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This Is What a Real Bomb Looks Like
szczys writes: You see them all the time in movies and TV shows, but is that what an actual bomb looks like? Probably not... here's what a real bomb looks like. This story stems from a millionaire gone bust from gambling addiction who decided to extort riches back from the casino. He built a bomb and got it into the building, then ransomed the organization for $3 million. The FBI documented the mechanisms in great detail — including the 8 independent trigger systems that made it impossible for them to disarm the thing. The design was so nefarious it's still used today as a training tool.
They tried that with a shaped charge of C4, but the few sticks of dynamite he put in it for just in case they tried that caused the TNT to explode.
Damn Interesting has an awesome write-up all about this bomb. Definitely recommend this site for anybody interested. They've actually got a lot of really awesome articles there.
They couldn't admit that they were inbred redneck racists.
The kid's circuit had no explosive and was plain to see it wasn't a bomb as a result.
What, specifically, does "explosive" look like? Or more important, what would you LIKE it to look like?
I mean, with C4 (looks like putty) you can mold it to have any shape you want and then paint it, or stuff it into a container. You can make it into a pencil box and then paint over it with a stiff epoxy paint to make it hold its shape.
Or nitroglycerine. It's a liquid. Looks like water. Put it in a water bottle. Put a little caramel coloring in it and put it in a Coke bottle. Dye it green and it's Mountain Dew!
Tannerite looks like a grey powder. I'm guessing you could put a little resin in with it and press it into any shape you want to, and paint it so it's not gray.
Nitrocellulose looks like, well, cellulose but it has a bunch of nitrate groups bonded to it. I had a few bottles of it when I was young, it looked just like shredded coconut. But I could dissolve it and turn it into something that looked like paper. Nitrostarches look like flour. "That's not a bomb, it's a bag of flour."
This Hackaday article is stupid. It is showing us what one particular bomb looked like. It can't show us what every bomb looks like, because there is no defining visible property that you can say "that's what a bomb looks like". Even this "plain to see" it has no explosive statement is just ridiculous.
Do you know what a Campbell's Soup Can looks like? Doesn't look like a bomb, does it? Well, slip a hand grenade with the pin pulled in one and it makes a dandy bomb. Kick the can, the grenade pops out, the handle flies off, and in a few seconds, boom! Is that an electrolytic capacitor there on that circuit board, or is it a small amount of explosive in a metal can? (Or is it both!)
How about a soda straw? No explosive there, right? Plain to see. Well, when I was TEN I was making time delay fuses out of soda straws and nitrocellulose. Absolutely trivial. You couldn't tell by looking it wasn't just a soda straw anymore.
Everyone treated the thing as "not a bomb" but treated the kid like a terrorist anyway.
Being a terrorist doesn't require actually having a bomb, all it takes is pretending. That's why bomb HOAXES are illegal, too.
there was a toilet float attached to a switch to prevent a fluid fill, plus the foil, plus vibration switches, plus boobytrapped screws, plus decoy switches, plus shape charge defeating explosives in the detonator housing. McGuyver couldn't have stopped this one from happening.
X-ray triggers are exotic parts even today, and very hard to get in 1980. A bomber would have to go to some lengths to get hold of one, and it might be possible to track the purchase afterwards.
Just a footnote to what you said: Any semiconductor diode will detect X-rays, and bigger devices will have a larger capture aperture than smaller ones.
Just sawing the cap off of a transistor will work as a detector. A 2n2222 in metal case has a tiny aperture, but a 2N3055 power transistor has an aperture of about a square CM. I've personally used both as detectors.
As many people have found out, CCD camera arrays are sensitive to X-rays and can be used as detectors. The areas aren't much bigger than a power transistor, but the interface is usually trivial - just process the image and look for bright specs.
I don't disagree with your post at all. Making an X-ray detector would be a separate project and require some electronics expertise, and it seems that people who make bombs are largely ones who don't otherwise have marketable skills.
But if a STEM-educated bomber were to suddenly appear, it's not unreasonable for them to include an X-ray detector.
Couldn't they use a drill made of non-conductive material to drill into the case?
you didn't RTFA closely enough, the agents considered this but chips from the drilling process would have completed the circuit regardless of the drill's conductiveness.
They claimed it was a bomb hoax to try to cover their stupid cracker asses.
What a stupid cracker may look like.
By all means though, this story doesn't have nearly enough racism. Please continue to add more.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
I guarantee that whoever that cop in the picture is, he wasn't the one deciding what kind of charges were to be brought against Ahmed.
Here is a picture of the police chief of Irving, Texas:
http://cdn5.img.sputniknews.co...
And here's a picture of him standing with his posse:
http://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm...
[note: Take a look at the faces in that photo. Now remember that Irving, Texas is 60% minority. Get the picture?]
Here is a picture of the mayor of Irving, Texas, who has been giving speeches about how Muslims are gonna take over the US legal system:
http://cdn3.freedomoutpost.com...
Yes, I stand by "stupid cracker". If you have a more apt term, I'm keen to hear it.
You are welcome on my lawn.