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Aerosol Spray to Identify Bombing Suspects
RedHanded writes "Forensic chemists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have developed a color-changing spray that can identify people suspected of making or planting bombs. The chemical turns from yellow to bright red when it comes into contact with urea nitrate, an explosive residue that may be left behind on the hands of someone who has handled an improvised device."
How many false alarms are they going to get after people don't wash their hands after visiting the bathroom?
Maybe that is what they are looking for - poor hygiene = terrorist?
Perhaps this chemical is the same one which makes the purple cloud of shame in the swimming pool (I know its a legend but still..)
liqbase
Bomb makers or maybe farmers who handle fertilizer? I don't envy being a false positive in Iraq.
Jherico
What can the average user can do to ensure his security? "Nothing, you're screwed"
zillion dollar spray defeated by less than a cent disposable rubber gloves.
It's a good thing that terrorists never wash their hands.
I recall that troops in Iraq had already started using silly string to detect IED's. Now we're going to spray paint people to try to find who made the bombs? I'm waiting to see what 7-11 product shows up on the battlefeild next...
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I guess that means everyone boarding a plane will have yellow hands. I suspect they'll use up the plane's water reservoir trying to wash the crap off, too.
Terrorists will now use gloves to make bombs. Innocent people will be falsely identified as being a terrorist.
Mission accomplished!
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
piss-poor detector...
(captcha: enrage)
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
...smart terrorists only use peroxide-based explosives (like the London subway bombing et al), oxidized halide based explosives (e.g. chlorate), and various other dirt cheap and ubiquitous explosives. While many of the most famous explosive chemistries might be subject to nitrate tests, the range of explosive chemistries that have been used at various times is far more diverse than nitrates. First World War mortar explosives are as dangerous today as they were back then, even if some of them do not contain nitrates.
The fixation on the detection of nitrate and related chemistry is a bit of a blind spot in explosive detection technology.
Sounds like something Gil Grissom or Horatio Caine would use
I saw the Sign, and it opened up my eyes
In the UK, the Birmingham Six were falsely imprisoned for 16 years (one chap died in prison) largely because of the Griess test. The trouble is, anything nitrated will give a positive. The playing cards the men had been using on the train when they were arrested were probably what set it off. Ping pong balls certainly would. Imagine Forrest Gump in the Twenty First Century, "And then I met the President again, then they tasered me, then I went to prison for life." The Griess test is now completely discredited. Its re-introduction would be on a par with admitting polygraphs, or examining chickens' giblets as evidence, whether it's packaged as an aerosol or anything else.
I think labeling people as terrorists because of their color is just wrong.
Is this going to be another GSR-like useless test? Because that's just what I wanted for Christmas.
... not forgetting playing cards and other chemically coated items.
There were Irish citizens in the UK sent to jail for life for false positives from tests like this after coercive interrogations extracted 'confessions' once the test showed their 'guilt'. One guy died in prison, his son was freed years later, another went insane.
Over-hyped chemical tests from academics are NOT a good thing for justice. It's a tool to be used with caution and a dose of helathy skepticism.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There are other ways to make bombs and cause havoc. But i'm interested in knowing if a neutraliser can be developed in a small lab (say some individuals get access to a high school lab).
I just hope that there won't be any misuse.
Why do I keep thinking of folks who benchmark anti-viruses, and later state in a report "X Antivirus detected Y virus, which was not a virus but a mere file....False Alarm"? Catch my drift here.
What the authorities must understand right now -> this spray is NOT the ultimate bomb maker catcher! It's merely a tool to detect a chemical. Make use of the spray wisely
Do I require the c-sig package to have a signature?
Urea nitrate is also secreted through the pores of people with kidney failure/kidney disease. I would hope that I don't see this spray in action on youtube.
Go to the range and put a dozen rounds downrange through a semiauto... that'll put enough nitrogen compounds on your hands... I believe the compound they're talking about may well be the same version used in modern gunpowder, but I'll have to check on it later.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Did some of you peoplesgo to school of causewhen you touch any thingsin this world it get on you.
Something we could all use for the classic "Who farted in the elevator" investigation!
The game.
Before that they just didn't think it was feasible to try to detect them chemically since they could be made from so many different things. When was the last time anyone heard about an ANFO bomb going off somewhere anyway?
It's a good thing those terrists don't know about gloves!
Praise Jeebus!
I recall that troops in Iraq had already started using silly string to detect IED's.
I wonder if a light spray of this stuff would make a hidden IED stand out as a bright red spot?
