The article says that he's been trying to get it back for over a decade. Unless there's some other guy in the UK in the news for doing this, I'm sure that I read about it back when he realized that he tossed it.
tal
joined 1 year ago
plus reimburse the city with £41 million for the trouble
Well, hold on. He's made an offer, and it's worth something, but it's not a straight-up £41 million. That's contingent on the Bitcoin being recovered. That means that he succeeds in the excavation, that he finds the hard drive -- and that's a bit of a needle in a haystack -- that the hard drive is recoverable, that it has the key, and that he can use it to obtain the funds. It's also contingent on what Bitcoin does; the article pointed out that he chose the peak value for the year. There's risk there. They get a chance at being paid Bitcoin that at one point this year was worth £41 million.
Also, even in the event of a sale, I assume that the UK is going to assess capital gains tax on it, and any actual value to the local government will be post-tax, so that's another ~20% off it.
And if it does create some kind of environmental mess for other people, I assume that they have liability for that. They might also have liability to the excavators if anyone involved with that gets hurt or sick in the excavation, as they own the property, and I think -- at least in the US, but I'd guess that the UK probably works the same way -- that that attaches to the property owner.
Lawyers for the council have argued it now legally owns the hard drive because it was dumped at the tip. But Mr Howells' barristers, Dean Armstrong KC, Maria Mulla, and Bruce Drummond, have denied this on the basis that he never intended to abandon the hard drive or the intellectual property on it.
Hmm.
I don't know if ownership of the hard drive is actually a relevant issue.
Like, I can believe that the landfill owns the hard drive.
But nobody cares about the hard drive. It's maybe $200 or so.
What they care about is the Bitcoin elsewhere, and that the contents have a key that gives one access to that Bitcoin. And while I'm not going to dig up case law, I am confident that there is no way that throwing out storage media containing some sort of access key grants ownership of the contents of an account to which the access key on the storage media grants access.
Like, you can't say "you threw out a piece of paper with your bank account password on it, so now the local landfill owns the contents of your bank account".
These flew from US mainland into Yemen and bombed protected / hidden sites THEN flew back home.
That's how the B-2s normally operate. I forget the name of the airbase (I think it starts with a "B"?) but it's somewhere in the center of the US, and they do their missions straight out of the continental US.
kagis
No, not a "B". Whiteman Air Force Base.
My understanding -- I've never used it -- is that Bluesky uses some sort of "curated feed" list. The idea, from what I gathered, is that some person (or people?) could create a list of stuff and then people subscribe to it. Seemed like an interesting approach, since it's a route to improve personalizing content relative to, say, Reddit. Originally, Reddit intended to run off a recommendation system, but that kind of fell by the wayside in the first few years.
I've wondered how practical it would be to have people publish feeds, then take into account one's voting behavior and how it reflects feed content to help do recommendations. Can't just score a feed by aligned posts -- otherwise, it'd be trivially-gameable you could have people spamming by creating feeds and including popular things, and then also including some spam item. But I could imagine that being the foundation for something that does a good job of recommending stuff.
I mean, there's plenty of anime pornography on the Threadiverse too. It's just that sopuli.xyz, your home instance, isn't federated with a number of hosts (and you may not be viewing its "all" feed).
Look at the "Blocked instances" tab. You've got stuff like:
https://kbin.burggit.moe/ (which I can't seem to reach due to some sort of TLS issue, but burggit.moe proper has "Free expression, including the Loli/Shota/Cub variety, are welcome here!", and I assume that this is a gateway to the same material). I definitely remember that burggit.moe used to deal with consentual-nonconsentual material and underage anime material, because it caused lemmynsfw.com to defederate from them.
https://ac.akirin.xyz/ I don't know what content they truck in, and their front page doesn't indicate it, but it looks like the scrolling URLs in the bottom contain a bunch of links to various Fediverse hosts that deal in underage anime porn, and the user icons seem to all be anime girls, so I'm assuming that that might be their thing.
Not going to do a complete list of the blocked instances there, just pointing out that even if you look at your "all" feed on sopuli.xyz, it might not be representative of the Threadiverse as an aggregate.
I suppose that could make some sense. There's some symbolic value there.
Necessary to use the B-2s rather than a more-conventional delivery platform. It isn't what I'd normally expect to be used in a conflict like this one.
So, Orbán probably does try to balance Brussels with Putin and similar, because he's been in a political spat with Brussels for years.
