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Title: Former senator, engineers offer ‘proof’ of 9/11 controlled demolitions
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URL Source: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/09/ ... rs-911-controlled-demolitions/
Published: Sep 10, 2010
Author: Raw Story
Post Date: 2010-09-10 10:43:08 by Ada
Keywords: None
Views: 14750
Comments: 259
The nine-year-old body of 9/11 conspiracy theories includes many improbable (and sometimes contradictory) claims, everything from remote-controlled planes flying into the World Trade Center, to a missile hitting the Pentagon, to mass kidnappings of air passengers. But a group of more than 1,200 architects and engineers is building what it hopes is a scientifically sound argument about one 9/11 claim: That the World Trade Center buildings were destroyed not by fires caused by the airplane collisions, but by a controlled demolition. At a press conference in Washington DC, Thursday, the group Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth offered evidence "that all three WTC skyscrapers on September 11, 2001, in NYC were destroyed by explosive controlled demolition." The third building the group referred to was World Trade Center 7, a skyscraper that collapsed about eight hours after the main WTC towers fell. For many 9/11 "truthers," WTC7's collapse despite not being hit by a plane is the "smoking gun" proving that something other than airplanes brought down the towers. The WTC7 collapse was not addressed in the official 9/11 Commission report. "That building fell completely into its own footprint," blogger Andrew Steele told WKTV in Utica. "You can watch on YouTube yourself and use your own common sense. Even if you don't have a scientific background ... if you have two eyes, you can see that fire alone did not bring down that building." His claims, and those of the 1,270 architects and engineers who have signed on to the effort, were bolstered by the support of former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel, who said in a press release that "critically important evidence has come forward after the original government building reports were completed." Gravel has been concerned with the events of September 11, 2001, for some time now. He has called for an independent investigation into 9/11. "Unlike the first investigation, this commission should be granted subpoena power and full access to all governmental files and personnel," Gravel wrote. "George Bush should be forced to testify ALONE." San Francisco architect Richard Gage said the way the towers collapsed was consistent with a controlled demolition, not a chaotic structural collapse. "The official FEMA and NIST reports provide insufficient, contradictory, and fraudulent accounts of the circumstances of the towers' destruction," Gage said. "We are therefore calling for a grand jury investigation of NIST officials." But Gage added that "government investigators at the NIST have been forced to acknowledge the free-fall descent, an indicting fact, after being presented with analysis by AE911Truth petition signers." On its Web site, the architects' and engineers' group lists facts that suggest explosives were used to take down the towers. -- Rapid onset of "collapse" -- Sounds of explosions at ground floor - a second before the building's destruction -- Symmetrical "structural failure" -- through the path of greatest resistance -- at free-fall acceleration -- Massive volume of expanding pyroclastic dust clouds -- Expert corroboration from the top European Controlled Demolition professional -- FEMA finds rapid oxidation and intergranular melting on structural steel samples WTC7 exhibited none of the characteristics of destruction by fire, i.e. -- Slow onset with large visible deformations -- Asymmetrical collapse which follows the path of least resistance (laws of conservation of momentum would cause a falling, to the side most damaged by the fires) -- High-rise buildings with much larger, hotter, and longer lasting fires have never "collapsed". Debunking9/11, a Web site devoted to disproving the claims of 9/11 "truthers," argues that no aircraft was needed to bring down WTC7, because "while building 7 wasn't hit by an airliner, it was hit by the large perimeter columns of the Tower collapse. It was 400 ft away but the towers were more than 1300 ft tall. As the tower peeled open, it easily tilted over to reach building 7." "Truthers" and debunkers have been arguing for years over whether the scant photographic evidence of WTC7's south side after the main towers' collapse shows enough damage to justify the building's collapse. "All the buildings just as far away from both towers as WTC7 were hit," Debunking9/11 asserts. "The others were either very short buildings which didn't have to support a massive load above or had no fire. Only Building 7 had unfought fires and the massive load of 40 stories above them." "Justice for all." What's wrong with calling for a transparent, internationally-supported investigation? I want to know what happened that day to all of those buildings, and I want the chain of events that happened up to their collapse. Don't care how ugly the truth is, I just want to know. Why is asking for an independent investigation so bad? I'm not an engineering expert, but ALL of the buildings collapsing (WTC 1, 2, 7) look just like every other controlled demolition video I've seen from around the world. The pieces of the day's events (NORAD, Bin Laden's family being sent out, etc) don't fit together right. It just smells fishy. Who got fired for not doing their job? Who went to jail for criminal negligence? People of authority responding "nothing to see here, move along" aren't helping convince me that what we're being told is the truth. I just want to see Justice. Isn't wanting "Justice for all" patriotic?
