"Our official protectors and deciders trumpet the fools they catch because they haven't got a handle on the people we should really be afraid of. They make policy based on foibles and follies, and Hollywood plots."
theregister.co.uk
The Register has a story investigating the potential of the threat of "Liquid Binary Bombs" and concludes that security should be far more worried about white powder (like sugar) than liquids.
The reason: the terrorist is more likely to damage the toilets and blow themselves out of the window than actually kill anyone else.
"But what do these experts know about chemistry? Less than they know about lobbying for Homeland Security pork, which is what most of them do for a living. But they've seen the same movies that you and I have seen, and so the myth of binary liquid explosives dies hard."
theregister.co.uk
The Conclusion: someone has been watching too much TV.
"After a few hours - assuming, by some miracle, that the fumes haven't overcome you or alerted passengers or the flight crew to your activities - you'll have a quantity of TATP with which to carry out your mission. Now all you need to do is dry it for an hour or two."
theregister.co.uk
read the full story
1 comment:
That's an interesting article! I had been wondering exactly what this explosive liquid was. Someone on the news mentioned drain cleaner, but I was having a hard time figuring out how you could make that into an explosive without drawing attention to yourself.
It's interesting that the writer mentioned hair dye - a few years ago one of my friends mixed some up to do her hair, got interrupted and left it. Some time later she heard a boom from the bathroom, went to investigate and found it covered in huge burgundy splatters because the bottle had exploded- no damage was caused though.
Personally, I have thought for a long time that restrictions should be placed on the sale of chemical fertilisers, they can be used to make extremely effective bombs, but are freely available. I'm guessing the chemicals industries have too much sway for that to happen though.
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