Analysis from a JHU CS Prof

Thu Sep 13 21:01:21 UTC 2001

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According to CNN, the transponder was only turned off on 1 of the
planes; the United flight that crashed outside of pitt.

Regards,
Matt

- --
Matt Levine
@Home: matt at deliver3.com
@Work: matt at easynews.com
ICQ  : 17080004
PGP  : http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x6C0D04CF 

- -----Original Message-----
From: owner-nanog at merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog at merit.edu] On Behalf
Of Hire, Ejay
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 4:35 PM
To: 'Borger, Ben'; 'nanog at merit.edu'
Subject: RE: Analysis from a JHU CS Prof

The transponders, like most avionics, has a handy-dandy off switch.

- -----Original Message-----
From: Borger, Ben [mailto:bborger at platinumsystems.net]
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 4:32 PM
To: 'nanog at merit.edu'
Subject: FW: Analysis from a JHU CS Prof

>>At 06:05 PM 9/12/2001, you wrote:
>>
>>
>>Quite more interesting is why nobody noticed that 4 airliners where
hijacked
>>almost the same time.
>
>Not surprising.  Aircraft are "flight followed" by a series of
>control centers across the nation, each responsible for a given
>chunk of 
>airspace.  Something happening in an area controlled by Center "A",
>for  example, wouldn't be passed on to Center "B" (which has it's
>own problems  to work) unless it impacted Center "B".  Furthermore,
>unless someone TELLS  Center they're being hijacked, there's no way
>for a controller - looking at  

>a blip - to know what's up.  And any controller can tell you that 
>pilots do

Somehow the people who did this managed to turn off the transponders
on these planes.  Normally a plane flying in controlled airspace
squawks a unique id and altitude which is decoded by their radar and
associated with each blip.  Sometimes low cost homebuilts/ultralights
fly with no transponder, but Boeings <sarcasm>usually</sarcasm> do. 
If you set a transponder to 7500, it means you're being hijacked.

BTW if you see your friend Jack at the airport, be sure to say,
"What's up, Jack!" instead of "Hi Jack!"

So how do you deal with this?  Blowing up a whole country?  I wonder
if the US should adopt a 'fire w/ fire' approach and invest in
intelligence, covert ops and assassinations.  It would seem that it
is open season on terrorism by every democratic nation, I expect to
see very conspicuous Samuel Jackson style ass whoopins on whiny
extremist groups to satiate America's anger. Terrorize the
terrorists.

Oh yeah, obviously Echelon should probably have MacOS loaded on it.

- -b

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