Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Liquid bomb plot demo video

lenlafalge - 19-4-2008 at 14:47

I assume most of you have heard of the foiled "UK liquid bomb plot", involving the terrorists trying to use some sort of peroxide-involving explosive disguised as "lucozade"/a sports drink? If not, you can find out more about it from these links
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/08/details_on_the... (I'm quite sure that one is about the same plot, but sometimes these plots get mixed up)
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/02/liquid_bomb.ht...
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/04/the_liquid_bom...
(you can see Mr. Schneier asking for info, he's pretty much in the dark about explosives, doesn't even distinguish between deflagration and detonation)

It was presumably a peroxide-fuel with a water miscible fuel, but - and I'm a regular reader of schneier's blog - the "security" community seems, perplexingly (and you can see this clearly by reading his blog), very much in the dark about this. They think the terrorists were trying to make TATP or HMTD.

Why doesn't the chemistry hobbyist could help by doing a demonstration to clear up the confusion? You people like doing demos, right?
Demos are a long standing tradition in the security community. You would be lauded and praised beyond measure :). Just with stuff from the pharmacy, a bit of gas line antifreeze, and some sort of detonator.

Just a couple grams of the explosive, and show that it detonates like a "real" explosive, not deflagrates. Maybe put it next to a metal plate, to blow a hole in it, for dramatic effect? Then followed up with a small "pipe bomb" with the equivalent amount of gunpowder, showing the difference in destructive ability.

The peroxide could be concentrated by freezing out the water, then evaporation.

A way to test the peroxide's concentration, perhaps by mixing in some MnO2 and measuring the volume of oxygen given off.

The detonator? I don't know, this is the main reason I haven't done it myself already, (combined with the fact that I don't have a camera, or place to set off explosives), I don't have the stuff to make TATP any more, I have none of my old equipment. Maybe a high energy spark from a photoflash cap?

I include two patents that describe the exact recipes for explosives, and the one specifically about liquids clearly says methanol makes an acceptable fuel (though presumably many other fuels would be okay too.)

BTW, terrorists already know how to make this sort of bomb, so there's no point in hiding it.

For sure the london bus bombers used chiapati flour (which failed and so could be inspected, there is a PDF out there that I tried to but couldn't find, and which is linked to from schneier's blog, that goes into more detail.) The german barracks bombers also tried to. The london subway bombers and other ("successful') UK bus bombers probably also did, but there wasn't much evidence left.

There are several "rebuttals" of the plot's feasibility in newspapers, etc., which harp on about how producing enough TATP would be impractical, then proclaim the liquid bomb plot would never have worked. Schneier, as well as other security people, believe these.

[Edited on 19-4-2008 by lenlafalge]

Attachment: US3808062liquidex.pdf (316kB)
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lenlafalge - 19-4-2008 at 14:55

Here's a patent on peroxide-solid explosives. I just pulled these both off the web, any terrorist already has a copy, rest assured. Without your help, only the bad guys will continue to know!

Go forth and do good, those with the good fortune to have equipment endowed upon them!

Oh, and BTW, there is a page missing in the above patent, but the page appears to be included on freepatentsonline.com, here is the web page

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4317691.html

[Edited on 19-4-2008 by lenlafalge]

[Edited on 19-4-2008 by lenlafalge]

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Sauron - 19-4-2008 at 18:16

The amateur chemist "community" does not need a higher profile on this issue, it needs a lower one. Bad enough that most LE types presume that anyone with a home lab is either a meth cook or a bomb maker. So let's not go on TV or YouTube and prove them right.

The whole "liquid explosives thing" is 99% media hype of the worst sort, by which I mean, hype promulgated by the ignorant for consumption by the gullible. It does not inform; it misleads.

The TSA and so on are just eyewash for the public. The government in its unwisdom think the public needs to be reassured that they are protected. Well, they aren't. But the politicians are willing to inconvenience everyone greatly to maintain the illusion that they are.

The media are going to spin this sort of thing whichever way they want, regardless. They have neither the expertise nor any respect for the truth.

