

I suppose it is theoretically possible that the enemy had pagers or a group chat where they could instantly tell their thousands of people, including missile engineers (which this apparently targeted), to duck and cover in a safe room at moment notice.

The likelihood of them having a spy in the Signal chatroom was low, however, and would only result in the Yemen spies who we found out post-bombing were following the missile engineer to his girlfriend's apartment building, to instead follow the target to the secret rebel bunker for additional bunker blaster kill points.

There's a load of difference between "An attack could come at any minute" to "An attack is comming in an hour."

"Theoretically possible"?  What era do you live in?  Using nothing but free software, I could alert thousands of people and have it ping their phones instantly.  Facebook.  Tik Tok.  Discord.  Email.  Teams.

As for the liklihood of having a spy in the chat room...
1. The idiot invited in an unknown number.  Which no one else noticed.  He didn't even ask "who is this?" just invited in without thinking.  So getting someone like that to invite you in via social engineering is not going to be hard.

2. You don't always need to be a member to get all the chat data.  Signal, like everything else, can be hacked.  Or broken into.  Or you get the login for admin access to the database and just read the chatroom from the servers.

Seems the attack came off without a hitch.

I walked across a busy road blindfolded.
I didn’t get hit.
Therefore crossing busy roads blindfolded is a good and safe idea.

That’s how stupid you sound.

Considering that this organization is many generations behind in technology than the US, and with far less resources, it's more like walking blindfolded across a road of mice. It is possible that your ankles will be bit and suffer some small annoyance, but you have a rabies shot and a flame thrower to easily annihilate them otherwise.

In essence, you are bawwing to us about irrelevancies related to Pete Hegseth's war against mice. This is an incredibly weak opponent and there is little that could have gone wrong to cause a coherent loss to America in this. It is part of the job of the Secretary of Defense to weigh operational risks, and communicating out vague "war plans" to his superiors on a non-classified but government approved encrypted application was within tolerances.

This is... really really stupid.  You did read how they said that their weapons are so top of the line that the European navy couldn't handle it, yes?  Funded by Iran?  What, you think Iran isn't going to give them cell phones?  You think Yemon has no internet or cell towers?

[Tom Bishop]

This is... really really stupid.  You did read how they said that their weapons are so top of the line that the European navy couldn't handle it, yes?  Funded by Iran?  What, you think Iran isn't going to give them cell phones?  You think Yemon has no internet or cell towers?

Using the technology of others doesn't make you powerful. Did they invent and manufacture the cell phones? If not, then it means that they can be hacked and tracked. The US is a rich and major super power on a level far above all other powers, and has poured trillions to be the top in technology and reconnaissance to make the existence of those cell phones meaningless, and even work against them.

There could be a secret law or regulation to put special chips into computers and cell phones which the US obligates western tech companies to implement, even extending to foreign countries and partners with the right pressures, for example. If there is a chip company outside of its vast influence, the intelligence agencies can simply use their dirty tricks to ensure that they fail.

The above is speculation of their tactics, but it is unquestionable that they have a similar grasp of technology, as evidenced by the Snowden leaks which give an insight into this. There is nearly zero comparison between the USA and the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Per the European Navy's difficulty with them, the key phrase there is European Navy.

[AATW]

In essence, you are bawwing to us about.

I'm now bawwing at all. I'm laughing loudly, as is the whole world, at how incompetent your government is.
It's OK, dude. Trump has said that it sounds like someone screwed up. Rubio has said someone made a big mistake.
You don't have to pretend this is all OK, your cult leader has given you permission to acknowledge it was a mistake.

[DuncanDoenitz]

You've gone out on the occasional limb before now, Tom, but isn't there just a single, niggling neuron in your head at the moment which is saying "This is a really dumb thing to double-down on"? 

Everyone knows that USA is the single most powerful ..... (yadah, yadah yadah)...  and so forth, but Iran is no slouch.  Despite blockades they continue to supply the Houthis with cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, drones, comms, intelligence and cash.  You seem to be suggesting that because Yemen doesn't make cell-phones that they are incapable of being provide intel by a third party.  How about they get phones from Russia, or China.  Or Iran.  Just a second, email coming in from Kim Jong Un.   

[AATW]

This is fine. Nothing to see here. Move along, everyone

[AATW]

You've gone out on the occasional limb before now, Tom, but isn't there just a single, niggling neuron in your head at the moment which is saying "This is a really dumb thing to double-down on"?

There is no universe in which Tom or anyone else thinks this is OK.
But watching him squirming around trying to pretend it's all fine is quite entertaining.

[Tom Bishop]

You've gone out on the occasional limb before now, Tom, but isn't there just a single, niggling neuron in your head at the moment which is saying "This is a really dumb thing to double-down on"? 

