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there is nothing good that can come from civilian possession of plutonium, and plenty bad, whether intentionally or unintentionally

there is nothing remotely comparable to plutonium that you can do with crude oil in terms of threats to the general populace

all i can think is that perhaps you share this guy's view on tinkering with radioactive substances in civilian settings:

http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html

since this poor fellow is clearly insane, there is nothing more to say on the subject

What good is a gun without ammunition? (what if instead of controlling guns, the US govt would switch to ban ammunition and/or gun powder and/or primers? It'd be just as simple as to make "illegal to possess or handle explosives in any shape, form or packaging without a license"... this in the name of "the war on terror")

Banning ammo would be even harder. Although few do it some people make their own ammo. Making gunpowder is and isn't easy. Ammo shells can repeatedly be reused. And it's easy to form new slugs by melting old ones.

Falcon

You can start with exempt sources and end up with a non-exempt source. A pallet of smoke detectors are exempt, but it you concentrate all the Americium, you end up with a regulated source. Google "radioactive boy scout" and you'll find http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html among others. David Hahn concentrated the thorium in gas lantern mantles to get about 2 mCi, well above the regulatory threshold. Of course, he managed to turn his parents' back yard into a Superfund site, too.

http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html

I know...Right!? I mean it's not like when this guy did the same thing in his dad's shed.

Like this inventive boy scout.

Fire alarms contain a small amount of radiactive material. Didn't someone manage to build a working reactor from those a while ago?

Americium 242, and yes: http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html

Just visit antique stores, perhaps you'll find one with an extra vial of radium paint in the back of the clock.

http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html

Ask this guy.

I agree. Why look what this guy was able to do with just a little ingenuity and some petty larceny.

Here's a better article on him: http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html
Hmm, This quote: -Of his exposure to radioactivity he says, "I don't believe I took more than five years off my life."- Doesn't seem to match the present picture does it?

Hope no one tells them about neutron bombardment and enriching techniques...

It's happened before heh

Besides, the most likely source of radioactive materials today for a dirty bomb is medical radiation sources.

Not smoke detectors?

I really don't think it matters. Due to the American public's lack of science education and a media that is dying to create a story, I suspect finding a much-higher-than-average radioactive area of the country, grabbing some soil, and throwing that around a regular ol' chemical bomb and calling it a dirty bomb is enough to make the media run with the story and the public panic.

http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html

He started with smoke detectors (americium), moved up to radium, the uranium.

"When David's Geiger counter began picking up radiation five doors from his mom's house, he decided that he had "too much radioactive stuff in one place" and began to disassemble the reactor. He hid some of the material in his mother's house, left some in the shed, and packed most of the rest into the trunk of his Pontiac." ...
"At the shed, radiological experts found an aluminum pie pan, a Pyrex cup, a milk crate and other materials strewn about, contaminated at up to 1000 times the normal levels of background radiation. Because some of this could be moved around by wind and rain, conditions at the site, according to an EPA memo, "present an imminent endangerment to public health."

After the moon-suited workers dismantled the shed, they loaded the remains into 39 sealed barrels that were trucked to the Great Salt Lake Desert. There, the remains of David's experiments were entombed with other radioactive debris."

Reminds me of the radioactive boyscout. http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html

http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html

Some people just don't think about consequences....

They're called teenagers. That said someone needs to be accountable for this INCLUDING the idiots that designed it.

Now 17, David hit on the idea of building a model breeder reactor, a nuclear reactor that not only generates electricity, but also produces new fuel. His model would use the actual radioactive elements and produce real reactions. His blueprint was a schematic in one of his father's textbooks.

Ignoring safety, David mixed his radium and americium with beryllium and aluminum, all of which he wrapped in aluminum foil, forming a makeshift reactor core. He surrounded this radioactive ball with a blanket of small foil-wrapped cubes of thorium ash and uranium powder, tenuously held together with duct tape.

"It was radioactive as heck," David says, "far greater than at the time of assembly." Then he began to realize that he could be putting himself and others in danger.