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#116. To: TooConservative (#112)
More than likely the FMS (Flight Management Computer) is servicable from an access panel, but needs special cables tied into a test set in order to set it to maintenance mode in order to reflash the EPROMS. I highly doubt the scenario, since I don't think it's possible to reset the FMS or reprogram it while in flight.
No, an aircraft of the size and wingspan of a large airliner most certainly COULD NOT fly that low to the ground at that high of a speed and DESCEND. It would CLIMB, not DESCEND.
They wouldn't be experts or hackers. They would be carrying a preprogrammed hacking device (laptop, cellphone, calculator, iPod or even a small unclad circuit board). You could always suborn ground crew at the originating terminals to hack the flight computer and autopilot at the airport before departure. I tend to think that you would want a jihadi with very rudimentary piloting skills to steer to a really large alternative target if the hacked autopilot couldn't get the job done. This is important because you would know that security would get much tighter following an attack and you would not get such an easy chance at such an attack ever again.
No need to do so if the actual planes struck their targets, since everything could be done by remote control. It's possible however that certain assets onboard the aircraft donned masks on cue, and flew the aircraft to remote locations, disposing of the passengers, if OTHER aircraft actually hit those targets.
I'm talking about the people behind the attacks. Why bother with crazy arabs if you can do it with a chip? The level of sophistation required is well beyond simple hacking of a iPod or other such device. In order to hack something, you need the real thing available in order to even attempt to find a way to hack it. I doubt they had 757's sitting on the ground at their disposal, well, not those 19 "angry arabs" at least.
Strangely enough, I believe that airliners fly that close to the ground every day. As we write, I expect a dozen or more airliners around the world are flying exactly that close to the ground without climbing. This is commonly known as "landing the aircraft". Somehow we really see this in fundamentally different ways. I believe that aircraft actually land on a routine basis. You guys do know that we gave up fly-by-wire a while back, that these are all electronic computerized systems that control the flight surfaces? Hell, even your car has computer controlled braking systems and your car throttle is a computer system. Fly-by-wire is getting to be a dated concept even in $20,000 cars.
Is the UK the "third world"?
"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brush fires of freedom in the minds of men." -- Samuel Adams (1722-1803)‡
This is commonly known as "landing the aircraft". Strangely enough, airliners don't land at 500 mph (which is their cruising speed at 35,000 feet). They land at about 150 to 185 mph.
The US government (or factions thereof) doesn't need physical bodies onboard an aircraft in order to fly it remotely, as can be witnessed by the existance of drones.
There IS no evidence that a 757 hit the Pentagon. Did the wings disappear by magic? Did "Allah" make them disappear, and make the fuel disappear as well since there were no external fires where the fuel would have splattered all over the Pentagon walls?
