Boston Versus ATHF

[Second]

Re: Boston Versus ATHF

I agree, the press conference was handled in quite possibly the best way imaginable. All PC's should be like that

[Rance]

Re: Boston Versus ATHF

There is one more thing I think people are forgetting and that's mooninites were placed all across the country and even after they were exposed as nothing but advertisement these two artist were and are still being prosecuted yet we hear nothing from the other cities why? And wow one of the mooninites at one grand.

[renderman]

Re: Boston Versus ATHF

Looks like there is a photocell on them to have them turn off in the day (battery saving likely). Not sure what the rest of the micro's are for, but the existence of a power switcher indicates it's probably more power saving stuff.

I'm actually impressed, these are more complex than I thought. Looks like proper circuit boards with some real thought and effort. Everyone was making them out to be cardboard and ductape. Glad to see the guys who designed this put some work into it.

I really want to build one now.

[Deviant Ollam]

Re: Boston Versus ATHF

I really want to build one now.

now THAT would be an absolutely OUTSTANDING breakout session this year... introduction to basic soldering and circuit assembly. LostBoy could draw up the diagrams, we order the parts and then make them available to participants at cost (or a slight markup to cover time, effort, etc) and in the end, if people do things correctly, they go home with a working Ignignot or Err... or both if they're a fast study and quick with a soldering iron.

i think people would easily pay at least $40 to $50 for one of those kits... how much would the raw supplies actually cost?

we should start a discussion as to what features or modes our DC version of the sign should have.

[Deviant Ollam]

Re: Boston Versus ATHF

we should start a discussion as to what features or modes our DC version of the sign should have.

i don't know what the original light pattern was, if any, but this would totally get my vote...

[steampunk]

Re: Boston Versus ATHF

But why should police act upon the unprofessional information given by whomever calls in? If I had told an officer at the scene that "No, those aren't bombs", whom should he listen to? Personally, I think the officers should use their own judgement and that shifting the blame to the suspicious caller seems disingenuous.

That is true. I was merely saying that that is what occurred. If you ask me, this is beyond erring on the side of caution. In fact, I hesitate to quote V's speech in V For Vendetta only because it has become sort of cliche (you know, too true).

How can we really expect to get anything done in society if we always choose the most improbable outcome as the one to act upon?

I couldn't agree more.

[Deviant Ollam]

Re: Boston Versus ATHF

i had refrained on posting about the whole "police reaction" topic because i wanted to come at it without bias or predisposition. i have collected my thoughts on the matter -- and i'm glad i did because i tend to be one amid the choir of voices who often shout "government over-reaction! civil liberties etc etc!" at almost every turn -- and have to say that i don't harbor that extreme a critcisism in this case.

while it's easy to look back upon an incident like this and state "good god, anyone could just LOOK at these things and know that there wasn't a problem" there is something to remember... almost every incident that develops into an episode of "Security Sitcom" starts out with a dedicated person in uniform somewhere who has to make a snap decision about something which they almost never have full information about and often haven't even seen firsthand.

i'd wager that in the boston incident, the bomb squad was put on alert and calls were already reaching people at the brass level before anyone had actually been dispatched to the scene. it's not that the entire police force and tactical teams were clueless as to what constitutes a bomb... it was probably some call center dispatcher who received an E911 report from a static-filled Cel Phone held by a motorist who whizzed past something at 40 miles per hour and, if they were really luck, could have maybe been able to recall near what mile marker or bridge pillar they saw "something electronic." after that, a series of badge-wearing people just followed the policies and procedures that had been set out for them... notifying someone up the chain etc etc until that resulted in a bomb squad, loaded for bear, being dispatched in order to fulfull their obligations and procedures... which if previous news is anything to go on unfortunately seem to read as follows:

1. show up quickly and noisily
2. cordon off an area huge enough to disrupt the lives of a thousand people
3. do not begin inspecting the suspicious device at all until you've interviewed all those who initially made reports (allow 20 to 30 minutes to track them all down again)
4. do not tell anyone in the media or any bystanders what's going on
5. deploy the automated robot (allow 15 minutes for this)
6. fuss about with the robot, inspecting the suspicious item with x-rays, chemical sniffers, etc.
7. if then you are not 99.999% certain that the item is safe, blow it up remotely.
8. send in someone to retrieve the robot and throw away the little bit of trash or refuse that is left over after you've successfully detonated someone's old burger king wrapper and half-eaten french fries.


what i grow the most conerned about (and i'd love comments back on this from people in the law enforcement community) is the fact that it seems very uncommon for mechanisms to exist in police procedures for de-escalation of situations. often, it appears that LEOs are adequately capable of keeping a situation controlled, but once various lines are crossed there's almost no way of stepping things back down.

this could refer to a bomb squad opting to not use a spotter's scope for a visual inspection of something from afar first (or the fact that they never seem to use the robot to just open the suspicious briefcase... if it's gonna blow, it's gonna blow... but if you see that it's just some bozo's files in there you can avoid the disruption and mess) or it could refer to the incident that some may recall a while back when a guy dropped his cel phone in an airplane toilet... even after admitting it was his and that a mistake had been made, there was no way to stop disrupting the whole flight, hassling all the passengers, and making a mess of the evening for all.

while the toilet phone matter was a mere disruption of people's travel and liesure time... this Boston incident resulted in very real and very significant financial impact on the city (to say nothing of the inherent impact on freedoms that is temporarily imposed whenever city units like this are activated)... and that is a real tragedy. the fact that there was no way for anyone to raise a hand and say "stop! this is all a big foul-up! let the damn traffic start moving again for god's sake" is the real breakdown of the system, in my view.