When David's Geiger counter began picking up radiation five doors from his mom's house, he decided that he had "too much radioactive stuff in one place" and began to disassemble the reactor. He hid some of the material in his mother's house, left some in the shed, and packed most of the rest into the trunk of his Pontiac.

Just to play devils advocate.... I present to you...
The Radioactive Boyscout I have never been sure if I should be impressed by this kids intelligence and ingenuity or a little nervous about the possibilities.

metal detectors don't nuke you.

as to the americium, did you hear of the boy scout that made a working breeder reactor largly from old smoke detectors and coleman lantern mantles?
http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html
-nB

Hmm, one would hope but... http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html

I think someone might notice

... then you can make a dirty bomb. And if you're a Boy Scout with a couple hundred dollars lying around and some high school nuclear chemistry knowledge, you can set up a nuclear reactor. http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html

The Radioactive Boy Scout

http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn

In this case, the radioactive boy scout did it single-handedly (true story).

That's the lamest straw-man argument I've heard today. I don't see how a home fission reactor equates to the impact of a gus-guzzler. Common sense would help here.

Sorry, have to differ with you there. I don't want a tac nuke in private hands, because I don't believe you're capable of only hitting those who are actually posing a threat to you personally. I also wouldn't let you have land mines, pursuant to the common law principle of prohibiting reckless endangerment.

What this comes down to, is the authors mistrust in people. "Politicians will make WMDs, and individuals in control of powerfull technology/machinery will not succesfully predict the consequences of their actions to the point of avoiding accidental slaughter. Or people will just deny responsability and just let a machine make decisions". Well, I could be happening already, but I dont see it happening. Ergo, the problem lies with the author himself.

And the last issue is accidental/unplaned destructive results from unforseen consequences/applications of technology. Global worming is such an event, and it goes slowly enough for people to take action (in a functional society). Fallout form nuclear tests is another such event, and was almost immediately rectified with a ban (took 20 years). So, the faster the negative consequences manifest themselves, the lower the risk and cost of lives. In the extreme case where an experiment has immediate harmfull consequences - there will be only the researchers that would die.

But what about a harmfull experiment that starts a chain reaction and amplifies itself (a deadly virus/the grey goo)?

A) Its like sayng "what if a kid accidentally makes a nuke in his back-yard?". Accidentaly making things is what nature/evolution does anyway with viruses (AIDS etc.), and when people do it its in no way accidental, but very much planed and goal driven. So - it's up to people and their decisions, and if a kid is smart enough to make a nuke, than that kid will be smart enough to put it appart and tell noone BEFORE that goal has been acheived, if its acheivable at all: http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html

B) Cars are such a virus (they have replicated and evolved quite fast in the last 100 years, and they are changing our ecosystem), and its not like this is going unnoticed or unregulated, and its not like the only solution is to "ban" cars right here right now.

Its ironic that fear and mistrust of technology is actually about fear and mistrust in people... And if fear and mistrust of people is what this is all about - then the solution should be about eliminating the fear and mistrust - NOT about eliminating a general technology by a general ban. Technology is a tool, what you do with it is up to people. AIs could be given control to make us into domestic animals, OR AIs could sit around doing nothing until asked - "could there be harmfull consequences of this experiment that I haven't thought of; justify your answer".

Well, a radioactive pile has been built by a boy scout... :)

*Ahem*

Old News

And it isn't just the bad guys one needs to fear - is a good read. I really would have no objection if the local LEOs had detection devices in every vehicle - this would have been picked up much sooner, nor would it construe an illegal search any more than keeping the windows rolled down in case somebody screamed "help! police!".

• Build a Cyclotron Now!
• Build a Nuclear Reactor Now!
• Build a Cruise Missile Now!

See the pattern? Get something not trivial, package it as a you-can-do-it-also-without-formal-training and live happily without fear of consequences. Ignorance is bliss! Yipee!