So stay out of it.

lenlafalge - 19-4-2008 at 18:38

Okay, sorry if I made a fool of myself, but there's always the problem with posting on a forum of not knowing who you are talking to, how to frame what you're saying, you know?

I still think it would be a good idea, and only take a couple hours for anyone around here.

Wouldn't it be a cool demo?

Schneier's blog is not media either, if that's what you're trying to imply, this guy, in case you haven't heard of him, speaks reason and truth. He has plenty of expertise and complete respect for the truth. I recommend you have a look at his blog, and the bit about him on his homepage.

What are you talking about,
"The whole "liquid explosives thing" is 99% medi...."
I just posted two patents with specific recipes for the explosive.

So it's not just hype, but could be entirely practical, no?

CyrusGrey - 19-4-2008 at 19:03

I think it would be a spectacularly bad idea. While in a perfectly logical society (Which would not have a problem with terrorism anyway) it might make sense to try and educate people like that, but the reaction you are going to get is exactly what Sauron was talking about. A couple people might get what you are talking about, but the majority will immediatly think: "Hey. They built a bomb. They must be terrorists." and when you have a majority with an opinion it is very difficult to get them to change it (Strong, wide spread opinions tend to self propigate).

Hobby chemistry needs to stay out of this stuff. Maybe if we were widely recognized and respected it would be different, but we aren't and probably arent going to be (At least probably not in my lifetime).

Sauron - 19-4-2008 at 19:44

One simply can't go around proposing anything as irresponsible as accurately and objectively informing the people. That way lies madness.

In a logical society, we would have long ago decoupled the terrorists from their greatest and most potent weapon and force-multiplier, the news media. Without what Teddy Roosevelt called the "bully pulpit" the terrorists would be reduced to irrelevency.

So we go on and on, empowering our enemies, for the sake of greedy network executives and media moguls who want to sell more cornflakes and Slinkies and live action figures from Star Wars, and after all, bad news is the best news.

For a concise encapsulation of all this see the film "Wrong is Right" with Sean Connery. This movie came out a decade before Desert Storm and is as timely and prophetic today as it was 20 years ago.

Sorry about the excursion into the political but in my own defense, this thread is inherently political, inarguably so, and inseperably so. On that grounds it ought to be locked or deleted or Detritused.

chemoleo - 19-4-2008 at 20:02

That's why I moved it to this forum, from Energetic Materials to Legal and Societal Issues.

Politics as such are not a reason for locking threads. It only happened a few times with threads of a highly 'controversial' and heated nature, the topics being gun control, Iraq, global warming :o et cetera.

Let's see how this plays out. Keep it civil and to the point please.

Sauron - 19-4-2008 at 20:23

Hang on. Polverone has stated many times that as of a certain date last year, political discussions would not be tolerated. The same for Bush-bashing, religious diatribes (usually but not exclusively anti-Islam) etc. He has also stated repeatedly that the topic of this particular forum is Legal & Social Issues pertaining to amateur science. Not Legal & Social Issues of a general nature.

Arguendo, terrorism and liquid bomb conspiracies are not sufficiently focused on amateur science to qualify. Not even when the proposal is to get amateur chemists INVOLVED in that issue. A proposal that so far has drawn nothing but scorn and derision, and not a little disbelief I might add.

A low profile is called for on this issue, as low a profile as possible.

CyrusGrey - 19-4-2008 at 20:37

I wouldn't say I reacted with scorn, I just thought lenlafalge was fairly nieve when it comes to the political/societal situation involving hobby chemistry.

Why the need to get so worked up Sauron? Its not like he was trying to trick us into incriminating ourselves. I don't think any non-kewl members would be silly enough to post a demonstraition about explosives in the way suggested.

MagicJigPipe - 19-4-2008 at 20:41

Quote:
Why doesn't the chemistry hobbyist could help by doing a demonstration to clear up the confusion? You people like doing demos, right?
Demos are a long standing tradition in the security community. You would be lauded and praised beyond measure . Just with stuff from the pharmacy, a bit of gas line antifreeze, and some sort of detonator.