But I have also wondered to what degree there could be more to all of his dispute with Ukraine. I don't know to what extent, if at all, this is a factor in Hungary. But Orbán's been associated with irredentism in Hungary.
In the aftermath of World War I, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was broken up, largely along ethnic lines. A lot of land that was part of that empire wound up in neighboring countries, not in Hungary. And it's been a sore point with Hungary ever since.
I've read an English translation of a speech that he gave once that sure sounds like he wanted to take land from surrounding countries. I don't know enough about the Hungarian political situation to know whether this is just political theater, because it's an effective way to get nationalist support in Hungary, or whether it's legitimately a policy aim.
Here he is wearing a scarf showing "Greater Hungary", which includes part of various neighboring countries.
Part of what is present-day Ukraine territory is in that "Greater Hungary" map, the region of Galicia (not the identically-named region in Spain).
I have wondered before whether there's any possibility that Orbán would hope to see a major loss by Ukraine against Russia, and its dismemberment by Russia. In such a scenario, I suppose that it's not unthinkable that Hungary could try to pick up territory.
That hasn't been brought up by European diplomats that I've seen. I'm not sure that they would bring it up even if it were an issue, as it's sensitive and might be better to just politely avoid noticing it. And I haven't read any serious articles about it.
But every time he pulls one of these things, it does make me wonder a bit whether there's any possibility if that's a factor. I don't really see a likely route to that happening, but...
It does sound like it's a major factor in domestic political appeal, so he has good reasons to engage in political theater without aiming to actually do this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_irredentism
The campaign materials of Jobbik during the early 2010s contained maps of the pre-1920 Greater Hungary.[45]
That's the second-largest party in Hungary, after Orbán's Fidesz, so it does kinda sound to me like it's a significant factor domestically.
The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine revived interest among Hungarian nationalists for annexing parts of Ukraine.[49]
On 27 January 2024 László Toroczkai said at a conference that his party Mi Hazánk Mozgalom would lay claim to a Hungarian-populated region in western Ukraine if the war led to Ukraine losing its statehood.[50]
That's a smaller party, but the point is that it's at least an idea being openly aired in the Hungarian politics.
Under Orbán, Hungary has provided non-military aid to Ukraine, but also been opposed to military aid, and been one of the most-prominent national leaders to advocate for coming to terms early in the conflict, which would probably wind up with Russia receiving favorable terms.
Unless I read something from someone like The Economist or the Council on Foreign Relations or some such publication that deals with international affairs, I'm going to assume that it's just political theater to pander to Hungarian nationalists, and not a policy objective of Hungary. But it does sit there at the back of my mind every time Orbán says something like this.
It looks like Iran was shipping these 358 missiles to the Houthis at least within the last four years. This shipment was interdicted by the US, but I assume that others have made it:
https://www.dia.mil/Portals/110/Documents/News/Military_Power_Publications/Seized_at_Sea.pdf
The Houthis’ Saqr surface-to-air missile (SAM) exhibits nearly identical features to a missile interdicted on a dhow headed to Yemen in 2020 as the Iranian 358 SAM displayed for Russian officials in Tehran in September 2023. The Saqr and 358 both have distinctive features, which include front-mounted fins (1) and rear-mounted fins (2) in an X-shaped orientation and the engine (3). The Houthis have used the Saqr to attack U.S. UAVs in Yemen. In addition to the Houthis, Iran proliferated the 358 to partners and proxies in Iraq and Lebanon.
Is this actually necessary? Like, the point of the B-2 is to be able to penetrate air defenses. Do the Houthis actually have much by way of air defenses?
kagis
This is from six years back, but apparently at the time, Iran was sending them air defense hardware, so that might be it.
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/irans-support-houthi-air-defenses-yemen
According to the Gulf coalition and the internationally recognized Yemeni government, Iran has been violating the UN arms embargo by trying to provide Houthi rebels with advanced surface-to-air missile systems. The smuggling of Iranian-built Sayyad-2C SAMs and passive flight-tracking equipment could worsen the air-defense threat to U.S. allies such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, jeopardizing efforts to hammer out a peace settlement in the process.
Also from six years back, and more in-depth:
https://warisboring.com/the-houthis-do-it-yourself-air-defenses-3/
When the Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen’s civil war in 2015, it quickly neutralized most of the Houthis’ air defenses. Nearly all of the radars and launchers belonging to the Houthis’ five air-defense brigades were destroyed by mid-April 2015.