Plenty of people do stupid shit in their garden sheds, thats what they are there for!
I have read about a kid building a reactor from smoke detectors, and the NZ guy who built his own cruise missile.

I sense a business opportunity for lead lined garden housing :)

Also, didn't Young Einstein manage to split the beer atom in his? (and with a hammer and chisel if I remember rightly)

Radio Active Boy Scout Myth

Thanks!

A good idea, except that they had no idea what radium was back then. And silver that killed you wasn't very good for business, as these poor fellowsfigured out. :-)

There is a good book ( The radioactive Boy Scout) That tells of a scout working on a merit badge for his eagle scout rank. He built a small breader reactor in his back yard. Pretty good book, but this article will highlight most of the interesting stuff.


Dangerous labs link

In terms of increasing amounts of information (least to greatest):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn
http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html
http://laplace.physics.ubc.ca/Students/borthwic/rb .html

You can't mention the atomic energy badge without linking to this wonderful story.

That reminds me of kid who built a nuclear reactor out of duct tape, old clocks and dead smoke detectors. I realize it's a far cry from a nuclear bomb, but it still makes you wonder.

Basically, a fairly average high-school student was well along the way to building his own working nuclear reactor using radioactive substances taken from common devices (like smoke detectors).

He had worked out a sequence to get different radioactive materials from the ones he started with to reach the point of starting his reactor.

When I first read this a few years ago in Harper's, it sounded so fantastic I couldn't figure out if it was a fiction piece or not.

Apparently it isn't.

If you have the money to build the reactor, or the knowhow, you'd be able to get plutonium yourself

Is this dude related to David Hahn?

It looks as though someone has been told "disallow everything ending in 'iraq' ", and reckoned that the quickest way was to append '/iraq' to every item in the directory. Now, I don't know about you, but it could be useful to know the folder structure for an entire organisation, for example to find all the bits that are present, but don't get linked from the site. This is an example, as I don't think it is linked from the main site.

I actually think that putting radioisotope-based power sources in the hands of consumers is not a good idea, because of the disposal problem.

Never doubt the steps some will go through to get radioactive stuff, I am reminded of David Han, "the radioactive boy scout" who tried to make a breader reactor with lantern mantels and smoke alarm parts (as well as many other things). While he didn't get his goal compleated, he got a heck of a lot closer then he should have.

Oh yeah? And how do you propose to stop them? In the privacy of my basement I could do anything an no one would know. This is a prime example

Of the Radioactive Boyscount who built a nuclear reactor in his shed from uranium paint you find on antiques

There's a book about this kid. There's also a great Harper's article: it's here. It's a very interesting story.

radioactive boyscout

... June 26, 1995, was not a typical day.
Ask Dottie Pease. Cruising down Pinto Drive, Pease saw half a dozen men crossing her neighbor's lawn. Three, in respirators and white moon suits, were dismantling her next-door neighbor's shed with electric saws, stuffing the pieces into large steel drums emblazoned with radioactive warning signs.

The cleanup was provoked by the boy next door, David Hahn. He had attempted to build a nuclear reactor in his mother's shed following a Boy Scout merit-badge project.

I don't think he turned himself in, but he did realize what he had put together was too 'hot' and he had started dismantling it.

When David's Geiger counter began picking up radiation five doors from his mom's house, he decided that he had "too much radioactive stuff in one place" and began to disassemble the reactor. He hid some of the material in his mother's house, left some in the shed, and packed most of the rest into the trunk of his Pontiac.

At 2:40 a.m. on August 31, 1994, Clinton Township police responded to a call concerning a young man who had been apparently stealing tires from a car. When the police arrived, David told them he was meeting a friend. Unconvinced, officers decided to search his car.

They opened the trunk and discovered a toolbox shut with a padlock and sealed with duct tape. The trunk also contained foil-wrapped cubes of mysterious gray powder, small disks and cylindrical metal objects, and mercury switches. The police were especially alarmed by the toolbox, which David said was radioactive and which they feared was an atomic bomb.

