I think they were planning on exchanging the passengers for their money but when the plane landed they found out the passengers had succumbed to oxygen deprivation and they had to quickly hide the evidence. And that’s how the 3 hijackers survived.
I still think the motive for mh370 was the money Russians lost through 1mdb, Malaysia’s development bank.
2/7/24 Reuters
The Justice Department announced today that it has repatriated an additional $452 million in misappropriated 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) funds to the people of Malaysia, bringing the total returned to over $1.2 billion.
Malaysian and U.S. investigators estimate $4.5 billion were stolen from 1MDB, implicating former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, Goldman Sachs (GS.N), opens new tab staff and high-level officials elsewhere.
Nick, I think that in the abstract both options might seem viable, but it comes to actually implementing them, I suspect that one would have an identifiable attack vector and one wouldn't. We've already identified a workable vector by which any attacker aboard the plane could spoof the signal; to do the same by altering data within Inmarsat's data banks might mean physically breaching the system, which might require humintel. I have no idea of how to assess this.
Jeff, I’m a dedicated follower and think you are on the right track. Whilst I think a spoof on board is possible, unless I’ve missed something obvious, I think manipulating the data set on the Inmarsat servers to indicate a southern route would be easier for an insider. And wasn’t there an unexpected death amongst the Inmarsat tech crew around this time? Covering tracks?
Thanks Nick! Yes, there was a death on the Inmarsat tech crew, but I think that it's most likely just one of the surprising coincidences that we find when we look closely at the case. While it might be true that it would be simpler for Inmarsat to tamper with its own data than for someone else to tamper with the SDU in-flight, I've talked to some of their staff and it sounded to me like they were legitimately proud at their achievement at having figured out the puzzle and were keen to explain how their mathematics worked.
Thanks Jeff. Given a BFO spoof appears so fundamental to the mystery, it seems to me that both spoof possibilities warrant the same technical, procedural and operational analysis in order to quantify the possibility/probability of the origin of a spoof. I can’t see anywhere that a ground based spoof possibility has been researched, analysed and run to ground.
I have no doubt the Inmarsat folks appeared professional and compelling. But planting someone in that technical team would be a whole lot easier than orchestrating an airborne spoof. Cheers Nick
Fascinating world of airliner sat comm! But there's one thing I just don't get …
Quote: « The satellite communications system … uses a technique called Doppler precompensation to change the frequency at which it transmits its signal to a geosynchronous satellite overheard. SDUs do this to ensure that the relative motion of the airplance and satellite doesn’t shift the frequency of the received signal beyond the limits of the designated frequency band. »
Could you show the numbers? What frequency is used, how narrow is the band? I used 900 km/h as airplane speed and 294,000 km/s as signal speed, and I have trouble figuring out how any Doppler could possibly shift the signal off any conceivable band.
What does a timeline look like with all of your assumptions? How soon can the oxygen be turned off? Can the plane be turned remotely at Igari? I think once they turn at Igari it’s game over. I think our hijackers brought their own supplemental oxygen. They looked like 3 very capable people.
I suppose at some point we should do a step-by-step walkthrough of what the spoofing hijack would be like. It hasn't been established with full confidence, but it seems like the plane's controls could be taken over from the electronics bay.
I was living in Shanghai at that time and had flown in and out of Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur. On the red eye flights there was no lights out. The stewards were in the aisles offering headsets and drinks immediately after take off. They didn’t lower the lights until an hour into the flight and even then people were loud. Chinese babies are never put in a quiet place to sleep, they are in the middle of family talking. Chinese learn to sleep through anything so there’s no reason to lower the lights for Chinese passengers. All of this means passengers were aware of the turn at Igari and depressurization must have begun immediately.
I wonder how much people would react to a turn, even a steep one? Unless a plane hits turbulence I feel like there's a natural assumption on most people's part that whatever is going on, there must be a good reason for it. Ultimately nothing the passengers could reasonably do would affect the outcome, though
I think they were planning on exchanging the passengers for their money but when the plane landed they found out the passengers had succumbed to oxygen deprivation and they had to quickly hide the evidence. And that’s how the 3 hijackers survived.
