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Spam Text Prematurely Blows Up Suicide Bomber
Hugh Pickens writes "A suicide bomber's plan to detonate explosives in Central Moscow on New Year's Eve was foiled when she received an unexpected spam text message that caused her deadly payload to blow up too early. A message wishing her a happy new year came hours before the unnamed woman was to set off her suicide belt near Red Square, an act of terrorism that could have killed hundreds of people. Islamist terrorists in Russia often use mobile phones as detonators. The bomber's handler, who is usually watching his charge, sends the bomber a text message to set off the explosive belt at the moment when it is thought they can inflict maximum casualties."
Made me think of Achmed and his 'premature detonation.'
Sad to think this is how people need to express their world view, happy when it turns out like this for them.
I can see the spam now:
"B10w ur load urly?" Buy M3dic4l V1a6ra!!!
Who would have ever thought that Spam would save a life?
At least now they can't say that spam never killed anyone.
I doubt it was that sophisticated; they probably just hooked up the wires for the ringer or vibrator to a detonator instead.
Either that or they care so little about the suicide bombers that they didn't bother doing the extra work to prevent this.
"You've Got Fail"
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Why stop at Islam?
In Soviet Russia, spam blocks you.
Indeed - any fundie is a danger, no matter what invisible sky being they believe in
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Bombs don't kill people. People kill people.
If you block text messages off in an area, only outlaws will have text messages.
end satire.
No pun intended ;)
God forbid. Cutting off communications in an area would also be the perfect way to quell descent or to turn an organized protest into a discrediting (for the protesters) riot. And/or disappear people whilst stopping them from telling others they're being arrested.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Great. Now spam is an anti-terrorism tool. Is there no escape?
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Islam != terrorism.
Please study your religions. Islam is the world's most common religion; only a tiny fraction of its adherents are violent. It's just like saying "How are we going to get rid of Christianity? They wont be happy until they're raped all our children."
The "story" is a little light on details. The suicide bomber has no name and no location is given, other than she was in a "safe house". Why wasn't this news four weeks ago, when it was New Year's? Why do they think it was an errant text message that set the bomb off and not just a defective trigger (after all, the phone should have been destroyed in the blast)?
I expect to see this on Snopes shortly.
Worse than that. Virtually any cheapass phone allows you to set specific ring/vibration combinations for specific numbers. Set the trigger number to "vibrate", connect the vibration motor driver to the detonation stage, and set the default to "silent". Should take 25 seconds or so. Maybe a few minutes if VZ designed the interface...
Thankfully many of the bomb makers for such groups don't think through the failure modes very thoroughly.
Those Terrorism Safety courses are kinda boring. Too much theory and not enough hands-on (or should I say, "hands-off").
Table-ized A.I.
It seems rather dangerous to have it set off with any incoming SMS. You'd think they could've invested in the time to hook it to at least only respond to a particular number.
jaymz
Ok, this will only work a few times, and soon the terrorists would find other ways to detonate....
Every now and then the phone company can randomly send a text message. Or, since the bomb is probably tied to the speaker, just send half a ring. just something small. And do it more often near holidays or major events where people gather (like, before the superbowl, send everyone a text message)
No need to send to EVERYONE, just everyone in areas where people gather...
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
All it would take is a day's prep, an extra chip and 10 minutes of work to make it only blow up if, say, the message contains 5 a's. Tie the text out to something to check for the right 1's and 0's. This was shoddy workmanship.
You're talking about rudimentary programming for people who haven't even figured out that they could take the bomb off before detonating it. Gotta walk before you can run.
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
How are we going to rid the world of ISLAM? These peopel make me despair, they won't be happy until they convert or kill us all. There isn't a country in the world that hasn't suffered from this religion of hate
You make me despair. How are we going to get rid of the STUPID people who, without blinking, generalize about a billion people? There isn't a country in the world that hasn't suffered from this racist stupidity.
How are we going to rid the world of ISLAM? These peopel make me despair, they won't be happy until they convert or kill us all. There isn't a country in the world that hasn't suffered from this religion of hate
My impression is that this has as much to do with Russian unpleasantness in Chechnya, as it does religion.
