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Super-Sensitive Spray-On Explosive Detector
esocid writes "US scientists have designed a new spray-on explosive detector sensitive enough to detect just a billionth of a gram of (nitrogen-containing) explosive. After treatment, the explosive glows blue under UV light, making the detector perfect for use in the field. The silafluorene-fluorene copolymer can detect explosives at much lower levels than existing systems because it detects particles instead of explosive vapors, and is able to show the difference between nitrate esters (trinitroglycerin) and nitroaromatic explosives (TNT). The team is currently working on a similar system to detect peroxide-based explosives and say they hope to be able to investigate perchlorates and organic nitrates, too."
The article isn't terribly specific about which nitrogen compounds react to the spray, only providing a couple of examples. If I worked in my garden 5 days before a flight, am I going to get hazed by TSA because I didn't eliminate every last speck of fertilizer from my clothes?
When reading this was, so people's clothing and bags will be covered with this fluorene polymer for who knows how long. And if used liberally in an airport, we'll be breathing aerosolized fluorene. It's not classified as a carcinogen, but I don't believe humans have ever been chronically exposed to it, but I guess we'll find out if the TSA starts using it in a few years.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
Exactly. In fact, some of the offending explosives sprayed undetectably into several check-in lines in the late-adopting airports would soon infect 20% of the entire luggage-transporting infrastructure. Sure, terrorists could never get it all off themselves, but then neither could anyone else.
So isntead of bothering with the trouble of setting off a bomb just spray a bunch of people with a little bit of chemical. If your compatriots do so at other major airports you can probably shut down the whole system for a good while.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
One would hope that they would be intelligent about it and only use the stuff on "abandoned luggage" they find about the airport to determine whether or not to call in the bomb squad.
Of course this would require prudence and an ounce of sense from the TSA - I wouldn't count on it. In fact I bet this is used in the most inconvenient, ridiculous, and stupid manner possible. Like perhaps aerosolizing the stuff all about and making everyone walk under a black light so as to maximize the time it takes to get from a ticket counter to a plane.
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
by Hobby I handload. That is, I create special rounds in obscure calibers and target shoot. I realize few here would share my hobby, or understand it. Being technically minded in the geek science of ballistics does NOT brand me a terrorist in my eyes, but this would do so on the waterboards of Homeland Security. This is what we have come to?
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
> Sure, terrorists could never get it all off themselves, but then neither could
> anyone else.
Are you sure?
Actually I think the terrorist has the best chance. So they adopt clean room style techniques to separate production of explosives from packaging them. Produce the explosives, produce the other componenats. seal them in a plastic layer... hand off to a clean person at the door who takes it to a clean room, tosses it in a tub to be washed, and leaves it to the next guy who has never been to a room full of explosives with all clean clothes to sew it into a bag or other operation.
They can even do test runs where they just test moving something innocuous that they bag up and try to fly with and see if it picks up residue. As long as it looks like a false positive, they get their information.
I don't really think any number of technological measures will ever stop a determined attacker who can choose his methods and his time.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Woefully inadequet? When exactly was the last time a US plane was hijacked? When was the last one brought down? What is the signifigance of the impact of the dead from airplane crashes due to terrorist action in relation to say, traffic accidents?
It looks to me like airoort security is FAR tighter than it ever needed to be. The simple fact is, there just isn't that much of a call for keeping bombs off planes
. Its more a demand problem really. There are plenty of planes to blow up, not shortage at all, just a very low demand for blowing them up. So low that it doesn't happen still, even with the lax and weak security theater going on at the "checkpoints"
Its a non-issue. Seriously, spend more time worrying about your cholesterol and keeping your driving skills sharp, those are far bigger dangers to you.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
The day that an airline tells me they want to spritz me with some random crap as part of their screening procedure is the day that I stop flying.
Everyone has a limit beyond which flying, no matter how convenient, is just not an option. This is (one of) mine.
- David Stein
Computer over. Virus = very yes.
I don't know how many people here know this, but a UK citizen was arrested and sentenced in Dubai for 3 milligrams of cannabis. Once people can get arrested for microgram or smaller levels of anything, no one will be safe, since no one will be able to tell if they haven't been exposed at that level, and it will be very hard to verify that the vanishingly small evidence was indeed what was claimed.
Oh good! Something even MORE SENSITIVE, and thus MORE SUBJECT TO FALSE POSITIVES!
Now, Big Brother will have reason to pull you aside because they found:
1) Ammonium nitrate (from fertilizer residue on your golf clubs, shoes, clothes, and anything that ame into contact with equipemnt or fertilized ground)
2) Nitroglycerin (from hand lotions, creams, and medication)
3) Nitrocellulose (unburned powder residue from anybody who shoots or hunts)
4) Phosphorous (residue from matches)
5) Hydrocarbons (from gasoline/diesel if you filled your car up before arriving at the airport)
6) PETN (From heart medication)
7) Glycerine (from hand lotions/creams/makeup)
Considering all the false positives and not a single positive, this product is pretty much useless, except for collaring people who ARE NOT terrorists. Even more so, what about the people who don't know what the ingredients in their personal product are?
How could someone, especially your average Jane Doe who most likely does not realize that her hand cream contains nitroglycerin? How about the cranky guy who doesn't realize he has ammonium Nitrate on his clothes that rubbed off on him from his dog who rolled around on someone's freshly fertilized lawn? How about the guy taking PETN or nitroglycerine for heart problems? Does he need to be a pharmacist as well as a chemist to know that it's the same stuff used in bombs? What about the guy who filled up his car on the way to the airport and has diesel or gasoline fuel residue on his hands? What if you are an avid rifleman? Does the presense of nitrocellulose on your hands/shirt/pants make you a suspected terrorist? They truly and honestly won't be able to explain these things, because they don't know that virtually every product used in daily life can potentially have some "explosive" (when used in pure quantities) ingredient that those overzealous, jackbooted customs "agents" are itching to collar you for.
This product has a *VERY* limited market, and by limited I mean only flights originating from certain, suspect Middle Eastern Countries. Using it in the Civilized World, it serves no more purpose than to give Big Brother enough "Probable Cause" to ruin your day, if not your life.
I'd like to see the numbers of False Positives compared to TRUE POSITIVES.
This crap is no more use than as an expensive can of Cheez Whiz.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Sold in tax free: Razor blades, Matches, Vodka in glass bottles, Propane propelled deodorant, etc...
Confiscated in security: Nail scissors, tweezers, liquid volumes exceeding 100ml
Allowed through security (personal experience ): candles, multiple liquid containers at 100ml each, litres of liquids that are inside a sealed plastic bag with a pwetty picture on it... etc..
This is even past the stage of security theater, it is damn obvious its primary purpose is to allow the airports to sell more stuff once you are past the security clearance.
Woefully inadequet? When exactly was the last time a US plane was hijacked? When was the last one brought down? What is the signifigance of the impact of the dead from airplane crashes due to terrorist action in relation to say, traffic accidents?
Ya know, ever since I put this rock that repeled tigers in my yard, there have been no tiger attacks in all of VT! And my wife laughed at me when I bought it. Sure showed her..
Chage the external politics, and forget about terrorism. don't make enemys