Everyone knows that USA is the single most powerful ..... (yadah, yadah yadah)...  and so forth, but Iran is no slouch.  Despite blockades they continue to supply the Houthis with cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, drones, comms, intelligence and cash.  You seem to be suggesting that because Yemen doesn't make cell-phones that they are incapable of being provide intel by a third party.  How about they get phones from Russia, or China.  Or Iran.  Just a second, email coming in from Kim Jong Un.

Neither Russia, China, or Iran invented the internet or the cell phone, or low level chip design. That was done by the US Government, who purposely pushed its development and and design at the direction of think tanks and visionaries, under consistent government funding and guidance. For decades the US Government funded Bell Labs, Arpanet, IBM, Intel, Apple, and many other tech progeny. If you think that they didn't think to put in exploitable back doors at every corner with plausible deniability, designed to propagate down to manufacturers, you would be wrong. Deceitful tacticians and spies is simply who they are.

From purposefully imperfect random number generators for encryption, to special hardware, special software routines, to compromised telecommunications hubs, the countries of the world have paid the US Government through its companies and foreign subsidiaries to integrate and maintain back doors into the world. Snowden says that the US Government has access to vast foreign and domestic data that is supposed to be private and encrypted, and that people are often fooled into a false sense of security.

I cannot readily proclaim what technologies Iran has contributed to the world, so I wouldn't expect them to have a similar exploitation of technology. The letters NSA and CIA are universally feared and respected. The intelligence capability of the USA is the goat beyond goats. All other countries fall in line and cower before its greatness.

[garygreen]

"we are currently clean on opsec" literal lol, fucking idiots.

super looking forward to tom's pathetic equivocations on how gabbard and ratcliffe didn't just straight up lie to congress.

[Lord Dave]

This is... really really stupid.  You did read how they said that their weapons are so top of the line that the European navy couldn't handle it, yes?  Funded by Iran?  What, you think Iran isn't going to give them cell phones?  You think Yemon has no internet or cell towers?

Using the technology of others doesn't make you powerful. Did they invent and manufacture the cell phones? If not, then it means that they can be hacked and tracked. The US is a rich and major super power on a level far above all other powers, and has poured trillions to be the top in technology and reconnaissance to make the existence of those cell phones meaningless, and even work against them.

There could be a secret law or regulation to put special chips into computers and cell phones which the US obligates western companies to implement, even extending to foreign countries and partners with the right pressures, for example. If there is a chip company outside of its vast influence, the intelligence agencies can simply use their dirty tricks to ensure that they fail.

The above is speculation of their tactics, but it is unquestionable that they have a similar grasp of technology, as evidenced by the Snowden leaks which give an insight into this. There is nearly zero comparison between the USA and the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Does big state actors have access to technology and skills beyond smaller ones?  Yes.  Iran, China, Russa, the US. 
But you know what I am?  I'm an IT person.  Yes, they could have put in a backdoor into chips if said chip maker allows it. But know what that means? Means your phone has it too.  And there are people all across the world who make it their life mission to find these backdoors. 

But even if they do exist, even if such a backdoor exists... that means they're hackable to everyone else too.  Back doors open for everyone, not just whoever made them.


Also... you do know that China makes their own stuff, right?

[Tom Bishop]

But you know what I am?  I'm an IT person.  Yes, they could have put in a backdoor into chips if said chip maker allows it. But know what that means? Means your phone has it too.

My phone company freely admits that they work with the intelligence agencies. Leaked documents have revealed a "highly collaborative" and "extreme willingness to help" relationship.

And there are people all across the world who make it their life mission to find these backdoors.

That's an easy one. Plausible deniability, programmer/manufacturer defect. Tell your stooges to get smarter about it next time.

But even if they do exist, even if such a backdoor exists... that means they're hackable to everyone else too.  Back doors open for everyone, not just whoever made them.

They likely have thought of that. Ever heard of password protection? You could simply have the system respond to a specific signal or pattern. Even Trojan Horse server software found on the dark web employ passwords in their clients to prevent control by others.

Also... you do know that China makes their own stuff, right?

You're talking about Chinese manufacturers. They are making the technology from templates they got somewhere. They did not invent the templates and fundamentals. They did not invent telecommunication protocols, C Language, standard libraries, hardware random number generators, fundamental silicon components, all of which could potentially have hidden flaws perpetuated from its progeny. All of that technology and software has fundamental American design and code in it from its birthplace of the US and the Silicon Valley.

[markjo]

There is nearly zero comparison between the USA and the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Yeah, that's what the USA thought when they went into Viet Nam, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.