Online explosives [/not what you think]

[Faithless]

I'm doing a thesis in military studies.

You may or may not know that Totse gets cited alot in professional papers as "proof that that making a bomb is as easy as A,B,C, and did you know that you could make a bomb out of a battery?" as they are citing the text files.

Basically I've said that a lot of the information is crap and that opinion on things like the Anarchists Cookbook ranges from its "a book written by a kewl to CIA misinformation" - and that ten minutes of searching would have proved this instead of their lazy four second google.

I know this but thats probably not good enough since this is a serious paper and I need to cite for everything. Hence, where y'all come in, if you like.

1) What do you think about Anarchists Cookbook, Jolly Roger, and the like?

2) What do you think of pyrotechnics in general?

3) What do you think of pyrotechnics being linked to terrorism?

Thank you in advance, and if you could please keep it literate and 'clean'.

[TheMightyGoat]

Originally Posted by Faithless

I'm doing a thesis in military studies.

You may or may not know that Totse gets cited alot in professional papers as "proof that that making a bomb is as easy as A,B,C, and did you know that you could make a bomb out of a battery?" as they are citing the text files.

Basically I've said that a lot of the information is crap and that opinion on things like the Anarchists Cookbook ranges from its "a book written by a kewl to CIA misinformation" - and that ten minutes of searching would have proved this instead of their lazy four second google.

I know this but thats probably not good enough since this is a serious paper and I need to cite for everything. Hence, where y'all come in, if you like.

1) What do you think about Anarchists Cookbook, Jolly Roger, and the like?

2) What do you think of pyrotechnics in general?

3) What do you think of pyrotechnics being linked to terrorism?

Thank you in advance, and if you could please keep it literate and 'clean'.

1. The Anarchists Cookbook is one of many fine examples of a capitalistic venture designed to profit off people who don't know any better.

2. Pyrotechnics are fun. Everyone knows that. Unfortunately they're also illegal, or regulated to the point that many average citizens find legal pyrotechnic status unobtainable. The question, then, is when are "illegal" and "wrong" two different things? There are laws against pyrotechnics to protect the common good from the people who don't know any better; thus, if one believes he does know better, it might not necessarily be wrong for him to partake - so long as he accepts the risks involved.

3. I think that's sort of like linking deer hunting to drive-by shootings. Sure, both acts make use of similar tools, but that's not to say they're alike. The majority of pyros just enjoy the hobby.

[Mokothar]

1) Worthless for anything beyond vandalism/arson

2) A great hobby and profession, needs to be regulated dure to obvious hazards (explosive and toxic, colouring salts are often carcinogenic)

3) High energy chemistry and pyrotechnics require certain abilities and traits of character that terrorists lack. without the internet to provide me with information, I would know little to nothing about explosives, but that doesn't mean just anybody can log on and learn to make "bombs"

If you're limiting yourself to pyrotechnics: they are of little help when constructing "bombs". There's a couple of easy to make pyrotechnical powders out there that can be used for small explosive weapons (H3 being the most important one), but those come nowhere near the sheer power of high order explosives. And the average fanatic CAN NOT properly produce these.

Synthesis' written in form of recipes are extremely limited in their application, it takes a halfly decent chemist to take contaminated chemicals into account, to keep track of purity and stoichiometry.
Terrorists do most damage with military munitions, not self-cooked explosives (a notable exception being Poll Pot's landmines) because it's so difficult to get it all to work. Synthesizing military grade explosives in sizeable quantities is beyond experienced chemists.

Terrorists will resort to bulk explosives (like ANFO, ANNM /ref: Oklahoma city bombing) or unstable and unpredictable deviced (various cases of Acetone Peroxide devices), to the point where they are too unreliable to properly function (failed Londen bombings in 2006 IIRC).

[Faithless]

Thanks for that TheMightyGoat and Mokothar.

I need to read more on the OKC bombing. Does it take any great skill to make a device that powerful, or did McVeigh just get lucky?

[nuclearrabbit]

Originally Posted by Faithless

Does it take any great skill to make a device that powerful, or did McVeigh just get lucky?

It's disturbingly easy to get the materials and make the explosive.