You need a rudimentary backup in case your hacking and programming proves inadequate in practice because you'll never again get such a good chance to attack this easily. I would be very surprised if you had 1024-bit (or greater) encryption methods and hardware protection of these systems. Industrial systems are never as state of the art as even a PS3 or Xbox or some cellphones. This is why members of Congress routinely refer to the dangers of computer systems being hacked, because these systems are often wide open. They are hackable. No box can be built that is unhackable. Period. When we start doing location-based quantum encryption, maybe we can get away from that but at present no system is totally secure. There is only "more secure" and "less secure". The rest is just applying enough brainpower and resources. It wouldn't even be very expensive to do this actually. You wouldn't need anything like that. You would only need to take an autopilot or have complete specs of it and a copy of the OS and a compatible hardware system to test it on. You'd have to fake up a set of programmable sensor inputs and such for testing the rig. Then it's just programming. If you could obtain circuit boards that were replaced by an incrementally newer version, you could easily use that as a basis for formulating an electronic attack on a new system. These kinds of industrial systems are very rarely rebuilt from the ground up; they are incrementally revised and they use fairly standard parts. Even if they use the security features in certain microcontrollers to hide their code and such, there are well-known methods using ordinary electron microscopes and lab equipment to strip away the outside of chips and read the chips' internal circuitry directly, leading to discovery of vulnerabilities, many of which are unknown to the designers of the system. Unless you make the security of the system your first and foremost and obsessive objective, you cannot hope to withstand attacks by bright engineers and hackers with equipment easily obtained for less than $25 million (I include that number for a nice high-end lab equipped for complete reverse-engineering). And, yes, you could easily build it in a cave. Recruiting the talent for such a project is probably more challenging than building the lab or getting access to specs and software for the flight systems.
True. But those cellphone conversations would be hard to fake and are a vital part of the propaganda attack on the citizens, aren't they? They could have brought a small diathermy generator onboard to jam all the cellphones. Not that hard to do and not even illegal. Yet they did not. You have to conclude that They considered it irrelevant or that they actually desired to have those cellphone calls made on the record to help maximize the propaganda value. Terrorism always has a purpose. You have to change the way people think, how they react, perhaps most important: alter their first response in the future. You should never overlook the element of mind control in terrorism. You have to condition the mental and emotional responses of the target population. This is the fundamental political objective. And this is true whether you think that "They" are 1) Mossad, 2) CIA, 3) Arab terrorists. The goal of terrorism must be constant.
You need to understand the architecture, and have intimate knowledge of the control systems. It's not something a guy living in a cave would be able to do.
The "autopilot" is essentially the heart of the Flight Management System and ties navigational inputs and flight data systems into a sophisticated AI program which sends digital and analog outputs to control systems throughout the aircraft. It's certainly not an iPod, and well beyond anything someone could hack in their cave or even their well equipped garage.
Even the FBI admitted that the cell phone calls to Solicitor Olson never occured. There was one connection attempt, with a call duration of 0 seconds. Even IF some of those calls were actually made, it is quite easy these days for a particular person's voice to be synthesized from somebody else's. It's also possible that those making the calls, the actual passengers involved, were part of the plot. It's also possible that those REPORTING the calls are lying. Fact is, cellphone calls made from an aircraft at cruising altitude back then were virtually impossible. The factors include the confusion between towers as to which one should handle the call (since an aircraft at altitude would reach more than one from the same relative distance), and the very quick transition from one tower's coverage into another's.
You have to look at who benefits, and who doesn't. It's not hard to see who DID benefit, and they certainly weren't Afghani tribesmen living off goat milk and poppies.
If your angle of descent is programmed and you have full control of air control surfaces via computer and can respond in milliseconds to the instruments, yes, you can hit the ground exactly that way. The flight control program would use GPS and a programmed descent path so that the aircraft hit the ground and the building. If you are coming in at 500mph at even a modest incline, the ground effects cannot force you back up into the air because of inertia. I find this particular item of Truth especially annoying. Believe me, you cannot simply pose arguments that end up along the lines of irresistable-force-meets-immovable-object. It really doesn't work that way in the real world; ask any engineer. If the plane is in a basic approach pattern but programmed to touch down exactly at the outside edge of the building, the speed and inertia of that huge-ass aircraft would overcome the ground effect that would try to rebuff the plane back up further from the ground. So it might rebuff the aircraft except that it hit and devastated the Pentagon before the ground effect could force it back into the air. This argument does overcome the need for a human pilot to fly an airliner below treetop level for a mile or more at 500mph. I would expect an autopilot controlling the flight would make much more sense since no pilot training program would ever try to teach even airline pilots how to fly such a big plane so fast so near the ground. You would almost have to have it under computer control or have an insanely expert and daring pilot. Ah, well, maybe I do have my own cranky little Truth going here, eh? I'm gonna go slumming for election news elsewhere. Enough Truth for one day.