Elements of two air-defense brigades managed to recover and hide most of their equipment. Correspondingly, the air defenses of the Houthi-dominated coalition were limited to a miscellany of man-portable air-defense systems, light anti-aircraft cannons including U.S.-made Vulcan guns and various heavy machine guns.
Through 2015, such weapons were responsible for the losses of one Moroccan and one Bahraini F-16C, two Saudi AH-64As and up to a dozen various UAVs. However, the longer the war went on, the clearer it became that they weren’t enough to defend Houthi forces from the Saudis and their allies.
Indeed, the aircraft loss rate for the Saudi-led coalition decreased by an order of magnitude in 2016. While two different Saudi helicopters were written off during combat operations over Yemen, Houthi air defenses were responsible for the downing just one CH-4 Wing Loong UAV.
Understanding that more efficient measures were required, Yemeni engineers with the Missile Development & Research Command worked feverishly on repairing available air-defense equipment and improvising new ones. In January 2017, they announced they had repaired one S-75/SA-2 surface-to-air missile system.
And on Jan. 20, they went as far as to claim the downing of a Saudi F-15 over Sana’a. Actually, they achieved nothing, and the system in question was soon tracked down and destroyed by the Saudi-led coalition.
One of solutions developed by the MRDC was to take air-to-air missiles from stocks of the former Yemeni air force and attempt deploying them for air-defense purposes. This idea is not new. Back in 1999, the Serbs adapted Russian-made R-60/AA-8 and R-73/AA-1 air-to-air missiles for surface-to-air missions.
Furthermore, the Houthi-led coalition has enough experienced and skilled personnel to undertake such an adaptation on its own – and it’s in possession of significant stocks of air-to-air munitions at bases of the former Yemeni air force.
Yemen acquired a stock of Soviet-made R-60MK/AA-8 missiles back in 1980, together with MiG-21bis and Su-22 fighter-bombers. A small batch of R-73/AA-11 missiles was acquired by the former South Yemen in 1994 for deployment with MiG-29 interceptors. An even larger number of R-27/AA-10, R-73s, and R-77/AA-12s were acquired by Sana’a after 2001 together with up to 36 MiG-29SMs and UBs.
The challenge was adapting such weapons for deployment from the ground, and without the support of the fire-control systems in the aircraft that usually carry them.
Active radar-homing missiles such as the R-77 and semi-active radar-homing missiles such as the R-27R would require the adaptation of at least one of the N019MP radars and related fire-control systems delivered to Yemen together with the MiG-29SMs.
Not only was this a complex undertaking, but most of the necessary systems were destroyed early during the war when the Saudi-led coalition systematically tracked down and knocked out every single MiG it could find.
Instead, engineers at the MRDC opted to adapt infrared homing missiles as SAMs. That effort required the adaptation of APU-60 and P-12 launch rails — for the R-60 and R-73, respectively — on supports mounted on pick-up trucks plus a reliable supply of electric power and liquid nitrogen to cool the seeker heads.
The first such improvisations were deployed in combat in February 2017, and by June the Houthi-dominated coalition claimed the downing of five fighter-bombers, one helicopter and one UAV.
Whether any of the missiles actually scored a hit remains unclear. What is certain is that a Jordanian F-16AM crashed over southern Saudi Arabia while returning from a combat sortie over Yemen on Feb. 24, 2017.
The situation remains the same in early 2018. The reality is that air-to-air missiles are designed to be fired from fast-moving aircraft that are already airborne. The motors of air-to-air missiles are relatively small and light in comparison to the motors of surface-to-air missiles. The latter are big, heavy and far more powerful.
For example, the rocket motor of the Patriot PAC-2 weights 1,200 pounds and develops more than 20,000 pounds of thrust in order to accelerate the missile to speeds in excess of Mach 4.
Without such motors, the effective range of air-to-air missiles fired from the ground is dramatically shorter than if they are fired from the air. Even an R-27 is unlikely to reach a target more than five miles away.
At least as important is the issue of fire-control. It’s not enough to point a guided missile in the direction of its target and fire. All anti-aircraft missiles function better if locked-on at their target before launch.