Distribution of copyrighted materails: Well, for a long time my only use of blank CD is the backup of my photo and video work. Since there is now a tax for artist on blank CD I feel no guilt to take some MP3 from the web and burn them (it is no more authorised than before, but now I feel no guilt, I pay a tax on it).

Dangerous: Well, I have no problem to see blue print of nuclear reactor on the web. My point of view is that with a good informed knowledge you are less tempted to try by yourself like in this case (The radiactive scout). When I was young I loved to experiment something because I didn't know the in and out of it. I have made some explosive with less than optimal safety. Some of my experimentation has exploded, simply because no good documentation was available to me. For example Nitroglycerin is less dangerous to make in big quantity, but other are less dangrous in small quantities...

Child porn: I completly feel like you. But in some case some child porn extremist seems to says that taking picture of nude child on the beach is child porn (in this case my family album is full of child porn)...

No need to go to some poor or totalitarian country to see some possible use of freenet. Just try to list "www.xenu.net" in google or just try to go to it...

The more I think about it, the more I realize that a real "dirty bomb" is actually fantastically easy to make.

Of course, we all know about the Radioactive Boy Scout who had built by the age of 15 a system capable to radiating a town using home-made parts. Now we find caches of radioactive waste popping up or being dumped in the most unlikely of places, and I'm sure that the reports that make it to the news wires are only a fraction of what is really out there.

If a determined group decided that they really wanted to kill a city, they could do it easily and probably in complete secrecy. Just think about the logistics for a second, and you'll be quite shocked. Really it only requires one thing: commitment. Do a few google and Usenet searches for things like home-built x-ray machines, rail-guns, even the correct way to mine Uranium from pitchblende and you'll find pages and pages of information. Even a full-blown nuclear weapon is not impossible to create with the right funding and determination. It is truly a testament to either human nature or really smart detective work on the part of the CIA and friends that we don't already have suitcase nukes taking out our Super Bowl parties every year.

A "dirty bomb" need not even be nuclear, per se. A truck full of chlorine gas bursting open at the top of Nob Hill in the middle of any one of the countless San Francisco conventions would cause horrific deaths by the thousands, and would not be very easy to clean up before sickening tens of thousands. There are an infinite number of very deadly chemicals that could be sprayed randomly around a city (attached to unsuspecting taxi bumpers as they drive randomly about the city, for example) that may not kill millions of people, but would certainly cause a lot of sickness and seriously scare the population.

In Japan a few years ago, soda cans were being poisoned in a strange spree of nonsensical killings. How often to you check and see that "safety" cap on your Jolt was fully attached before opening it? How hard is it to remove those caps without damaging the "safety seal" when you think about it? Not that hard really. It only takes 2-3 deaths and an anonymous email from posioncokeguy@hotmail.com to the news media to start a pandemonium.

Of course, this particular event took place in Georgia the country and not Georgia the state, but that doesn't mean that we should just laugh it off as something those kooky old communists did. I'm sure we have radioactive and chemical poison floating around all over the place, but do we know where that all is? Especially considering all the illegal dumping that corporations have been doing over the years...

I have spent some time watching a lot of those "true crime" shows over the last few months, and one aspect that seems to be constantly ignored is that most of the crimes are not solved though "investigation" but through dumb luck. Often the key to solving the case comes from a criminal calling home or accidentally bumping into the wrong person in a city a thousand miles away. Just look at how the anthrax investigation has petered out. They have basically stopped looking and now are just waiting for the bad guys to slip up and tell their story to a stranger in Pensacola in a drunken lapse in judgment. A really well honed group could easily pull off a incredible terrorist attack even today. With the right amount of encryption and non-localization, and a healthy dose of disinformation, a group could easily pull off a stunt that dwarfs 9/11 with ease. But the we seem to be complacent with the belief that the materials to create mass destruction are safely locked away. Stories like the above tell us that this belief is flawed, and we should really start to question just how safe we really are...