I find the evidence for those calls lacking and his own accounts kept shifting, making me think he was an incredibly overrated attorney or he would grasp the importance of a credible and unvarying account. I think he made it up for whatever reason, most likely vanity. I never liked or trusted him at all, even prior to 9/11. And his recent gay-marriage case just confirms how dishonest I consider him to be. I'm willing to accept some of the calls were made on the NYC planes. I don't find the cellphone calls make or break the case for or against the gooberment account of 9/11. As I said, there is a distinct propaganda value to be achieved by allowing this kind of personalized account, something that grips people emotionally. It is, for instance, far more psychologically effective than just blowing up a building with explosives. It creates a much more dramatic and participative drama for the target population. You have to think about what They (whoever they are) were trying to accomplish, what terrorism will always seek to accomplish if it is rationally conceived as a political tactic.
If your angle of descent is programmed and you have full control of air control surfaces via computer and can respond in milliseconds to the instruments, yes, you can hit the ground exactly that way. Prove it. Show me the math and the physics. Why go through this elaborate side show with Hanjour at various flight schools, pretending he could fly a plane? The fact is, you apparently fail to understand the complexity of programming such a feat for ONE aircraft, never mind FIVE separate aircraft. If anything, the most sophistication involved was a complete takeover of the flight systems by a remote operations center, with a human pilot actually flying the aircraft remotely, as is currently done with drones. Cruise missiles CAN be programmed to hit their targets on their own, but their flight systems are a LOT less complicated than that of an airliner's. What it involves is a 3D map of the actual terrain, and the required altitude and course to fly to hit that target. The 9/11 aircraft did not hug the ground as a cruise missle would have to do, they flew like normal aircraft till they approached their desinations, THEN flew relatively low to the ground (the Pentagon aircraft flew at treetop level on it's approach). Do you seriously believe "terrorists" using boxcutters to subdue the crew and passengers would have that degree of sophistication, where the actual flight was controlled by hacked software at a level of complexity equal to or beyond that of which is available to the US government?
Thing is, for the plane to descend it would have to lose airspeed, yet it increased airspeed at the beginning of the approach while maintaining the same relative altitude, then somehow descended without losing airspeed or pointing the nose down. That's pretty much impossible for an airliner, but not impossible for a cruise missile painted to LOOK like an airliner.
What if you have suborned some Muzzie aircraft technicians, computer science whizzes and a few aerospace engineers? No, nothing is unhackable. I could, for instance, describe to you the integrated operation of some ordinary security interlock systems for routine satellite reception, something that has to resist serious hacking attempts. One that I was familiar with was the old dual-tuner Dtivo units. These had a PowerPC CPU, two independent programmable (and hackable) tuner chips, and a programmable MPEG decoder chip. These interlocked with the control card (HU series) which was a reflashable CPU which included features to fuse certain parts of the circuitry permanently if they desired to defeat attacks on it. Yet, I assure you this system was utterly hacked over and over. I myself worked on finding the ZKT check code from the PowerPC chip and disabling it. Ultimately, we never fully penetrated it and never did discover the Magic Number (commonly a prime number thousands of digits long, an expensive proprietary number which was embedded in the security card at the circuit level). Yet we all knew that the security system could be utterly defeated and every secret found if we ever got that number. And we knew how to do it but no one had the lab for it. Still, the unit was hacked to death despite its fundamental security remaining locked. In the original Xbox, you had signed code and an encrypted BIOS with 1024-bit encryption. Much as with the recent PS3 attacks, you simply find ways to seize control of the bus and induce buffer overruns at boot time. Once you have seized control, you can generally allow all the security mechanisms to keep running but since you are already in control, you can neuter them pretty easily. There is no such thing as unhackable. I tend to believe that anything that can ever be built can and will be hacked. But that is an article of faith, not something I can prove. It's not generally recognized but these security systems actually train people for all kinds of hacking. The list of hacked and hackable devices is quite long. As hundreds of thousands of people become technically familiar with how to hack an iPhone or a PS3 or an Xbox360, these techniques can be readily applied by competent technicians to attack almost any system, probably up to an including nuclear weapons safety interlock devices. No black box is safe from a curious persistent mind with some decent equipment.
