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RE: Analysis from a JHU CS Prof

  • From: Matt Levine
  • Date: Thu Sep 13 17:04:40 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: [email protected]
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ICQ  : 17080004
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- -----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf
Of Hire, Ejay
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 4:35 PM
To: 'Borger, Ben'; '[email protected]'
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:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 4:32 PM
To: '[email protected]'
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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