Engineers at the MRDC found a solution by coupling one of three U.S.-made Flir Systems ULTRA 8500 turrets – delivered to Yemen back in 2008 – with makeshift controls for their “new” SAMs. One such SAM enabled them to fire the R-27T that narrowly missed a Saudi F-15 over Sana’a on Jan. 7, 2018.
Ironically, while the first related reports only cited the firing of the missile, the Houthi-controlled media in Yemen and all Iranian media outlets were quick to convert that report into a claim that the targeted F-15 was shot down.
Actually, the F-15SA in question came away with minor damage. F-15SAs are equipped with digital electronic warfare systems and common missile warning systems made by BAE Systems and designed not only to recognize missile attacks, but also to warn the crew and automaticallydeploy countermeasures.
The same is true of the Tornado IDS the Houthis claimed to have shot down over northern Sa’ada province on the same day. Actually, the aircraft in question suffered a failure of its oxygen system that caused a fire inside its cockpit and prompted the crew to eject.
While Houthi and Iranian media associated these two claims with the deployment of a new surface-to-air missile, the adaptation of R-73s and R-27s as SAMs — supported by ULTRA 8500 turrets — hardly qualifies as new. It’s also not as effective as the Houthis claim. The missile that targeted the Saudi F-15SA over Sana’a on Jan. 7, 2018 was the first ever to get that close to its target.
Deployment of such weapons didn’t escape the attention of Saudi and allied air forces and intelligence agencies. On the contrary, representatives of the Saudi-led coalition confirmed their appearance during one of their regular briefings for the press in early November 2017.
They also published two photographs showing installations of R-27T and R-73 missiles on pick-up trucks operated by the Houthi coalition. Ironically, the Iranians – the party said to be supporting the Houthis – seem to have learned about the appearance of such SAMs from Saudi media.
In comparison, MRDC’s work on repairing some of the coalition’s SA-9 vehicles proved at least slightly more effective. One of these has managed to shot down a U.S.-operated MQ-9 Predator UAV over Sana’a on Oct. 1, 2017.
In a quick skim, I don't see much more-recent than 2018. There's this from January of 2024:
US says it destroyed Houthi surface-to-air missile which was prepared to launch
US forces have struck and destroyed Yemen’s Houthi surface-to-air missile which was prepared to launch, the Central Command says in a statement.
“US forces identified the missile in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and determined that it presented an imminent threat to US aircraft,” it adds.
And this from September 2024:
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed Monday that they shot down another American-made MQ-9 Reaper drone, with video circulating online showing what appeared to be a surface-to-air missile strike and flaming wreckage strewn across the ground.
Saree said the Houthis used a locally produced missile. However, Iran has armed the rebels with a surface-to-air missile known as the 358 for years. Iran denies arming the rebels, though Tehran-manufactured weaponry has been found on the battlefield and in seaborne shipments heading to Yemen despite a United Nations arms embargo.
Wikipedia doesn't have a lot on this 358:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/358_missile
I'm guessing, from the fins in the image, the fact that it apparently uses a turbojet engine, and the description as a "loitering munition" that it's probably not the fastest-moving missile in the world, though.
So, I'm guessing from that that they have some level of surface-to-air weaponry above MANPADS, but it doesn't sound like a lot of capability.
Oh, that's an interesting thought. That topic was in the news recently relating to the prospect of Israel doing a strike on Iran's underground nuclear facilities, discussion of whether Israeli warplanes could carry a bomb capable of penetrating Iranian nuclear bunkers. The answer was that they couldn't carry a huge bomb, but I commented that with the precision of modern guided bombs, they might be able to just strike the same place multiple times, and I saw a subsequent article also raising that possibility, so it's not just me.
I remember reading an interesting comment on Reddit some years back on how Iran was actually a world leader in UHPC, though, and I have no idea whether they've provided that to the Houthis; it might be specific to Iran.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_concrete#Ultra-high-performance_concrete
goes looking for something more-authoritative than a Reddit comment
Yeah, looks like it.
https://www.machinedesign.com/markets/defense/article/21833836/super-concrete-shielding-iranian-nukes
EDIT: The author deleted his comment (unfortunately; I think that it was insightful), but the gist of it was that it raised the point that it might be possible that the B-2 was necessary to carry a large, bunker-busting bomb.
EDIT2: He was also correct when he said that the B-2 was one of the only aircraft capable of carrying some large, penetrating weapon; the MOP appears to fit that bill.