Just a couple grams of the explosive, and show that it detonates like a "real" explosive, not deflagrates. Maybe put it next to a metal plate, to blow a hole in it, for dramatic effect? Then followed up with a small "pipe bomb" with the equivalent amount of gunpowder, showing the difference in destructive ability.


Are you flipping serious? Do you want to destroy home chemistry more than it already has been?

Like several people have already stated that would be virtual hobby suicide. Whoever made such a demo would be considered as part of the terrorist threat, not against it and trying to help LE by demonstrating the detonation of an explosive. Doing it is dangerous in itself (danger of going to jail) and video taping it and exhibiting it to the world is a ludacris idea.

Unfortunately, we are forced into secrecy and hiding by our governments and no amount of logic can change the way they view "us".
Quote:

You would be lauded and praised beyond measure .


If you are some sort of masochist and consider imprisonment, pain, torture and suffering some sort of "praise".

[Edited on 4-19-2008 by MagicJigPipe]

Sauron - 19-4-2008 at 21:01

I'm not worked up. I just think it is an idea that goes way beyond silliness, it is a clear and present danger to home chemistry to insinuate ourselves into such an issue, attracting all sorts of unwanted attention and knee jerk reaction from authorities who are looking to prove how effective they are.

If you don't believe me, ask Richard Jewell. Remember the rentacop in the Atlanta Olympics bombing? He raised his profile, he went on CNN. And he promptly became FBI Suspect #1 of 1. Especially when it turned out he'd had bomb squad training.

Only years later did it turn out that he had nothing to do with the bombing and in fact, did his job, acted bravely if not heroically, and doubtless saved lives.

For raising his profile he was pilloried and hounded. Well, now he's vindicated, but he's dead.

Or closer to home, how about Steve Hatfill? FBI Suspect Number 1 of x-number (but the only one ever named) in the anthrax cases. Also hounded, also pilloried, lost his position, and almost certainly not the perpetrator. Because Hatfill was not on the short list of those with access to the material stolen from Dugway or Detrick (where he worked.)

Low profile is better. Otherwise we become potential scapegoats.

Attaboy, MJP. When you and I are on same side of an issue the other side best hunker down.

[Edited on 20-4-2008 by Sauron]

CyrusGrey - 19-4-2008 at 21:37

I think those two examples are sad, but they dont really suprise me. I agree with most of what your saying, though I disagree on one point:

I actually think having a (non criminal) profile is a good thing. I'm sure both sciencemadness and the HCS are both easily traced back to me, showing that I do a good deal of legit chemistry, and have never posted in illegal chemistry. I try to conduct myself professionally, knowing that any police or government agency or anyone else (Also is good for things like applying to schools) can check up on what I've been talking to my peers about. I conduct my experiments in broad daylight in my driveway with people walking past. I even had a father and his 8? year old son (complete strangers) come up and talk to me about chemistry while I was dissolving gold in aqua regia.

Though I would never want to make anything resembling an enclosed energetic material or detonator type device... unlike the chemistry I'm doing now that would be like shooting myself in the foot.

Maybe its just that the majority of the people in my area are not as chemophobic as the people you live around?

Sauron - 19-4-2008 at 21:51

My neighbors are not particularly chemophobic. There's a paint factory down the block and often the sewer reeks of solvents from there. No one complains. I doubt I will be adding to the negative environmental impact.

By the same toekn I am not going to wear a sandwich boards that reads MAD SCIENTIST AT WORK! HONK IF YOU LIKE TO SEE THINGS FIZZ

CyrusGrey - 19-4-2008 at 21:59

Quote:

By the same toekn I am not going to wear a sandwich boards that reads MAD SCIENTIST AT WORK! HONK IF YOU LIKE TO SEE THINGS FIZZ


Buhahahaha. I would pay money to see a frazzle-haired, goggled and gloved mad scientist wearing just such a sign. Now I'm probably going to have to steal that idea for next Halloween.

Sauron - 19-4-2008 at 22:20

Signboards are uncomfortable. How about Mad Scientist T-shirts?

We could have a whole series.

Make them collectible.

David Hedison in The Fly

Peter Cushing in a hundred and one Hammer Horrors.

Karloff in Die Monster Die!

and of course Dr Cyclops

How about Attack of the 50 Foot Woman?

