SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Cell-tower attacks by idiots who claim 5G spreads COVID-19 reportedly hit US:
US warns carriers to boost security, citing reports of attacks in several states.
The Department of Homeland Security is reportedly issuing alerts to wireless telecom providers and law enforcement agencies about potential attacks on cell towers and telecommunications workers by 5G/coronavirus conspiracy theorists. The DHS warned that there have already been "arson and physical attacks against cell towers in several US states."
The preposterous claim that 5G can spread the coronavirus, either by suppressing the immune system or by directly transmitting the virus over radio waves, led to dozens of tower burnings in the UK and mainland Europe. Now, the DHS "is preparing to advise the US telecom industry on steps it can take to prevent attacks on 5G cell towers following a rash of incidents in Western Europe fueled by the false claim that the technology spreads the pathogen causing COVID-19," The Washington Post reported last week.
<no-sarcasm>
FACT: 5G mobile networks DO NOT spread COVID-19!
</no-sarcasm>
(Score: 5, Insightful) by zocalo on Wednesday May 20 2020, @10:00AM (3 children)
Another conspiracy theory is that there is a correlation (which is not causation) between 5G and increased cases due to immune system suppression, or there may not. Probably far too early to say for sure in the case of Covid-19, but that also seems likely to be false. RF spectra are incredibly congested, especially in the bands good for things like cellular comms, and the frequencies currently being used for 5G deployments would have been used for something else previously - exactly what depending on local telecoms regulators. If these frequencies were causing immune system issues, then you'd think we'd have some documented proof by now, right? Or is it more likely that this is just the latest version of the "Wi-Fi is causing cancer!" FUD that has been repeatedly tested and disproved in double-blind tests?
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday May 20 2020, @05:51PM (2 children)
Which would be worse? For this to truly be idiots which are a challenge to if not a sign of the fall of civilization, or that this is some sort of operation to test methods of Spetsnaz-style infrastructure destruction testing with the COVID stories as the cover? (Or both - professional insurgency testing with that as the cover story and then other idiots who get caught doing it but are idiots? Or some variation thereof, like such agency egging the idiots along and then standing back and watching what they are doing... Still and all, it would probably be less risky for any such groups to do it on their own soil and not need to test such a thing overseas.)
At any rate, extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. Claiming that low power RF signals (as in not enough energy to cause burn damage) would interfere with bodily processes, when nothing in known science supports that, is an extraordinary claim.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by zocalo on Wednesday May 20 2020, @09:41PM (1 child)
What's really concerning though are those who are doing it professionally. This group are most definitely NOT idiots - quite the opposite - you've got to be quite intelligent and have an excellent grasp of psychological maniupulative techniques to be able to mix just enough truth and plausible but misleading statements into outright BS to convince people that really ought to know better to believe in the BS. Seriously, you need to check some of this stuff out, it's twisted but quite brilliant in its way; they've basically taken the kind of manipulation used in Nigerian 419 scams, perfected it through more elaborate phishing schemes, then ratchetted it to the next level for stuff like this. You make an excellent point about the Spetsnaz-style techniques too as something this would make a superb training exercise or dry run for a more up-to-date version of their tactics - why use smartbombs if you can use a combination of cyber attacks and your foe's own population to do some of the hard work for you? Get it right, and a war might even be won without the aggressor having to fire any ordnance at all.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by Pav on Thursday May 21 2020, @11:22PM
Or else a self-own by our own intelligence communities. Huawei won the race to 5G, and telcos are deploying Chinese technology despite diplomacy. The best CPU manufacturer now speaks Mandarin, but at least they're OUR Chinese (TSMC of Taiwan) so at least we can pressure them into not supplying Huawei anymore... so if we can organise the busting of some of that equipment we can get back to managing our own societal decline for the benefit of the 0.001% instead of... I dunno... empowering the bulk of our own societies instead.
Not saying this is what's happening, but the sad thing is it's plausible.