[DaKahuna]

Re: Boston Versus ATHF

Really easy to make. I'll start a schematic tomorrow-

LosT

What would be cool is to miniaturize them down to a 3x5 size and use them for the DC 15 Badge!!

Wonder if there would be any copyright infringement.

[renderman]

Re: Boston Versus ATHF

what i grow the most conerned about (and i'd love comments back on this from people in the law enforcement community) is the fact that it seems very uncommon for mechanisms to exist in police procedures for de-escalation of situations. often, it appears that LEOs are adequately capable of keeping a situation controlled, but once various lines are crossed there's almost no way of stepping things back down.

this could refer to a bomb squad opting to not use a spotter's scope for a visual inspection of something from afar first (or the fact that they never seem to use the robot to just open the suspicious briefcase... if it's gonna blow, it's gonna blow... but if you see that it's just some bozo's files in there you can avoid the disruption and mess) or it could refer to the incident that some may recall a while back when a guy dropped his cel phone in an airplane toilet... even after admitting it was his and that a mistake had been made, there was no way to stop disrupting the whole flight, hassling all the passengers, and making a mess of the evening for all.

It was an Ipod, not a cell phone (nitpicking, I know).

Two things bug me that this incident exemplifies:

1) The escalation of fear in society to the point of being afraid of ones shadow

2) The application of various litigious elements of our cultures being applied to law enforcement and the safety services

People afraid of anything 'different' (empty box, briefcase, sign in odd place) seems to only be getting worse. At some point people are going to be freaking out at every single piece of trash that the wind catches and that's going to continually put more and more pressure on law enforcement and the safety services to a point where people spend more time and money securing thier lives than actually living them.

The second one is what really bugs me. I can understand policies that exist for responding to unknown situations/devices, however the state of escalation could be tweaked to take into account Occam's razor: All things being equal, the simplest explanation is most likely the truth.

If something looks like an empty box, 99.9999% of the time, that's what it is. If you start treating every empty box as if it were a bomb, then you start seeing the inherent absurdity. All things being equal, said box is most likely not a bomb and it's relatively sane that if it is suspicious, to use powers of observation to ascertain it's contents or intention with relative safety.

In this case: weird glowy thing on bridge. Instead of calling the SWAT, bomb squad, K-9 unit, evening news and FBI, send a uniform to take a look. Keep a safe distance and use those human powers of observation to determine the likelihood of it being dangerous and then decide if it needs to be escalated. This is very similar to the post 9/11 anthrax scares where people were calling in the hazmat team for white powders in the lunch room of the office, in a small pile beside the white powder coffee creamer stuff.....

I see the problem as one of legal nonsense. If it's actually a harmful device and something gets damaged or someone hurt and the cops/safety services didn't call out everyone, then their more likely to get the crap sued out of them. However, applying Occam's razor, the 'all hands on deck' approach can get out of hand over nothing very quickly. I can understand the whole 'see something, say something' approach, but if you do say something, don't do it out your ass.

Reminds me of a quote from somewhere about a viet-cong sniper shooting an officer with a $0.05 bullet and causing the military to launch a half million dollars of weapons as a counter attack. Their going to win by causing economic hemorrhaging, not body count.

I'm also willing to bet that the $750K - $1mill cost is from the 'out of thier ass dept. of statistics' and is going to be used in the next 6 months to justify asking DHS for more federal money for new shiny anti-terror baubles.

[renderman]

Re: Boston Versus ATHF

Wonder if there would be any copyright infringement.

Probably, however given a small enough grid, you could argue that the likelihood of a random assortment of dots resembling one of the characters is statistically significant.

Though I think it would be stupid of the copyright holders to sue people making their own signs in the inevitable copy-cat incidents, it's free marketing.

[theprez98]

Re: Boston Versus ATHF

Analyzing the properties of the devices in question and seeing that they are ostensibly benign. I don't see how the devices could possibly be bombs any more than a DC14 badge, or if you don't think that comparison is apt, a neon sign or an LED marquee.

Do you think the average beat cop can analyze the device with the same ease that you would be able to? Maybe, but probably not. So he calls his boss and the chain starts.

[tr1gger65RUS]

Re: Boston Versus ATHF

JESUS CHRIST, IT'S A MOTHERFUCKING PIECE OF MOTHERFUCKING CARDBOARD



Where the HELL would you stick a bomb?

machine could be designed as this funnyman is a detonator
or even more fun - see those battaries ??? =)

Make it out of fucking C4?

Hell, all the wires are exposed

wow, you're not right, man
the quarter of your street can be totally blasted with the damn post envelope
group "с" is technically primitive (but reliable =) )
i possess some knowledge here
hitech blasting assemblies are too expensive, so they're really unique, so probability of dealing them with are extremely low

[renderman]

Re: Boston Versus ATHF

Do you think the average beat cop can analyze the device with the same ease that you would be able to? Maybe, but probably not. So he calls his boss and the chain starts.

But going straight to the top as your first step. Escalating (relatively) slowly where beat cop secures scene and waits for someone from the bomb squad to come and inspect seems more logical than picking up the batphone and calling *everyone*

I'm not saying it's foolproof, but shutting down the whole city without knowing why seems counterproductive to the whole 'war on terror' thing. If your afraid of your shadow, you'll never do anything except run from it.

Edit: Case in point http://www.redding.com/news/2007/feb...es-bomb-scare/

Edit2: Well, that did'nt take long: http://raplica.com/store/shirts/Adlt_Swim/mooninite

Best Quote:

Good God. Wait until somebody leaves a Speak and Spell lying around. They'll probably send in a hostage team to negotiate with it.

[tr1gger65RUS]

Re: Boston Versus ATHF

all this incedent looks like a revulsive maneuver in oder of something substantial was done on the backstage of this show.

[steampunk]

Re: Boston Versus ATHF