[Faithless]

I'm well aware how easy it is to get the materials.

What I said, I don't think I said well.

The average truck bomb kills about 50 and wounds about 200. Exceptions are OKC bombing, 2002 Bali Bombings, and 1982 USMC barracks in Lebanon. The last two are explained mainly by the location of where it was detonated.

Somehow McVeigh managed to kill about 160 and wound about 800. I think partly location and partly being timed when everyones at their desk.

I just wanted to know if there was an outside chance he'd made a super synth or something.

[63dkTH]

1) I think that in addition to everything said above they spread vocabulary that damages the hobby. IE many people who read the jolly roger ACB are just looking for loud noises similar to what some of the respectable people in BB are but the ACB people just don't know, so by reading and spreading information from the ACB they give the news and government the play on words they want. So if average Joe want's some fun the ACB tells him that a bomb is what to call a noise maker that he makes, basicly call everything a bomb and to make it like a bomb and send shrapnel IE a COB, even though a normal salute will work better, his idea of a bomb is know something that he makes can hurt someone but he wants it just for fun. The definition of bomb is : An explosive weapon detonated by impact, proximity to an object, a timing mechanism, or other means. depending on what dicitonary. The point is the news or government can say a bomb is made only to hurt people or destroy something. I don't know if that makes any sense but I think the ACB makes people make things for one result IE noise even though someone else can look at it and say it is ment to kill a person.

2) Pyrotechnics is a art which some people can practice but the knowledge used by it can has been and will continued to be abused.

3) The people are not (generally) but the knowledge can be abused as with the knowledge of most other things.

[Mokothar]

Originally Posted by Faithless

Thanks for that TheMightyGoat and Mokothar.

I need to read more on the OKC bombing. Does it take any great skill to make a device that powerful, or did McVeigh just get lucky?

McVeigh had enough wit to use nitromethane instead of diesel, -well, for the bigger part (he started using diesel when his NM ran out-

The average ANFO bomb preforms poorly because of it being very difficult to properly detonate, whereas ANNM can be made fuse sensitive (just a fuse, no blasting cap)

He also Managed to do an enormous amount of damage to the building by hitting in just the right spot (luck? knowledge?)
Though rumor has it that there was more to the bombing than just the one guy and his fertilizer truck (shifts eyes)

Any who, it doesn't take a huge amount of skill to make a truckbomb like that, if somebody gives you a decent step-by-step guide that'll let you do just that, and it could be spread easely.
But it would take a lot of work, especially the initial detonator and the booster charges would need extensive work in order to reliably set off the entire charge.

[stupid noob]

In short, anyone STUPID enough to actually use explosives for harm are also too stupid to make anything reliable. USUALLY. And then of course there are the governments of the world, using high power and high precision weapons everyday with impunity.

Pyrotechnics is a great hobby, but commercialism has ruined it. The people in the know make it so no one else knows, so they can inflate their prices. The cost of commercial fireworks is insane compared to the cost of manufacturing them. It's a fucking racket.

And fuck the ACB. Stupid kids shit for stupid kids.

[psyco_1322]

Originally Posted by Mokothar

McVeigh had enough wit to use nitromethane instead of diesel, -well, for the bigger part (he started using diesel when his NM ran out-

The average ANFO bomb preforms poorly because of it being very difficult to properly detonate, whereas ANNM can be made fuse sensitive (just a fuse, no blasting cap)

He also Managed to do an enormous amount of damage to the building by hitting in just the right spot (luck? knowledge?)
Though rumor has it that there was more to the bombing than just the one guy and his fertilizer truck (shifts eyes)

Any who, it doesn't take a huge amount of skill to make a truckbomb like that, if somebody gives you a decent step-by-step guide that'll let you do just that, and it could be spread easely.
But it would take a lot of work, especially the initial detonator and the booster charges would need extensive work in order to reliably set off the entire charge.

He would also have needed a reliable electronic ignition set up to det. all the devise at once. That is if he did that. So he did look into what he was doing very well. Overall I think the mass damage was due to the good attacking point and the total destruction of half the building with people inside. That area may just have been a very populated area and contained more people than usual for a building like that.