I still think the motive for mh370 was the money Russians lost through 1mdb, Malaysia’s development bank.
2/7/24 Reuters
The Justice Department announced today that it has repatriated an additional $452 million in misappropriated 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) funds to the people of Malaysia, bringing the total returned to over $1.2 billion.
Malaysian and U.S. investigators estimate $4.5 billion were stolen from 1MDB, implicating former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, Goldman Sachs (GS.N), opens new tab staff and high-level officials elsewhere.
Really makes you wonder what Najib knows...
Nick, I think that in the abstract both options might seem viable, but it comes to actually implementing them, I suspect that one would have an identifiable attack vector and one wouldn't. We've already identified a workable vector by which any attacker aboard the plane could spoof the signal; to do the same by altering data within Inmarsat's data banks might mean physically breaching the system, which might require humintel. I have no idea of how to assess this.
Jeff, I’m a dedicated follower and think you are on the right track. Whilst I think a spoof on board is possible, unless I’ve missed something obvious, I think manipulating the data set on the Inmarsat servers to indicate a southern route would be easier for an insider. And wasn’t there an unexpected death amongst the Inmarsat tech crew around this time? Covering tracks?
Thanks Nick! Yes, there was a death on the Inmarsat tech crew, but I think that it's most likely just one of the surprising coincidences that we find when we look closely at the case. While it might be true that it would be simpler for Inmarsat to tamper with its own data than for someone else to tamper with the SDU in-flight, I've talked to some of their staff and it sounded to me like they were legitimately proud at their achievement at having figured out the puzzle and were keen to explain how their mathematics worked.
Thanks Jeff. Given a BFO spoof appears so fundamental to the mystery, it seems to me that both spoof possibilities warrant the same technical, procedural and operational analysis in order to quantify the possibility/probability of the origin of a spoof. I can’t see anywhere that a ground based spoof possibility has been researched, analysed and run to ground.
I have no doubt the Inmarsat folks appeared professional and compelling. But planting someone in that technical team would be a whole lot easier than orchestrating an airborne spoof. Cheers Nick
Fascinating world of airliner sat comm! But there's one thing I just don't get …
Quote: « The satellite communications system … uses a technique called Doppler precompensation to change the frequency at which it transmits its signal to a geosynchronous satellite overheard. SDUs do this to ensure that the relative motion of the airplance and satellite doesn’t shift the frequency of the received signal beyond the limits of the designated frequency band. »
Could you show the numbers? What frequency is used, how narrow is the band? I used 900 km/h as airplane speed and 294,000 km/s as signal speed, and I have trouble figuring out how any Doppler could possibly shift the signal off any conceivable band.
Yes, the precompensation is very small, in the order of parts per billion. A good reference on the technique can be found here: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-navigation/article/search-for-mh370/D2D1C4C99E7BFDE35841CFD70081114A
What does a timeline look like with all of your assumptions? How soon can the oxygen be turned off? Can the plane be turned remotely at Igari? I think once they turn at Igari it’s game over. I think our hijackers brought their own supplemental oxygen. They looked like 3 very capable people.
I suppose at some point we should do a step-by-step walkthrough of what the spoofing hijack would be like. It hasn't been established with full confidence, but it seems like the plane's controls could be taken over from the electronics bay.
I was living in Shanghai at that time and had flown in and out of Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur. On the red eye flights there was no lights out. The stewards were in the aisles offering headsets and drinks immediately after take off. They didn’t lower the lights until an hour into the flight and even then people were loud. Chinese babies are never put in a quiet place to sleep, they are in the middle of family talking. Chinese learn to sleep through anything so there’s no reason to lower the lights for Chinese passengers. All of this means passengers were aware of the turn at Igari and depressurization must have begun immediately.
I wonder how much people would react to a turn, even a steep one? Unless a plane hits turbulence I feel like there's a natural assumption on most people's part that whatever is going on, there must be a good reason for it. Ultimately nothing the passengers could reasonably do would affect the outcome, though