You can keep repeating this but I don't believe you can prove it. Tell me, if you have an airliner at 20,000 feet and your pilot points the nose downward at the ground, you will hit the ground, won't you? Let's say you pin the plane into a nosedive. We can agree that you will hit the ground, there once you are below a certain altitude, say 4000-5000 feet, there is no chance you can pull out because the inertia is too great. So would it work the same if you only aimed at the ground with a 45-degree approach angle. Yes. But you could pull out of the dive a little longer. Same applies at 20-degree angle. Or 10 or 5. The real problem I have with this is that denying an airliner can hit a building in this way relies on the removal of inertia as a factor. And I do demand that Truthers aren't allowed to repeal the fundamental laws of physics. Next thing you know, they'll toss entropy on the bonfire and the whole universe will go poof. LOL. Now I am going to go follow the elections. So don't leave me 5,000 posts to catch up with.
No real election coverage yet except an unprecedented GOP turnout in Delaware. Normally, a GOP election in DE is about 20 depressed Republicans who turn out to determine who gets to lose to the Democrat (a moron like Biden). The huge turnout may indicate Dems who registered GOP to vote O'Donnell or may represent Republicans fed up with the state GOP or Republicans determined to get rid of Castle. Or all of the above. They have to stop the scammers and con-men and attention whores (and, likely, agentes provocateurs) from discrediting them with the public.
That is another piece that doesn't fit. Silverstein was bright enough, and savvy enough, as a real estate investor to not take on those two White Elephants to begin with. While he may not have been exactly in the know he was likely directed to buy the leases. Probably because he is a Sayanim. And a couple billion in insurance money buys a lot of silence. Having Silverstein take it over gets the government employees out of there and his people in. This provides easier access and people who are easier to shut up, and won't be as noticeable if they have to be given a complete "shut up".
"One of the least understood strategies of the world revolution now moving rapidly toward its goal is the use of mind control as a major means of obtaining the consent of the people who will be subjects of the New World Order." K.M. Heaton, The National Educator
Where's that tin can?
FormerLurker: There IS no evidence that a 757 hit the Pentagon. Did the wings disappear by magic? Did "Allah" make them disappear, and make the fuel disappear as well since there were no external fires where the fuel would have splattered all over the Pentagon walls? I'm going to guess that the wings folded up to shield the nose of the aircraft prior to impact there. This theory is based on my firsthand experience as a pretend plane from time to time during childhood, even though I wasn't powered by jet fuel and not much concerned about ground effects unless I ran into something in my flightpath unexpectedly. If I was going to dive backwards onto the sofa (not the Status Of Forces Agreement kind of SOFA, but the couch) such as the alleged plane at Shanksville, my "wings"/arms might fold down and in towards my side but if I was going to land face-first like the alleged plane at the Pentagon, I would be more apt to move them forward and up to cover my nose and eyes. While this is a true story, I am of course not seriously suggesting that real planes would act so. This short detour should in no way reflect negatively on other Truthers. I just figured if TooCon could go to such lengths to spell out remote control as PS3 and XBox and cellphones and X numbers of alleged Muzzie aircraft technicians without so much as addressing counter remote control measures available to our Military like F-16s and AWACS and EMP devices, why not use Game Theory to try to explain the wing anomaly at the Pentagon somehow. I thought it sounded funner than waiting much longer for TC to get to the F-16/AWACS/EMP type complexities of remote control counter- measure risks to the alleged hijackers of the Official spin.
------- "They're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time." -- Col. Puller, USMC
i've grown rather fond of the olde man. i'm stuck with him or he's stuck with me. ;P
Don't confuse us with the Official Conspiracy crowd. They're the ones who have been trying to repeal the fundamental laws of physics. Quick, tell us your theory of why WTC 7 fell. We're not getting any younger and neither is the universe just because you want to keep us all in suspense about that.
------- "They're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time." -- Col. Puller, USMC
Sure, but at least you can tie a can to his tail for trying to incite a riot on another 9/11 thread?
