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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.
Cutting open the case to get to the wires would have cause the aluminum foil to complete the circuit. The only option was the cut open the case and the wires simultaneously. To do that required a shaped charge. This is the only detonator that the FBI has come accost that couldn't even be disarmed by its creator for a reason. The ransom was just for the switch code to disable the tilt switch so they could move it to a safe place to explode.
I used to be a security officer and I had training on IED identification.
You're completely correct. And that's assuming you can see the thing in the first place. Sometimes the IED winds up under something. I heard of one case where a guy lost his leg kicking an IED that was hidden under a fried chicken bucket.
The only thing you can do is to look for something that has what appears to be the requisite components to be an explosive device.
What people don't realize is that the easy part is making a device that will explode, the hard thing is making it explode when you want it to.