Audie Murphy American Legend
1 HN recommender · recommended in 5 months, 2018–2023
0:42 · 12M views · Feb 25, 2014
A short 1966 propaganda interview clip in which Jeremiah Denton, a US prisoner of war in Vietnam, blinks the word TORTURE in Morse code. Naval Intelligence later decoded the message.
Cited as the classic real-world use of Morse code to smuggle out a message under duress.
5 comments from Hacker News
One the most interesting uses of morse code was a Vietnam POW blinking the word "torture" during an interview. See here for the interview: this video
Wikipedia provides some theories. Developer claims it was because it was addictive and not good for people. The Media, which of course is state-ran, claims is was because of intellectual property legal reasons. "Lawyers in Vietnam" denied that it was related to internet censorship. He was making $50k a revenue a day and like most businesses in China and Vietnam, not formally paying taxes. Even in Japan, most small businesses are not correctly paying taxes. The fact that the game itself is a rip-off makes it unlikely that the developer has the highest standard of ethics. Regarding intellectual property, even the government was found to be using bootlegged versions of Windows. Before companies like Adobe realized they needed to move to a SaaS model, there were entire streets selling cracked version of software like Photoshop for 50 cents a pop. Same with Playstation games. Nintendo used hardware medium to make the economics of bootlegging harder, but it was much easier to burn CDs. You simply couldn't buy authentic versions of Playstation games if you wanted to. I don't think the government had any clue on how to regulate, control, and tax digital services. Regardless, it is guaranteed that government officials paid the developer a visit that day and brought him back to the police office in a police truck. Somebody there would have hassled him for money. Whether he paid or not, there will just be more vultures coming and will just leave him the leftovers. He probably just rage
U.S. Senator Jeremiah Denton, Jr., was a POW for ~8 years during Vietnam. He did something similar. > Denton was forced by his captors to participate in a 1966 televised propaganda interview which was broadcast in the United States. While answering questions and feigning trouble with the blinding television lights, Denton blinked his eyes in Morse code, spelling the word "TORTURE"—and confirming for the first time to U.S. Naval Intelligence that American POWs were in fact being tortured. [0] You can see the video [1] on Youtube. [0]: [LINK] [1]: this video
This reminds me of Jeremiah Denton, a POW in that same war who was interviewed on TV to explain that the prisoners were being treated humanely. As he gave the verbal answers his captors expected, he blinked his eyes in Morse Code: – ––– •–• – ••– •–• • T O R T U R E this video [LINK] [LINK] Epilog: A few years ago, someone gave me a Fourth of July T-shirt. Made in Vietnam. It made me think how so few of us in each country really wanted to fight these wars.
>> terse "good company" type reviews >"I am in good health and have been well treated and fed since my abduction" I make sure to watch for blinked messages, like T-O-R-T-U-R-E this video