WOULD YOU BELIEVE...?
This week's big news, of course, is the Great Stymie. By this, I mean the arrests of those plotting to blow up transatlantic jets by mixing liquid chemicals to create on-the-spot (or in-the-air) explosives. I'm glad it happened, but in the aftermath people are being stopped from carrying onto planes the one thing that could still be used to gut a terrorist.
There's nothing quite like a bottle of wine in your carry-on! You can bonk someone on the head with it, or you can whang it on the arm of a seat to break off the fat end, dump the wine on the floor, and go after the bad guys with the broken bottle. Just imagine a planeload of irate passengers pulling out their bottles and going after half a dozen bad guys armed with nothing but box cutters! They wouldn't stand a chance!
Sadly, keeping bottles out of the hands of terrorists just isn't going to do the trick. If I were a terrorist mastermind with dreams of bombing planes, I would already be thinking about catheters. "Hmm, if we use catheters to fill Ahmed's bladder with chemical A and Abdul's with chemical B, then they can go the lavatory. First Ahmed pees in the sink, and then Abdul does it. And boom! Mwa-ha-ha-ha!" And, of course, more Ahmeds and Abduls can fill the sink deeper and make a bigger boom.
Now--if the security folks start feeding people diuretics and demanding they drink a quart of water an hour before flight time, you'll know who to blame.
And at that point our terrorist mastermind starts thinking about transfusions...
You want to ban containers of liquid? People ARE containers of liquid.
posted by Tom Easton @ 5:54 PM
11 comments
11 Comments:
Tom, that's a truly brilliant and truly weird observation.
Also: if drug couriers can swallow and later retrieve sealed bladders full of heroin, can't terrorists do the same with gel explosives? Granted, they'd have to swallow detonators along with them; but how would security personnel manning metal-detection stations distinguish between detonators, pacemakers, and steel-pinned bone repairs?
You're assuming that filling your bladder with an explosive precursor solution wouldn't instantly cripple you. I don't know exactly what liquids are involved, but they're going to be fairly reactive. I think you'd be in too much pain to get on the flight.
I think it would be fairly easy to insert a thin-walled sac through the catheter. Or you could use microsphere encapsulation (see http://www.harperintl.com/brochures/microsphr/Microsphers%20Encapsulation%20systems%20-%20Harper%20International%20-%20brochures%20-%20MAW8-050505.pdf).
This might also make it possible to carry the explosive components in the blood.
The detonator remains a problem, but not if the mixture is autocatalytic.
if drug couriers can swallow and later retrieve sealed bladders full of heroin, can't terrorists do the same with gel explosives?
Teresa, that's exactly what I told my wife last week. But as we all know, it's not a question of actually stopping terrorists; it's a question of making the people know who's in charge.
I hope you will not have Al-Qaida, or CIA (or both) on your doorway...
BTW, I found your Communications of the ACM essay very useful. Computer Science/Information Systems is a relatively young science, and as such, has been looking for theoretical grounds in different, older sciences like mathematics or social theory. But, as you point our, these other sciences have become to look toward computer science/informatics with the same expectations!
They could very easily just have a bag implanted in themselves to hold the liquids. Similar to a breast implant, just in the abdomen instead. And if they developed it properly, they could probably spend several months filling it with more and more saline first to stretch the abdomen, then just before the flight, empty the saline and refill with the needed explosive precursors. I bet they could pack a good gallon in with this method.
Indeed, David. But how do you drain the bag? A spigot or valve of some sort is needed, or something long and sharp with which to punch through the skin, and either might show up in a security scan.
The bladder comes with its own spigot or valve--a sphincter. Nothing unusual for the scan to spot.
Actually breast implants themselves are a threat and clearly must be banned immediately
http://scienceblogs.com/catdynamics/2006/08/naked_travel_is_not_enough.php
I looked at your blog, Steinn. Peroxide and acetone, eh? I think a catheter and bladder work better than surgery--the sphincter solves the access problem nicely--but I do want a liner in the bladder!
As someone with a urostomy because of this I may have to give up plane travel entirely.
It's all getting rather silly.
Silly?
That is very much my point.
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