The old professor in FIEND WITHOUT A FACE.

I am strictly sticking to films with an actual mad (or at least neurotic) scientist. Someone who unleashes a terrible scourse on humanity, all with the best intentions of course.

And who can forget Walter Pidgeon in FORBIDDEN PLANET?

The original Baron Frankenstein? Life...give my creature LIFE!

Herbert West, Re-Animator?

ScienceMadness gets advert space on the back of course.

Optional acid holes, no extra charge.

I think we have enough members to start a MadScientist T-Shirt of the Month Club.

[Edited on 20-4-2008 by Sauron]

woelen - 20-4-2008 at 09:51

The problem with the whole idea of detonating and even making pipe bombs is not the chemistry involved, but the practical part of making an explosive device.

Devices are ready to be used as bombs. Some energetic chemical is much further away from a bomb. To my opinion we should stay away from anything, which even comes close to an explosive device. That is no home chemistry, but home bombing. And any LE is right that they want to suppress home bombing. Unfortunately, they do not (want to) see the difference between home bombing and home chemistry. The idea of the OP only makes things worse and it does not matter where you are in the world. Home bombing IS wrong.

MagicJigPipe - 20-4-2008 at 10:04

Quote:
"I actually think having a (non criminal) profile is a good thing.


Yes, but making explosives without at least informing a government agency is most likely illegal in most parts of the world.

I'm trying to think of some more silver screen mad scientists but Sauron already named the ones that I know off the top of my head. I actually liked the original Frankenstein. I thought it was good for such an old movie.

A little OT but I was watching this stop motion show called Robot Chicken the other day on The Cartoon Network, I believe.

This woman just started dating Frankenstein (the monster) and she took him to meet her family (she referred to him as Frank). Of course hilarity insued and eventually the family started to like him. They were all good friends and then finally the woman mentioned his full name (FrankENSTEIN) to her brother. Immediately he said with anger, "WHAT!??! HE'S JEWISH!!??" And proceeded to flip out and start breaking stuff.

I know it doesn't sound that funny but... You just have to see it. I laughed so hard...

12AX7 - 20-4-2008 at 10:13

Ah, yes.

For all the young people on this forum, I'm surprised there aren't more (any?) discussions of television, especially Adult Swim.

Tim

Sauron - 20-4-2008 at 10:22

That's funny. He doesn't LOOK Jewish.
(rimshot off the snaredrum).

I suppose we ought to include Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein.

And of course, Yahoo Serious and the entire Mad Scientist Ward of the looney bin in YOUNG EINSTEIN.

[Edited on 21-4-2008 by Sauron]

tumadre - 20-4-2008 at 13:09

Why don't we allude to the ease of building a bomb, after a practical demonstration of a DIY guided missile. :D:D:D

JOKING pls..

Pulverulescent - 20-4-2008 at 14:24

The really worrying thing is---the next bomb-threat may be somewhat more sophisticated than the last, and the one after that more sophisticated, still.

These fucking lunatics only need to get it right just once! And that's depressing!

p

US 3808062

franklyn - 20-4-2008 at 19:26

Coomplete and corrected U.S. Patent 3808062 describing H2O2 - R-SO3H explosives
posted here ->
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=7518&a...

.

Sauron - 20-4-2008 at 20:06

The government gets paid to worry about these things, we don't.

If you let the terrorists panic you, they have already won, because that is their goal.

I am not a specialist in explosives but I an not a layman, either. And I follow what is going on. I have not seen much in the way of sophistication among the usual suspects.

Diversion of military HE is nothing new.

Diversion of commercial blasting agents (mining/quarrying/engineering etc.) also nothing new.
Diversion of agro-industrial fertilizers i.e., AN, chlorates, nothing new.

The level of sophistication of the doctor and his Mercedes at Heathrow was, what?

The Moslems in Canada buying several tons of AN, likewise.

Blowing up jetliners is not new, it has been going on almost as long as there has been commercial air travel. People used to do it for the insurance. Now they do it for some cause. But it has lost its sex appeal as a world class terrorist act. It's a tragedy for a few hundred passengers and their families of course. So is any air disaster. My point is that 9/11 upped the ante, and the major terrorist acts since then have paled in comparison.

