Waypoints: About conspiracy theories, aviation, and the White Knights
I.
What happens when a political movement built on conspiracy theories becomes the target of its own creation? Here’s the story of how the conspiracists that Charlie Kirk once amplified are now spinning theories about his killing. Brandy Zadrozny, who’s investigated disinformation for years, has found that the right is “willing to embrace conspiracy theories as a means to a political end.”
II.
A few months ago, a medevac plane with two pilots and two nurses crashed into the side of a mountain in New Mexico. There were no survivors. WIRED asked whether a military GPS jamming exercise was to blame, seeing how it left the pilots unable to use modern navigation systems. I think it’s sadly more likely all the holes in the Swiss cheese lined up: navigation disruptions, unfavorable weather conditions, pilots with fewer hours and less experience than at the big airlines, and a rush to get a medevac plane to its destination.
III.
The story of the JetBlue flight that went into free fall last year has nothing to do with GPS jamming and everything to do with space, science, and bit flips.
IV.
Speaking of science, security researchers found a way to hack a Boeing 737 using a “roughly coin-sized, Wi-Fi-enabled prototype device that costs less than $100.” The device is capable of sending new commands to sensitive computer systems on the plane, redirecting the autopilot or sabotaging its flight plan. I think the research is fascinating, but the key takeaway is perhaps this: “the researchers note that a careful pilot would be able to recover from almost any of the attacks they’ve imagined.”
V.
Here’s a long read, but a good one: a 21-year-old man in Seattle built a “replica of his hero Andrew Tate’s webcam enterprise”, a community of porn addicts joined forces to take him down. The White Knights, as they called themselves, went all in: “obtaining police records, pooling information, contacting the models’ parents, and eventually even talking to” the man behind the operation, before handing the evidence over to law enforcement.
VI.
I hosted a Reddit AMA with Zack Whittaker of TechCrunch yesterday! We answered numerous questions about US border searches, device security, and protecting your digital data. You can read all the questions and answers here.