Which thread was that, wud? Maybe I could tie a can or two to his tail for doing that. Two cans with a string connecting them could even be used as an improvised phoneline if he'd like but I think it would be more entertaining to put two-sided tape on his paws and watch him dance around to shake it off.
------- "They're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time." -- Col. Puller, USMC
By "another 9/11 thread" I meant this one, but I was totally kidding.
Believe it or not loser, the laws of Physics don't obey the Talmudic Jews. You are such a waste of time.
God is always good!
Ricky. He's going to follow the Elections. You're wasting your time. Like throwing pearls to swine. Check out the link at my tagline.
I do think no plane hit the Pentagon, but I can't agree about the twin towers. Yes, the news media did fake footage from that day, but IMO they did so not because there were no planes that hit the buildings, but because the planes that hit them were not the ones they said that hit them, but rather military planes.
God is always good!
Aluminum military planes?
While he may not have been exactly in the know he was likely directed to buy the leases. Probably because he is a Sayanim. And a couple billion in insurance money buys a lot of silence. A teacher's union oddly turned up in searches for insurance on the WTC towers but I'm still trying to figure out how he could insure leased properties for so much. If they had been leased cars, I would think the owner of them would get paid the big bucks, not a leaseholder. He owned WTC 7 but the Port Authority owned the other buildings.
------- "They're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time." -- Col. Puller, USMC
You can keep repeating this but I don't believe you can prove it. I'm repeating the reported flight characteristics of the alleged hijacked aircraft. What part of it don't you understand or comprehend? Tell me, if you have an airliner at 20,000 feet and your pilot points the nose downward at the ground, you will hit the ground, won't you? Yeah sure, so what? That's not what happened at the Pentagon on 9/11. Let's say you pin the plane into a nosedive. We can agree that you will hit the ground, there once you are below a certain altitude, say 4000-5000 feet, there is no chance you can pull out because the inertia is too great. Again, so what? Nothing to do with what we're talking about. So would it work the same if you only aimed at the ground with a 45-degree approach angle. Yes. But you could pull out of the dive a little longer. So what? Same applies at 20-degree angle. Or 10 or 5. Now you're getting ridiculous. The real problem I have with this is that denying an airliner can hit a building in this way relies on the removal of inertia as a factor. And I do demand that Truthers aren't allowed to repeal the fundamental laws of physics. Next thing you know, they'll toss entropy on the bonfire and the whole universe will go poof. LOL. Now you've gone from ridiculous to hypocritical. First off, the aircraft which is alleged to have been Flight 77 (NOBODY can tell for sure since the transponder was off and they only picked up the radar return after having somehow lost it completely from radar between Ohio and Washington), performed a sharp descending turn which many at Dulles Air Traffic Control assumed was a military aircraft by the way it manuevered. It turned AWAY from the side of the Pentagon where the high value targets were (such as Rumsfeld's office), where it could have easily DOVE into the Pentagon and exploded all over the roof, spreading flaming fuel over a good portion of the complex. It would have been INFINITELY easier to simply dive into a structure the area of 28 or so football fields, than to perform precision manuevers and line up to hit a 77 foot high wall at ground level. Yet that is what is CLAIMED to have happened. The aircraft is reported to have come out of it's final turn after having descended to tree top level, then picked up airspeed for about a mile before impacting the Pentagon. At 500 mph, the amount of time necessary to clear the trees and structures near the Pentagon would have left a fraction of a second before reaching the Pentagon itself, yet within that time it found a way to descend, overcome ground effect, and keep the nose level with the wings straight (since neither engine nor wingtip hit the lawn), and penetrate at ground level straight into the Pentagon (at an angle of course, but straight in as far as pitch). That is PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE. You can talk about diving from 20,000 feet all you want, yet that is NOT what happened even in terms of the OFFICIAL story, and in terms of physical damage to the Pentagon itself. That, and there was no fuel spread over the external walls as there would have been, and no damage to glass windows where wings allegedly struck them at 500+ mph. Now take your own advice and stop trying to suspend the laws of physics to make your pet theory workable.
