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Cell-Tower Attacks by Idiots who Claim 5G Spreads COVID-19 Reportedly Hit US

posted by martyb on Wednesday May 20 2020, @08:36AM   Printer-friendly
from the the-stupidity-it-hurts-it-burns! dept.

DannyB writes:

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>

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by zocalo on Wednesday May 20 2020, @09:41PM (1 child)

    by zocalo (302) on Wednesday May 20 2020, @09:41PM (#997107)
    Personally, I suspect it's a combination of several groups. There are obviously some truly gullible idiots out there or crackpot theories like these would die on the vine almost as soon as they were started. Then there are the trolls who just like to cause others some serious grief - whether that's directly through swatting, destroying store fronts and cars in riots, etc. or encouraging others to do stupid things like torch 5G towers. There are probably a few attention seekers in the mix too; some people will do anything to get themselves media coverage, regardless of what it is, these days - every nutjob that follows you is still another follower, and more followers = more social media prestige, which can be quite lucrative if you have enough of it.

    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!
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  • (Score: 2) by Pav on Thursday May 21 2020, @11:22PM

    by Pav (114) on Thursday May 21 2020, @11:22PM (#997640)

    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.