Charlie,

Congrats on the Hugo. As a fan born and bred in Lovecraftian New England, I was thrilled that you won.

And as an American, I apologize for the increasingly fascist rhetoric and behavior coming from our government. It's depressing as heck.

But don't think that you are alone in getting swatted by the black glove. Soon every US citizen will have to carry a passport to get in and out of the country. And the Feds want to institute a database of airline passengers' personal information for "quicker boarding."

Hope Texas gives you a fond final memory of the US.

As with David P. earlier, congratulations and apologies from another American. It is depressing - and foolish on many levels. I'll miss your talks at Boskone until such time - may it come quickly - as my government returns to the ways of civilized nations.

Once again, congratulations on the Hugo.

As a still convinced socialist, I regard the US constitution as one of the marvels of recent civilisation (give or take amendments such as the right to bear arms in a country with the 2nd largest standing army in the world - or is it the 3rd after China and Russia? - and uncounted thousands of armed law enforcement persons) If the US government would just live up to it rather than trying to subvert it at every turn we'd all sleep a lot safer.

Life's too short to rehearse the manifold inconsistencies of US policy over terrorism since it became a de facto instrument of foreign policy after WW2 (describing the murder of one Capt Nairak as poilitical and the killers immune from extradition was a poke in the eye for the UK govt., always so eager to please Washington)

When the US government returns to the ways of civilised nations, she'll be welcomed back with open arms. Maybe we'll be allowed back too! I don't know about it being soon. A delightful and acute young American we gave a lift to Edinburgh on the way back from Interaction was convinced that Gee Whizz will be superceded by Brother Jeb. Small wonder she wants to emigrate! Wonder if Richard Branson will have scheduled flights to the Moon by then.

I think you might have not given enough weight to the effects of wearing the military protective equipment, and keeping in operational, both effects which have some overlap with the desirable effects of a terrorist attack. The protective clothing leads to soldiers becoming exhausted sooner, and once you open the package it has a limited useful life.

Even a suicide bomber might take advantage of that; traces of poison gas around the scene are going to make investigation more difficult. And that might justify a quick-acting military chemical. Force the investigators into full NBC gear, heavy gloves and all, and then do something different. Will the police take a chance?

It wouldn't surprise me if several different chemical attacks were made, effectively independently. Whether the sequence of chemical use is planned or not maybe doesn't matter. You think you're in Saving Private Ryan, but it turns out to be Dog Soldiers.

And what sort of organisation does a chemical attack need? Maybe something with more in the middle than anything we've seen since 9/11. This is a harder problem than home-brew explosives.

And what sort of organisation does a chemical attack need? Maybe something with more in the middle than anything we've seen since 9/11. This is a harder problem than home-brew explosives.

Not much harder. As I understand it, the chemistry work involved in making the explosive belts is not much less sophisticated than for preparing dimethyl mercury from its precursors (mercury iodide and methyl lithium) and even the precursors aren't too difficult to prepare; what's difficult is surviving the experience. If you try to brew up triacetone triperoxide (TATP) you may blow yourself up; if you make dimethyl mercury you will almost certainly die horribly unless you are very, very careful and have access to top-notch safety equipment -- glove boxes, fume chambers, protective clothing, and so on.

If the person making the dimethyl mercury doesn't care about dying, all bets are off.

I don't tell people about this stuff in searchable environments. You shouldn't either. Please stop assuming that the ones we catch are representative of the ones out there.
May I point out that while the US is the country maintaining these terror states like Saudi Arabia, that the UK was the one that set them up in the first place, and that some of these cultures permit retribution to the seventh generation? Your grandchildren dying for the sins of your grandparents is not acceptable to your culture, but not necessarily to theirs.

Edited by author 11-16-2005 10:36 AM
wkwillis: you don't read for comprehension, do you? I explicitly noted that the substance I highlighted isn't really ideal for the job. I did not mention some other aspects of it, nor do I intend to do so. And the reason I talked about it in a searchable environment is because I want people to read this.