And perhaps with red trails marking how it arrived and where the people who delivered it went when they left?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I've mentioned this on Slashdot before but I'll bring it up again since it seems germane. Back in the mid-fifties, my father, his three brothers and sister decided to head out West to look for the Lost Dutchman gold mine. There was one particular shaft which legend has it was near where the Dutchman was supposed to be. It was a long vertical drop of about fifty feet, and then a horizontal run of a couple of hundred. In any event, they decided to do some blasting (this was out in the middle of the desert somewhere, no danger of anyone but themselves getting hurt.) So on the way there, they stopped in at a local small town hardware store and picked up a case of dynamite. No forms, no paperwork, no red tape, no kowtowing to some bureaucrat somewhere. As the parent poster pointed out, there are many legitimate uses for explosives.
... alas, no gold mine. That's too bad, because if they had found it, I'd be posting this from my family yacht. Eventually they finished with their search and decided it was time to come home, but they realized they had quite a bit of dynamite left. What else to do but spend an afternoon blowing up boulders and making holes in the sand. All in good fun, actually. Hard to imagine that happening in the U.S. today: odds are I'd never have been born because my father would have died in prison, rather than at home like he wanted.
Well, they blasted away down there, cleared away some more rock
In any event, I'm just pointing out that nobody bothered to restrict the sale of high explosives (not that dynamite compares to modern stuff) until some fuckheads a decade or two later decided to blow up a few buildings to make a "statement" or some such.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
...when your first thought is the effect on the rights of the bomb makers.
someone got the marketing spin engine revving to 50K RPM today:
"that can identify people suspected of making or planting bombs."
Bullshit. Using the spray may detect a chemical, (not people) which then people may use to suspect one another.
Big difference.
Every time you test for bombs Huggies kills a child.....please think about the children...... *ducks*
I generally agree with your sentiment, but dude, "Home defense"???
I would love to learn a legitamate use for high explosives in home defense. You might convinve me of normal explosives, for those of you that feel the need for "blow-it-up-if-you-get-too-close" protection -- but high explosives?
Urea nitrate? And this article was from the "spray-the-terror-away" department?
Why, that should have been from the "pissing-the-night-away" department. Any Chumbawamba fan should have thought of it.
"I get blown up, I get up again,
And you're never gonna keep me down
I get blown up, I get up again,
And you're never gonna keep me down..."
Well, it all started when I was just 13 years of age. One day, while walking with some friends, I accidentally cut the cheese. Well, in my adolescent awkwardness, I blamed it on an old gypsy woman who happened to be passing by. BIG MISTAKE! The gypsy woman placed a curse upon my head. Because I smelled it, she decreed I would forevermore BE HE WHO DEALT IT!
The Spleen
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
The test for iron to tell if someone has handled a gun, or a grenade, or ... a wrench, or a wrought-iron railing, no?
That's true. Same thing with hijacking planes, the question used to be "Where are we going to go instead?" before someone said that the answer was "Those buildings over there." Now, no one can do the hijacking thing around here any more.
Now that I think about it, I wonder if the very strong anti-gun agenda in the UK is a backlash from Guy Fawkes, or just the more recent American Revolution. If only there was a way for all our rights being taken away to create some sort of polarizing backlash in the same way...
I see your informative link, and raise you a pithy comment.
Sounds like they'll be catching them red-handed.
Dan T: Man, this sounds good, where can I download it?
Dan W: The Internet
Quack, quack.
Well if you're going to blow your own house up, you might as well make sure you really teach it a lesson.
The world can be wrong today for once.
The one day someone has bomb residue on their hands is the one day Benny, the security guard, accidentally grabs the aerosol can full of Pledge...
since urea nitrate is one of how many hundreds of possible explosive materials?
If only there was a way for all our rights being taken away to create some sort of polarizing backlash in the same way...
... you came awfully close to using the "R" word.
... the gradual increase in government power over time, using extreme incidents to rationalize same to the public.
Careful there
What I was referring to was "incrementalism"
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Be sure to watch out for red Ryder trucks near federal buildings.
Of course, Israelis could stop their war with Arabs. But maybe that would be too smart for the average person to grasp.
Bush's Plan: War all the time. Big profits for war and oil investors, and the taxpayer pays all the expenses.
This guy showed us a clear liquid that turns bright blue when it reacts with peroxide based explosives about four years ago in my chem for Engineers class. If this stuff is so useful, I kind of wonder why THIS chemical hasn't come into popular use. It was also sprayable, non-toxic, etc etc. He was always bragging about meeting with generals and executives to discuss it.
Makes me wonder why they're bothering to develop more when they're not coming into widespread use.
You show them, America(n)!
- Dan
Don't fertilize you yard before being tested. You don't want to be suspected of handling explosives.
*sprays person's hands*
Is it red? Is it red?
Is it- BOOM!
Thats 'merka(n) to you buddy!
