He said "a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again." To me that sounds more like a threat to destroy a civilization than an announcement that the US will be targeting specific parts of Iranian infrastructure, but maybe you are better at reading between the lines than I am.
In case you're curious about US history and not just trying to make a point, "those people in the Apollo era" were the majority of Americans for most of the time the Apollo program was ongoing. Republicans argued that the large NASA budget was fiscally unwise and Democrats argued that the money would have been better used for social programs. The press referred to the program as the "Moondoggle". In 1962, the New York Times noted that the projected Apollo program budget could have instead been used to create over 100 universities of a similar size to Harvard, build millions of homes, replace hundreds of worn-out schools, build hundreds of hospitals, and fund disease research. The Apollo program's popularity hovered around 40% for most of the 1960s when it was underway. It peaked at 53% just after the moon landing, and by April 1970 it was back down to 40%. It wasn't until the mid-80s that the majority of Americans thought that the Apollo program was worth it.
"Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP"
There was a time when The Onion might have run a headline like "Concerned over low troop morale, President converts to Islam to inspire spirit of martyrdom". No more.
If you're going to judge people's quality of online commentary, I can think of a "bigger fish to fry" than myself. They're even quoted in this very thread!
Note that there's some patents that haven't yet expired, at least in the US. AFAIK this is because if there's delays in patent examination you get extra duration on your patent to compensate. Here's a list of the patents that were filed before High Profile was standardized and are still valid: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Have_the_patents_for_H.264_M...
Of course MPEG-LA deliberately makes figuring out which patents cover which parts of H.264 (which is really a set of multiple standards spanning a 10+ year period) ambiguous and hard to determine in order to sell more licenses.
Why would they need to license the sample? You don't own the copyright for something just because you recorded it off the radio, that's silly. I looked it up and the station in question was operated by the Israeli government, so presumably they would be due the royalties. https://priyom.org/number-stations/english/e10
This reminds me of Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel, which established that copying someone's photograph of a public domain painting is not a copyright violation, as the photograph is not copyrightable under US law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel....
Sure, but there's an element of creativity there (what parts to focus on, how much you zoom in, how closely you follow the motion) vs. simply turning a radio on and pressing record, with the intention of producing a 1:1 recording of what's being broadcast. All the creative parts of the Conet Project recording (the message to broadcast, the way it's formatted, the voice samples used, etc) were done by the Israeli government, not the Conet Project.
TLDR: you're basically applying the US standard to something that has been released worldwide, and US intellectual property law is known to be one of the most lax when dealing on derivatives (Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co.). Without saying that the original broadcaster/s do not held any copyright (because, of course, there is a reasonable claim for their copyright), there are two good candidates for the Conet Project's case, both hinging on European IP laws.
The first one is the "sweat of the brow" concept, where effort (not originality, or at least not significant originality) is the determiner. Because this was released in 2001, most European jurisdictions (like Britain's "skill and labour" and Germany's Leistungsschutzrecht) still had this concept. Because the collaborators of the Conet Project did exert significant effort here (they didn't just tune, but significantly denoised and made it reasonably intelligible), it could be argued that they held a new copyright on these works. New laws now significantly tilt towards the creativity/originality concept, but this is usually not a retroactive claim.
The second claim (and the reason that I said IP laws, not specifically copyright laws) is that Europe (incl. UK and Russia) has database rights which does not exist under US law (again, Feist v. RTS). Even if the Conet Project release is ineligible for copyright in most European jurisdictions (and I doubt it due to the non-retroactivity of these laws), they can still point out that the curation of the work provided for enforcement of database rights.
There is actually a third claim (although weak), based on the first publication of a recording of a performance (phonogram rights). This also exists under US laws, although I will be sure that the first "publication" is the broadcast, especially if it was also aimed in the US. (This is the reason why "sampling" some music is considered an IP infringement.)
P.S. If you think that US IP laws are bonkers, try to navigate European IP laws (it's not even harmonized inside EU). There's even a "Copyright in Typographical Arrangement" (UK) where even assuming that the text itself is not copyright, scanning the page might put you into a lawsuit (https://cdn.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/copyright-typo...)