I'd be intersted to see how much "Islamic" terrorism the West and Russia faced if they stopped pissing on so many Muslims.
I suspect you answered your own question. It took time to figure all this stuff out, going through records and such, and that's why it's only now being reported on.
February 2nd 2011
Associated Press
"Both houses of Congress passed a bill that requires all US Cell Phone companies to send one free text message every hour to all mobile phone user in the country." This controversial bill is aimed at stopping any attempted suicide bomber attacks. Opponents of the bill say...
Indeed - any fundie is a danger, no matter what invisible sky being they believe in
My impression is that there's a lot more justification (and impetus) for forcible world domination in the Q'uran than there is in the Bible.
Not that that stopped the Western European powers from using it as a justification. But I suspect it was more a pretense for most of those leaders, than it was anything driven by a desire to be good Christians.
Tastes fine, saves lives.
</humor>
Quite frankly this has a darker story. The handler can't trust the person to push their own button, so the handler does it remotely without the persons consent. That would imply that a number of people have failed to do what they have been psychologically coerced to believe what their duty, when its not something they really wanted to do in the first place. Feelings of despair and insignificance are easily played upon by psychotic individuals.
This story is hilarious! I'm gonna text it to all my terrorist friends right now!
Because 90% of women bombers are forced to do it. the scumbag Islamic terrorists either start killing their children, or threaten to kill their kids to make the woman do the deed. In fact a cellphone detonator means she could not be trusted to blow herself up so her Islamic torturer needed to have control of her death to make them happy.
All you flag wavers saying "dumb bitch" are uninformed as to how Utterly Disgraceful and lack of Honor these Islamic Terrorists are.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Islam isn't the problem. Religion isn't the problem. Force is the problem. Coercion. Violence. Theft. Fraud. In the absence of force, religion is harmless. In the absence of force, everything is harmless.
Force is the true root of all evil, because without force, there can be no evil. It's not logically possible, because force is what defines evil from beginning to end.
Instead of focusing on beliefs, culture, and trying to divide people into "teams" who are supposedly enemies, we should be looking precisely at where and how force is employed, and by whom. This is where the evil is, and this is what needs to stop. Islam doesn't need to stop. Religion doesn't need to stop. FORCE NEEDS TO STOP.
Now, how many of us are man enough to admit that for every human being murdered by a suicide bomber, governments have caused thousands of times more death and destruction? There's a reason why government wants you to believe that the problem is "Islam", rather than force alone.
Or just send constant free "Terror Risk Updates" to an area, to "keep the population informed of the situation".
Oh, we all know we'd be all much better off if, like the UK, we allowed shariah to rule our courthouses for our islamic communities.
But for some reason, some of us just can't get over with it and just move on. I'm told it has something to do with democracy, equal rights and social progress, whatever that means... [sarcasm inside]
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
I'd tend to agree except in the west the fundies are kept in check by other members of the flock for the most part. In Islam they're celebrated, and shining examples to be held up for the rest in many societies. Don't believe me? Take a look at moderate malaysia some time, pakistan is another fine example.
Om, nomnomnom...
Depends how you read them. If you are looking for 'signs' in either one that you are to force domination over another you will find it in either text...well ANY lard text anyways. You could find sign in Moby Dick telling you to do what ever it is your looking to do.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
No, you were correct. That's Islam...also most other religeons.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Are you kidding me? it's even more funny now.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Yeah, Islam is more into stoning women who were raped.
Abusing underage girls and claiming cultural/religious license to do so.
Executing people like Theo van Gogh in the street for saying anything negative about Islam.
Kidnapping and torturing people including aid workers until finally taping their slow, agonizing decapitation.
Yeah, Islam has quite a moral high ground there too.
Religion is evil.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
How are we going to rid the world of $RANDOMBIGGROUP? These peopel make me despair, they won't be happy until they convert or kill us all. There isn't a country in the world that hasn't suffered from this group of hate
There fixed it for ya. This script is more generic.
Well, if you send fewer than 40 texts per month, that's somehow cheaper, unless you're an idiot who never passed grade one math.