You have got to be kidding me!!! Laws are not made to oppress, but because we, I say WE have seen in the past where someone or something infringed on someone else's rights and caused harm to innocents... Laws are placed for that not to happen... In the free society you speak of I would be allowed to come over there and kick the hell out of you and expect no consequences, or purchase the high explosives that I want and create a crater of glass around you!! I'm not even saying you are wrong but the utopian society you speak of will never exist we need laws to keep control of the idiots down the road and prevent future crimes... I do however have a problem with you thinking that it is a miniscule threat, PEOPLE dieing is not very miniscule... the false positives are worth it... if it saves 15 or 20 American's lives it will be worth it.. You call this a "witch hunt" it's not a witch hunt it is a serious problem.
Touchy subjects I know but worth a thought... Would you like to know that every postman could get their hands on high explosives? Could you imagine what would have happened if the kids in Columbine could have gotten their hands on high explosives?
Israelis spray YOU!
Try new "Bombs Away!" anti-fumblementalist aerosol.
Just spray in the air and terrorists fade away like bad gas.
New, from Ryan Industries.
I remember somebody I know telling me about how she was stopped and searched, etc at the airport because she had traces of nitro on her hands and in her purse. Now why would she have that? Well her husband used it as a medication for his bad heart.
You'd be surprised at the rather harmless (explosion-wise anyways) uses many of these chemicals have, and I'm sure the airport guards may be as well. I've heard many cases of funky medications giving weird results in various situations. Did you know that taking a breathalizer test shortly after pumping ventalin (for asthma) will often result in a false positive?
My friend heard this and decided to test it with a police officer (first by passing the test, then by puffing and taking it again). They were both quite surprised at how much it skewed the reading. The officer basically stated he'd never heard of such a thing, but he'd definitely keep it in mind and pass it along to others for future reference as in a situation where he had not watched her puff and taken the earlier reading my friend would have been on her way down to the station on DUI charges.
should do, provided you can locate their hands...
Now before I get started, bear in mind that not only I'm not a chemist, but Chemistry is one of the things I understand the least. So major talking out the arse follows. If anyone who knows chemistry better wants to correct me, please do, it's very much appreciated.
That said, looking at the illustration of the mollecules interacting in TFA, it looks to me like their dye binds to just the nitrate anion, and there is no trace of urea to be seen at all there. I.e., what is so funnily coloured is their mollecule after stealing a nitrate anion from _any_ nitrate whatsoever.
It could be that other mollecules don't give their nitrate as gladly as urea nitrate, or whatever. Again, I don't know enough chemistry to rule that out.
But unless I forgot chemistry completely, _any_ salt will split into a number of ions in a solution. Heck, even water doesn't stay H2O, a number of mollectules split into HO- and H3O+ ions. Ph 7 is basically just the equilibrium point for that mix.
So basically even if you handled potassium nitrate for your orchids, or made a sandwich with ham cured with that (preservative E252 _is_ potassium nitrate), or just are a chain smoker (tobacco is quite commonly treated with it too), or made a model rocket recently, etc, etc, etc... you'll have plenty of nitrate anions on your skin for this thing to bind to. Heck, it's increasingly used in toothpaste too.
And that's just one nitrate. Another common one that comes to mind is ammonium nitrate. Ok, so that one _can_ be used for an ANFO bomb, but is also used by the ton by farmers and even by miners.
So I'm, you know, _curious_ what their miracle aerosol does in the presence of those. Did they spray it on a slice of cured ham and it _didn't_ turn purple, for example? Did they check it on ammonium nitrate too? On a pingpong ball? Basically which nitrates _does_ it react with, and which not? Because again, my uninformed interpretation of their drawing is that it would react with any nitrate whatsoever.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
All it takes is some clown producing a similar looking bottle with only red paint and you'd have a problem.
Got someone you don't like? Spray the edges of their cartons with red pains and phone the police. Given the clearly intelligent reasoning the police employs to anything terrorist related this person will spend quite some unpleasant time.
Your excuse? You THOUGHT it looked suspicious..
Heck, hiking in the mountains with my family, we *found* half a box of dynamite lying beside an open shaft. Unfortunately, it was so many years ago my brothers and I were between the ages of eight and twelve, so our parents made us leave it there... *sigh* Although I still have all my fingers, toes, and both eyes, so it could have been worse.
AC
Do the names Callaghan, Hill, Hunter, McKilkenny, Power and Walker mean anything to anyone?
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Go down to your local airport. Pick something that lots of people will handle, say the luggage trollies, or the paper towels in a bathroom, and sprinkle with urea nitrate. Leave before the avalanche of false positives at the security checks.
...when your first thought is the effect on the urea nitrate.
Dunblane.
Sadly these days, you can cause just as much disruption in Europe by simply trying to take a 250ml bottle of Evian on your hand luggage!
