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?
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 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 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?
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 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.