Haida Manga
I've read that suicide bombers tend not to be unstable and tend to be well educated middle class professionals. A little fact checking on Wikipedia shows there have been other, conflicting studies, though. Still, in general, suicide bombers are not the unstable, low income, desperate types portrayed in the media.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_bomber#Profile_of_attackers
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
You are a lunatic. Please seek psychiatric help.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
If it's for religious reasons, and it usually is, then they are forbidden from committing suicide upon punishment of going to hell. Because they are dead, it's a sin that cannot be forgiven. The loophole exists that they aren't killing themselves if someone else does the actual button pressing. These guys take loopholes way more seriously than the character optimization board at WotC and they've had thousands of years to figure this shit out. The consequences are greater, sure, but they've got it figured out.
The murders, apparently, are kosher / halal / unicode error. Better than that, actually, by martyring yourself whilst killing the holy enemies of your chosen one then you are assured -- fucking assured -- that you get to escape this oppressed life and move to a perfect beautiful one (albeit a hilarious parody of adolescent fantasy) in paradise, with the blessing of your chosen one.
I know, it assumes facts not in evidence. I'm a Secular Humanist so don't try saying but there's no God because I already know that, I'm just saying that that's their mentality.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
I'm confused.
I hate spam. I think that spam is the act of an ultimately useless flacid coward. Probably why they are always hawking so much damn viagra.
I hate terrorists. I think that terrorism is the act of an ultimately useless flacid coward. Maybe they wouldnt be so cranky if someone gave them some viagra.
So the question, If the spammers anger the suicide bombing kooks; And the jihadists go after the the spammers.
Who do we want to win? I suppose the best we can hope for is mutual distruction.
Right, so to prevent Islamic fundamentalist terrorism all we have to do is convert to their brand of Islamic fundamentalism, tear down science and knowledge, re-enslave our women, kill all the infidels and submit to the absolute authority of a few wealthy imam. Glad to know. That sounds like a good idea.
One other thing that is bothering me is why do they have a suicide bomber on a remote detonator? If you're a suicide bomber, then can't you be trusted with your own detonator?
And you're capable of building a bomb with a remote detonator, then why would you be a suicide bomber (and not just a "drop it and run" bomber)?
- suicide bombers can have doubts, and you dont want one turning at the last moment
- dropping a suspicious package/backpack and walking/running away can alarm people, if you are obvious enough, everyone might run away in panic after someone shouts 'BOMB', costing you lots of precious victims. Putting the bomb on a person ensures surprise.
People, what a bunch of bastards
If you're a suicide bomber, then can't you be trusted with your own detonator?
Really? You really have to ask if someone whose bright plan is to strap explosives to themselves is level-headed enough to be trusted the with detonator?
And you're capable of building a bomb with a remote detonator, then why would you be a suicide bomber (and not just a "drop it and run" bomber)?
It is very rare that a suicide bomber is also the bomb maker. They are usually some idealistic kid or even mentally handicapped person that the bomb maker or cell takes advantage of and convinces to go blow themselves up. The remote detonator takes away that deciding moment of whether they can really press the button and allows for remote detonation in the case they are ID'd and shot. The use of a suicide bomber makes a statement and display about the "dedication" to the cause and has a larger psychological impact. It also does not leave open the chance for the drop-off guy to get picked up and interrogated.
However, if the story is at all true, it leads to the usual conclusion:
If you (the bomber's handler) want something done properly, you just have to do it yourself.
The story is almost certainly a hoax. Someone went to the trouble of setting up a remote bomb detonator via a mobile phone, but didn't take into account unexpected spam messages setting it off? Remember that scene in "The Specialist" wasn't it(my memory is hazy), where Ray is making the bomb and placing a detonator in it? You're telling me the guy who put the thing together actually turned on the phone and jammed it into a few pounds of semtex when it could have gone off at any time?
This story smacks of the typical kind derogatory propaganda that come out of the Kremlin these days. Stories that make the regime's opponents look foolish or undignified. I'm reminded of Kasparov being griefed by a flying penis. This is the caliber of political maneuvering that can be expected form the Putin regime.
This story is probably nothing more than a KGB sourced urban legend, designed to make Chechen separatists look incompetent and backwards. Anything to distract from the Government's inability to protect its capital city from people who live 2000km away.
May the Maths Be with you!
