"Shoe bomb" and "how to defeat spyware"

[Ken Brown]

http://www.idaho-post.org/Special_Notices/homemade_explosive.htm implies
that triacetone triperoxide can be home-made, and has intriguing
reference to "ping pong balls dissolved in acetone". Interestingly,
despite scare stories, a simple google search doesn't turn up details on
how to make the stuff (neither does the Science Citation Index, which
might have been a better bet, though I imagine anyone with access to a
University library could get the information)

It also says that police in Quebec have orders to "withdraw immediately"
if  hydrogen peroxide, acetone and sulphuric acid are found in a
building, because it is used as a booby trap by illegal hemp growers.
Obvious cross-link to the other thread abut physical security here. IT
seems TATP is the chemical of choice for the sort of thing some posters
were thinking about.

And google has just told me that the husband of a colleague of mine has
published a paper on PETN - thousands of tons of which are apparently
manufactured every year and used in industry and medicine (it is a
vasodilator and cardioactive drug). So it might not be too difficult to
find that for sale.

So the argument that he wasn't acting alone boils down to "we think he
was too stupid to think it up" or else "we want you to think there are
lots of conspiracies so you give us lots of money to investigate them".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/england/newsid_1631000/1631755.stm
is the BBC report of an appeal by two Palestinians who are in jail in
London for (amongst other things) making bombs out of TATP in London in
1994, there is a website about the court case at:
http://www.freesaj.org.uk/Appeal01_judgement.htm

Of course maybe the stuff really is hard to make & the Canadian police
are dealing with unusually sophisticated drug dealers and hemp growers.
I think Reid lived in South London, as do I. (he attended Brixton mosque
for a while). Of course there are no drug dealers or hemp growers in
South London. Really. Honestly. And the shop in my neighbourhood that
sells hydroponic kits is frequented only by little old ladies with
serious orchid collections.  

Ken

Eugene Leitl wrote:

[...]

 
> The following article is pretty unsettling, in that it makes the case that
>   - the technique is carefully thought out, and
>   - there will be more of these attacks, and
>   - there aren't good ways to stop them.
> 
>     -Olin
 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/01/06/MN222117.DTL
> Shoe-bomb flight -- a trial run?
> U.S., British officials fear similar attacks in the works
> Simon Reeve, Special to The Chronicle

[...]

> "These bombs are sophisticated devices," said the British intelligence
> official. "They would have been difficult and dangerous to produce. Reid could
> not have done this himself -- he would have trouble tying his own shoelaces.
> It seems we may have an expert bomb maker on the loose in Europe."