See here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/content/articles/2007/07/19/airport_security_feature.shtml
...And yet I have not heard anyone say anything about being caught red handed. :p
(Although on that note, I did not scroll through ALL the responses for this story)
How is this tech new? I know Expray has been around since 1991 (dropex is now out too) and is used for around $2.50 per test (that takes less than a minute and can detect explosives and "compounds containing inorganic nitrates that are used in improvised explosives" with a nanogram level sensitivity). The tech isn't new, I don't know if Expray is necessarily skin friendly but at that point of sensitivity you could just aim at clothes or nails rather than envelopes and packages. Seriously not new and not impressive.
Who'll tend the farms, when they arrest all the farmers ?
;)
And all the old folk who like to care for their flowers ?
Or the car-washer who cleans pickups ?
This could get out of control, people
I really hope you know that all terrorists have a political agenda. Even the Oklahoma bomber had some sort of a message (albeit very silly and racist). al-Quaida certainly had/has a political aim, not killing all the infidels as some simple people on your side of the pond try to twist it.
As a post here some time a go pointed out, the more horrific the deed, the more people tend to ignore the political message the terrorist tries to put across. They would have been much better served to waterbomb a major city (and spread their leaflets at the same time).
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
Urea nitrate costs $5 a pound in my local greenhouse supply store... No need for this guy to make it himself.
As someone who has had kidney failure (now had transplant) I happen to know that there is an increase in Blood Urea Nitrate as it cannot be cleaned out by the failed kidneys.
This will escape through sweat glands and will show up as a positive test for "explosive residue". hmm somewhat stuck there. Honest, I'm on dialysis guv.
p.s. Osama Bin Laden also has kidney failure. How they going to cope with that one!
America, Home of the Brave.
The answers to your question(?)/observation(?) would be, I think:
1) Yes. Most of us have had significant levels of schooling (as evidenced by the relatively erudite discussions of chemical interactions, and why this is very probably more of a vector for false, rather than true, positives, and is ripe for misuse).
2) Yes. By and large, we're familiar with cause and effect (which is, for purposes of this discussion, more complex than it might otherwise seem, as there is an ongoing debate of what other _completely_non-bomb_related_ compounds might also be falsely identified).
Your post also strongly encourages us all to wonder:
1) What exactly was the intended point of your question(?)/observation(?)?
2) If your English is this spotty, do you actually really have a grasp of what is being discussed?
Cheers,
What "R" word? Revolution? I'm not talking about it. I'm talking about Reformation. I'm talking about some rights violation so egregious that the country will come together in demanding their rights back. Something like some VIP vanishing, and reappearing telling tales about being kidnapped to Gitmo. Terrorists accessing phone taps that were placed by the government. Something that hits hard for Joe Sixpack, that will not be ignored.
John F. Kennedy brought the threat of assassination home to the U.S. Presidential security beefed way up after that.
9/11 brought home both hijacking as a weapon instead of a getaway, and global terrorism. Up till that point, the majority of our terrorists had been domestic, people like Timothy McVeigh and Ted Kaczynski. No one worried much about people from the middle east around here before that. Boom, instant suspicion.
We need another polarizing incident, this one highlighting how badly our rights have deteriorated. Only then will we demand them back.
I see your informative link, and raise you a pithy comment.
Ah, okay, sorry. This is Slashdot so I expected the worst.
... what does it take for us to wake up?
Anyway, the problem with polarizing incidents of the type you mention is that they make people afraid. And when they are afraid, the government steps in with a "solution" (e.g., the TSA, DHS, etc.) that pretty much invariably means loss of civil liberties, and because we're afraid we go for it. That's what I was talking about. What's needed is something very public that not only involves Americans being stripped of their rights by their own government, but a something that makes people realize, at some emotional level, that their government might happen to them too, that they are at risk. Maybe we need our own Tianamen Square, I don't know. Well, we kind of did with Waco, and what down during that fiasco was pretty egregious. Yet, as a society, we let it pass (just a bunch of religious nutjobs, after all.) There's Guantanemo Bay. The Patriot Act, National Security Letters, Alberto Gonzales
Problem is, we're pretty complacent. Not enough of us have been royally screwed by the Feds, or know someone that has. We're not sufficiently afraid of big government yet. On the other hand, I know some people that emigrated here from Russia: believe me, they can tell you what it's like to have a government with little or no conception of "civil rights." I don't want to live like that.
The Sergeant from Heinlein's Starship Troopers (the novel, not that cinematic rubbish) made a comment that "societies abide by the morals they can afford." All I have to say is, if the only morals that America can afford are what I'm seeing all around me nowadays, there's something seriously wrong.
Sooner or later, I have the feeling you'll get your wish. This is going to get worse before it gets better. If it can get better.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
.. and how can we exercise choice as to whether we're exposed to a potentially harmful chemical? (And can we take some of it to make sure that it is indeed what they say it is?)
Don't spray crap at me, man.