The CIA recruits a lot of Iranians to spy for them. Since the Internet is a thing, they typically communicate with them that way. For example, in the 2010s the CIA ran hundreds of fake news, sports, travel, religious, etc. websites, where typing a password into a search box or other text field would open a hidden message area where operatives could read messages from the CIA and send back information. This network was eventually destroyed and hundreds of sources were arrested because the CIA made the error of using the same few messaging scripts and hosting the sites from a few contiguous IP blocks, but it's a good idea of how they generally operate. See here for more info: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-spie...https://cirosantilli.com/cia-2010-covert-communication-websi...
However, since the US-Israeli bombing of Iran on Feb 28, the Iranian government has shut down the whole country's Internet access. This means that the CIA needs another way to send information out, hence the numbers station.
If anyone is interested in further reading, this group are the world's leading experts on number stations (outside of intelligence services of course). They've done a detailed article on the new station, including recordings, technical mishaps, and analysis of why they believe the station is CIA run. https://priyom.org/number-stations/other/v32
> Considering the topical interest in this station, the Priyom team shares its further expertise regarding V32's attribution, beyond being transmitted from a US military facility. While this remains unconfirmed speculation, and not facts, a prime candidate for the operator of this station would be the CIA. Contrary to popular belief, US intelligence has not entirely moved away from numbers stations. Sources in the intelligence community indicate that the CIA provides extra training about numbers stations and one-time pads to clandestine agents assigned to locations with a very hostile operating environment, such as Iran or North Korea: it is envisioned as a last-resort means of communication with high-value sources. So according to this, numbers stations are actually still an institutional part of the CIA playbook. The war in Iran, and the Internet blackout installed by the regime, fulfill the very circumstances for which the CIA would have planned this.
> We already know that the CIA has a significant presence in Iran and involvement in the war, having provided crucial intelligence tracking Iranian leaders that enabled the assassination strikes that kickstarted the war. They most probably have had a network of infiltrated assets already in place and organized, ready to be reached through a numbers station if need be right when the war started - which makes the CIA a candidate for running V32 consistent with a legitimate intelligence operation. However, what we've observed from V32's operations - technical quirks and shifting formats - suggest that the technical deployment of the numbers station and shortwave transmissions themselves may have been a little rushed by the circumstances.
> Another noteworthy feature of V32 is how all its transmissions take place on the same frequency. Most other numbers stations in general are comprehensive operations targeting many different recipients in different countries, and making use of many different transmission times and frequencies suited to the particular signal propagation needs corresponding to all those areas. In contrast, the fact that V32 always uses a single, same frequency, at always two given times of the day, would be consistent with an operation that only needs to target a single geographical area: Iran.
Like the article says, satellite messages can be traced while radio is broadcast to everyone so it's impossible to find out who's listening. Shortwave radios are also cheap and widespread, so it's easy to get one anywhere in the world and if your house gets searched, it won't be suspicious if you have one.
> Shortwave radios are also cheap and widespread, so it's easy to get one anywhere in the world
I always hear this in discussions about number stations, but I don't think this is true in the US. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen a general consumer "shortwave radio". Unless the regular AM band counts, which seems to be medium wave.
The term for shortwave radios targeting the general consumer market is "world band radio". They look like a standard portable AM/FM radio except they'll also pick up long wave, medium wave, short wave, and maybe weather band. They're more of a niche in the US now that internet streaming is a thing, but you should still be able to get one at most electronics stores. Of course like most niche products, you'll get much better selection and pricing online.
I'm in the US. At least half of the people I know own shortwave radios, although most don't think of them as "shortwave radios". They're more often called "world radios" or some other such synonym. I could run out to a consumer electronics store right now and buy one.
The younger people I know tend to own such a radio in the form of the Baofeng UV-5R or the like.
It's interesting because I wasn't aware of these "world radios" either. Maybe because I'm 34 and they lost popularity before I came of age? I have a ham radio license but I wouldn't consider those radios to be aimed at the ordinary consumer.
I used to have little battery powered AM/FM/Shortwave/weather radio lost it a couple house moveings ago. Kept it around for the emergacy weather radio during flood events and other extreme weather when internet/power isnt reliable. Should probably pick up a replacement come to think of it.
> Like the article says, satellite messages can be traced while radio is broadcast to everyone
I don't buy it.
Satellite downlinks are broadcast to everyone under a potentially massive footprint. Take a look at the footprint for QO-100 which you could use with very inexpensive equipment that looks pretty much like a normal satellite TV dish.
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