-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- To: sandfort@crl.com (Sandy Sandfort) Cc: cypherpunks@toad.com, scrm Subject: Terrorists are adult Kids? Sandy Sandfort wrote:
The Sunday San Francisco Examiner had an article about how simple it is to make a pipe bomb. It was syndicated from the Dallas Morning News. In the article a "federal bomb expert" opined:
They're probably one of the more common explosive devices that are encountered. That's because the pipe not only provides a container, but fragments into sharapnel." ^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Now I don't know what takes to qualify one as a "bomb expert," but the standards must be pretty low. The reason hand grenades look like pineapples is because it's very difficult to get metal to fragment unless it is scored or otherwise predisposed to come apart in little pieces. What I've been told is that a pipe bomb just peals open at it's weakest place and otherwise stays in one piece. Don't know, but that's what I've heard. Makes sense to me.
It depends on the quality of metal the pipe is made from. If it has a lot of carbon the pipe indeed can split into small pieces. Also, as far as I remember, if you heat the pipe red and then throw it into water and repeat this process several times, the metal may become very fragile. Plz correct me if I am wrong. Also, nothing prevents you from making grenade-like marks on the pipes. It is very easy if you have the right instruments. While in high school in Russia, I was taught how to work with metal and indeed making these kind of marks is one of the most trivial exercises. BTW, almost all male kids in russia experiment with bomb-making, rocket-making, explosives and so on. Once I was going to school #57 in a tram and a small bomb exploded right in my school bag. It was made from Ammonium triiodide which is really unstable. Everyone in the tram was really surprised and I was really pissed off. In the hindsight it was fairly dangerous and some of my friends were hurt by bombs. HOWEVER, I have a theory that males never really grow up and continue playing toys 'til they die. I think that guns are also male toys, by the way. So the idea is, maybe if kids play enough with explosives WHILE THEY ARE KIDS, they would get enough of it and would not continue playing with them when they grow up (and become more dangerous). Like, I myself pretty much lost interest in building explosive devices and rocketry after 18. Since this country is too safe, kids do not get their share of danger and try to recoup it in adulthood. Which results in stupid terrorism. - Igor. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMfwxvsJFmFyXKPzRAQGSogQAluZwxBXFVU/AI9aZZyNOefpYc3Sumjka egpoZCnAWXPmmvGU0e+N8adYynQxgGWb2o6WTPFS3kNG8G3aEujMojlbJod1fGx9 VbD8TZjpi67jgmDJuDbXIWjgcVAzwjWmijn9L0x9h4nNTbyChvRxnwo2Q6vYoqir loniT0I/1dg= =DmH5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----