Bali?
London underground?
Madrid trains?

Also-rans.

The terrorists would of course like to mount and execute some world shattering event, but, they have failed to do so and as far as I can see they have failed to even get into the proximity zone.

A large percentage of their senior and most experienced people are dead or sitting in Gitmo.

Their figurehead is hiding in some cave in Afghanistan if he is even alive at all, and so is his deputy the Egyptian doctor.

Stupidity like the purported HCN NY subway plot was called off - my personal analysis being that it was cancelled because it was unworkable from the start on chemical and engineering grounds. HCN despite its reputation is simply not toxic enough. IMO they could not have gassed one subway car with a smugglable device. But this is not an explosive we are talking, so this is OT.

Expertise? Schmexpertise. WHAT expertise?

I am also unimpressed by the focus on unrealistic radiological threats from harvesting smoke detectors. Yawn.

MagicJigPipe - 20-4-2008 at 23:25

Quote:

I am also unimpressed by the focus on unrealistic radiological threats from harvesting smoke detectors. Yawn.


I never knew people were actually focused on that. That's just paranoia and mass hysteria at it's worst.

If governments and people are actually allocating resources towards the americium "threat" then I truly have no more faith in the human race.

Sauron - 21-4-2008 at 00:13

You need to get out more.

The British have convicted and imprisoned "dirty bomb" plotters who were doing or planning to do exactly that - harvesting alpha emitters from smoke detectors.

The recently replaced director-general of MI5, the British security service, a women, went public with her estimate (while still in office) that the radiological terrorist threat was her number one nightmare.

DG's of 'Five' are usually reasonably well respected except when they turn out to be Soviet spies. And they usually don't go on TV or even allow their name to be published.

I agree with you that the whole matter has been horribly over-hyped.

MagicJigPipe - 21-4-2008 at 00:48

Didn't say I didn't believe it was true. I just never heard harvesting radioactive materials from smoke detectors mentioned specifically. IMO it's just more propaganda in an effort to prove why we need "them" so much.

I remember the hysteria concerning "dirty bombs". I never bought into it although many people around me seemed to think it was a legitimate threat.

I never understood how people could literally be afraid of terrorism. I have never been the least bit scared that I could be effected by terrorism. Especially from "dirty bombs".

It just seems like people are unwilling to educate themselves with facts and rely more on government propaganda and heresay.

Sauron - 21-4-2008 at 01:39

Many people have an unreasonable fear of anyth9ing having to do with atomic energy, radioactivity, etc. They clearly never heard of background radiation, never heard of radon, never heard of cosmic rays etc. Ignorance is bliss.

The Chechen rebels in former USSR were seriously considering large scale "dirty bombs" in Moscow to scatter high energy medical isotopes (like cobalt and cesium) around which is a much worse scenario than mgs of americium.

But this never happened.

Bear in mind that chemical terrorism has never happened (the Aum case in Japan was chemical but not terrorist.) And the only biological terrorism was the US anthrax case, in which the material was unquestionably of US military origin, we know where it was cultured, what strain it is, where it went or where it was supposed to go, and what was supposed to happen to it but didn't. What isn't known at least to me is who stole it, although there is a short list. All employees of a defense contractor, none Moslem. The supposition is that the staffer(s) wanted to justify an extension of their contract.

The Ames strain weaponized anthrax was cultured at Dugway Proving Grounds, Utah, and dispatched to Ft.Detrick MS for irradition to kill it so it sould be used as a simulant for development of detectors and protection equipment.

The military anthrax was a 100% DNA match to what was in the Leahy and Daschle letters. This means that it was not even a single generation removed, it was same culture. QED it was stolen/diverted before, during, or after transportation from military facilities in Utah and military facilities in Maryland. All the blather about the anthrax having been given by Saddam's station chief of Mubakarrat in Prague to Mohammed Atta was, well, blather.

Or, maybe Atta did receive anthraz from the Iraqis, but it wasn't the anthrax that turned up in the US.