I think TC has seen one too many episodes of 24, where the "bad guys" have infinite resources and can scoop up a nuclear weapons expert on a whim and have a nuke built for them on demand within hours, as long as they have the nuclear material. I sort of doubt airliners have USB ports that access the flight management computer for ANY reason, especially not in terms of a maintainance port which could be used to reflash the entire system, as if that were even possibile to do while in flight. As far as what the reflash would do, it'd have to introduce an entirely new application into the system, override the normal operation, and that application would need to have intimate knowledge of the existing interfaces and IO ports, and not only access them directly and correctly, but have exacting precision in how it controlled the aircraft, especially in its terminal phase. How would such an application be tested? Hell, it takes more than a few tries to get highly sophisticated missile software to function correctly, where the first few firings don't usually go well. Can you imagine some cave dwellers doing all this on their laptops while smoking hash, and getting it perfect not just for one aircraft, but for FOUR? Like I said, there is very little chance of there even BEING an accessbile interface such as USB anywhere in the cockpit, never mind the rest. Or maybe they put one in just in case a terrorist wants to reprogram the flight computer, you never know... LOL
You need access to the physical device in order to even TRY to understand it, never mind figure a way to hack it. Having an iPod in your possession allows you to try all sorts of tricks between the PC and the device itself. Having an Internet connection allows access to ANY other machine on the Internet, and the protocols are widely published. They are exploitable by those with intimate knowledge of those protocols. However, the hardware architecture of a Boeing flight management computer is NOT pubished, nor are its operating system interfaces, application programming interfaces, nor actual operational control interfaces. You'd need to basically have a 757 at your disposal, ALL the manuals for the hardware, firmware, and software, intimate knowledge of the navigational systems, flight control systems, and a guided missile program control background to achieve what you're suggesting. That's if a foreign application could even fit in memory or access the existing application in order to prevent it from doing what it normally does, and guide the aircraft as if it were a cruise missile.
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Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestBut he could have held the stick while the autopilot and one or more flight control computers were reprogrammed. These devices undoubtedly use solid-state memory for their OS (flashable memory) like your computer or cellphone do.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#117. To: TooConservative (#112)
But a reprogrammed autopilot could certainly do so. These planes have exceptionally sophisticated autopilot systems and the flight characteristics of these aircraft are extremely well-documented.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#118. To: FormerLurker (#114)
If these guys were such experts, they wouldn't need to even physically be on those aircraft.
#119. To: TooConservative (#112)
The problem is that you probably want the terrorist with minimal piloting skills to remain alive to the last moment so he could re-target the aircraft to a very large and impressive target if he realized the hacked autopilot could not hit the target accurately.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#120. To: TooConservative (#118)
They wouldn't be experts or hackers. They would be carrying a preprogrammed hacking device (laptop, cellphone, calculator, iPod or even a small unclad circuit board).
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#121. To: FormerLurker (#117)
No, an aircraft of the size and wingspan of a large airliner most certainly COULD NOT fly that low to the ground at that high of a speed and DESCEND. It would CLIMB, not DESCEND.
#122. To: TooConservative (#112)
Prove it. Produce these terrorists. Not vague rumors or scanty and unsubstantiated reports from goofball newspapers in the Third World.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#123. To: TooConservative (#115)
#124. To: TooConservative (#121)
Strangely enough, I believe that airliners fly that close to the ground every day. As we write, I expect a dozen or more airliners around the world are flying exactly that close to the ground without climbing.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#125. To: TooConservative (#112)
Not remotely. Hacked with a portable kit, maybe in a cellphone or iPod, carried onboard by the terrorists.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#126. To: TooConservative (#112)
I believe the evidence supports that it was Flight 77.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#127. To: FormerLurker (#120)
I'm talking about the people behind the attacks. Why bother with crazy arabs if you can do it with a chip?
The level of sophistation required is well beyond simple hacking of a iPod or other such device. In order to hack something, you need the real thing available in order to even attempt to find a way to hack it.
I doubt they had 757's sitting on the ground at their disposal, well, not those 19 "angry arabs" at least.
#128. To: FormerLurker (#125)
The US government (or factions thereof) doesn't need physical bodies onboard an aircraft in order to fly it remotely, as can be witnessed by the existance of drones.