It's probably a very crude device, where they attach the speaker/vibrator wires directly to a detonator.
Exactly, that's all it is.
Anything more sophisticated isn't a matter of cost so much as having anyone who knows how to do it. Triggering by a specific number involves actually writing code to be run on the phone, which would involve a lot more effort and couldn't be done by just anyone.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
We should not take the decision to suicide bomb into account when determining the stability of the person doing it. Obviously, by one definition, they are not stable. But that is not the real question. The question is, can we judge who is likely to become a suicide bomber by their stability prior to the bombing? If they act like normal people before the bombing, rather than acting unstable in some way, then the answer is no.
We are looking for answers to the question, "What would make someone do that?" and one easy answer is "They are crazy." But that is no answer at all. And when we look, we see that (besides the bombing) these people don't look crazy. So we have to look further for the reasons. And that is scary. If they are simply crazy, we can wash our hands of it, there is nothing we can really do besides fight them. If they are not crazy, things become a whole lot more complicated. We need to start looking at their real motivations. And we never like what we see when we really look at their motivations, because their motivations relate to our actions. It is much easier to say "They are just crazy" than it is to say "They are regular people who believe they have been pushed too far and are fighting back."
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Bombs don't kill people. People kill people.
If you block text messages off in an area, only outlaws will have text messages.
end satire.
End the madness, we need strong bomb-control laws!
Even better, lets ban bombs!
I was in Red Square on New Years Eve attending the festivities. There was no way the bomber could have made it in before midnight due to the massive police and military presence (to get in I went through 3 checkpoints where I lost my alcohol and bottled water). However, after midnight they dropped the security and a bomber could have made quite an impact at any of the several stages surrounding the downtown area that were still packed with people (the streets were closed off to cars so everyone was just walking around). This spam text was a lucky break for the Russians, things could have gone much worse.
No, suicide bombers are usually college educated middle class people. I know that makes for a more confusing narrative than "Unstable, idealistic, and poor," but it is true.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_bomber#Profile_of_attackers
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Here's a gedanken experiment:
A terrorist can made a bomb with:
an Arduino micro-controller,
a 9 volt battery,
a Wifi receiver and
10 or pounds of C4 that is set to go off when the device receives the message " Go BOOM! ".
The device gets snuck onto some unwitting person's luggage.
Now, you see somebody is struggling with a heavy suitcase through a transport facility. (Say Liberty International Airport, or O'Hare, or Grand Central Station at 4:30 on a Friday.)
Do you help him/her, or do you run like hell?
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Thankfully many of the bomb makers for such groups don't think through the failure modes very thoroughly.
Those Terrorism Safety courses are kinda boring. Too much theory and not enough hands-on (or should I say, "hands-off").
Suicide bomber isntructor: "Now pay attention! I'm only going to show you this once."
Really? Is this where we are now? I am supposed to be upset that a sociopath that is trying to maim and kill other people dies by their own ineptitude? Most people are upset by injustice in the world. Riots have been touched off on occasion when the criminal justice system fails to deliver a verdict that aligns with the populist concept of what would be just. When a story like this pops up, it resonates with people because the 'victim' experiences true justice, inflicting on themselves the very same fate that they would have perpetrated on others.
You can write this off as an hateful attempt at demonizing the enemy, but that just stinks of an irrational bleeding heart idealism. This person was trying to murder random civilians because they didn't want to try to reason with the government. Fuck them, their death isn't sad, its a public service.
I don't buy that all life is precious bullshit. There are a few people who who the world is simply a better place without. Deal with it.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Okay, so where is your evidence that suicide bombers are unstable?
By definition they are unstable. They explode! ;-)
They're certainly sensitive to radio signals.
With those poor logic skills, you're not likely to get paid much. You obviously don't understand what "begging the question" means. Since you didn't like the car analogy, here's another:
The building is tall because it's a skyscraper.
The building is a skyscraper because it is tall.
Definitions are inherently circular. If you can't understand that, you've got no business talking about logic.
Of course, if you don't think that committing suicide while murdering innocent people would classify someone as "unstable", then you can challenge the definition. But, in that case, you'd be a complete fool. As it is, I'm guessing you're just being a pedant.