#129. To: TooConservative (#127)
I would be very surprised if you had 1024-bit (or greater) encryption methods and hardware protection of these systems. Industrial systems are never as state of the art as even a PS3 or Xbox or some cellphones. This is why members of Congress routinely refer to the dangers of computer systems being hacked, because these systems are often wide open.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#130. To: TooConservative (#127)
You would only need to take an autopilot or have complete specs of it and a copy of the OS and a compatible hardware system to test it on. You'd have to fake up a set of programmable sensor inputs and such for testing the rig. Then it's just programming.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#131. To: TooConservative (#128)
True. But those cellphone conversations would be hard to fake and are a vital part of the propaganda attack on the citizens, aren't they?
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#132. To: TooConservative (#128)
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#133. To: FormerLurker (#124)
Strangely enough, airliners don't land at 500 mph (which is their cruising speed at 35,000 feet).
#134. To: FormerLurker (#131)
Even the FBI admitted that the cell phone calls to Solicitor Olson never occured.
Even IF some of those calls were actually made, it is quite easy these days for a particular person's voice to be synthesized from somebody else's. It's also possible that those making the calls, the actual passengers involved, were part of the plot.
#135. To: TooConservative (#133)
(Edited)
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#136. To: TooConservative (#133)
Believe me, you cannot simply pose arguments that end up along the lines of irresistable-force-meets-immovable-object. It really doesn't work that way in the real world; ask any engineer. If the plane is in a basic approach pattern but programmed to touch down exactly at the outside edge of the building, the speed and inertia of that huge-ass aircraft would overcome the ground effect that would try to rebuff the plane back up further from the ground. So it might rebuff the aircraft except that it hit and devastated the Pentagon before the ground effect could force it back into the air.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#137. To: FormerLurker (#130)
The "autopilot" is essentially the heart of the Flight Management System and ties navigational inputs and flight data systems into a sophisticated AI program which sends digital and analog outputs to control systems throughout the aircraft.
#138. To: FormerLurker (#136)
Thing is, for the plane to descend it would have to lose airspeed, yet it increased airspeed at the beginning of the approach while maintaining the same relative altitude, then somehow descended without losing airspeed or pointing the nose down.
#139. To: ghostdogtxn (#123)
It is the great leaps into conspiratorial theories that aren't at all supported by the evidence, when what should be done is a baby-step by baby-step serious inquiry.
I do see among Truther activists more recently a much greater seriousness about pursuing their goal in a narrower and single-minded way and with a much more disciplined message as a group.
#140. To: FormerLurker, Red Jones (#82)
(Edited)
Silverstein was looking for a way out of the WTC as the towers were loaded with asbestos and were loosing money, and to strip them of the asbestos would have cost more money than they were worth.
#141. To: christine, Cynicom, FormerLurker (#108)
#142. To: FormerLurker (#126)
TooConservative: I believe the evidence supports that it was Flight 77.
#143. To: wudidiz, Cynicom (#141)
#144. To: TooConservative (#138)
I do demand that Truthers aren't allowed to repeal the fundamental laws of physics. Next thing you know, they'll toss entropy on the bonfire and the whole universe will go poof. LOL.
#145. To: christine, Cynicom (#143)
#146. To: wudidiz (#145)
Sure, but at least you can tie a can to his tail for trying to incite a riot on another 9/11 thread?
#147. To: GreyLmist (#146)
#148. To: TooConservative (#138)
I do demand that Truthers aren't allowed to repeal the fundamental laws of physics
#149. To: RickyJ (#148)
#150. To: wudidiz (#149)
No Planes. Think about it.
#151. To: RickyJ (#150)
#152. To: Original_Intent (#140)
Silverstein was bright enough, and savvy enough, as a real estate investor to not take on those two White Elephants to begin with.
#153. To: TooConservative (#138)
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#154. To: GreyLmist (#142)
(Edited)
I thought it sounded funner than waiting much longer for TC to get to the F-16/AWACS/EMP type complexities of remote control counter- measure risks to the alleged hijackers of the Official spin.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
#155. To: TooConservative (#137)
(Edited)
No, nothing is unhackable.
"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen
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