There are at least two orders of magnitude more anti-terrorist specialists than terrorists, worldwide. If the probability of any individual member of either group coming across this essay is equal, then the right people are a couple of orders of magnitude more likely to get the message than the wrong people. And as I don't happen to have Tony Blair's private phone number to hand, I'm not in a position to put it across directly.

Finally, does the phrase "security through obscurity" ring any bells? And can you explain why it's harmful?

And realisitically anyone with a library card and a Chemistry background could find out about half of this stuff (or more).

wkwillis: I think maybe something to the effect of barn doors and horses are in order? Even now, in 2005, there is such a huge amount of stuff online that whether you or Charlie or I discuss something in a searchable environment, it really doesn't matter. It's already there. In a few years it will be more so.

After 30 seconds with Google, I am now an expert. I know, for instance, that dimethyl mercury was first synthesized in the 19th century (thus is unlikely to be really secret). I know how to make it, too (granted, I don't know how to make it without dying, but hey, I'm not a terrorist, either). I know a lady died recently after working with it in her lab, and she probably was neither a terrorist nor stupid. (With longer than 30 seconds I'd probably know more about that.)

Point: security through obscurity *really* doesn't work any more, as attractive as the notion is to most of us. Me, too, and I have to admit I use security through obscurity myself when I judge (probably incorrectly) that the cost/benefit justifies it.

Michael: you're thinking of Dr Karen Wetterhahn. She died after spilling a drop -- much less than 1 ml -- of dimethyl mercury solution on her gloved hand. She died even though she immediately removed the outer gloves. At the time of the fatal incident she was observing full safety precautions, using protective gloves, and working in a fume cupboard with face protection. She was also a highly-rated professor of chemistry, extremely experienced, and very aware of the toxicity of the material she was working with.

A little side-note on Aum Shinrikyo casts some further light. I don't know if this stuff has been de-classified by now, but a source of mine was the Sandia Labs guy sent to Japan to write the US classified report.

Essentially, Aum Shinrikyo had microbiologists, PhDs, millions of dollars, plenty of preparation time, hidden labs – and yet they weren't able to get one person sick with their anthrax strain. Sure, it was 1995. But on the other hand --- anthrax? That's pretty fucking simple. So what's up with that?

Well, any competent bioweaponeer knows to look at strain differences before choosing their weapon strain and choose the one that’s virulent. Aum Shinrikyo didn’t. They took the next best strain: the vaccine strain, which was attenuated.

That’s pretty stupid. And it’s pretty stupid by PhDs with microbiological degrees. Let's hope the terrorists keep looking under the lamp posts.

However, while stupidity seems an endlessly renewable resource, I really don't think that we can count on that kind of luck indefinitely.

Charlie, you are correct, sir. (See, her story was still in my other browser window when I came back from lunch, so now I know ever so much more than I did.)

She dropped one drop on the latex gloves that are standard protection (the stuff unfortunately goes through latex like tissue paper), and a year later her serum mercury concentration was 80 times the lethal amount. One drop. Damn.

I'd like to amend my earlier rant on security through obscurity. It occurred to me that it's merely a bad idea in the security world, but in the context of suppression of ideas, it's not just a bad idea, but impossible. Impossible even before the Internet but now it's not even possible on a temporary basis. So it's just silly, like moving water with a fork.

No, wait. Not silly. It's stupid. Stupid, like, shoot-yourself-in-the-foot stupid. Stupid like dinosaurs-versus-mammals stupid. Information may not want to be free (or anthromorphized) but free information of all kinds is what keeps innovation ticking. Making the innovator worry that maybe that information is going to be used to blow him up is a sure-fire way of suppressing all innovation. Thus stupid.

My two bits. I don't like the US death spiral into Third World nation status. People sweating about cyberterrorists surfing our vulnerable information resources for ways to kill us all? Those accelerate that death spiral. Get over it. Terrorists are not out to get you. Or me.

It occurs to me that explosives are a more romantic weapon than chemicals. The suicide bomber ascends to heaven, allegedly, in an instant blaze of glory, rather than slumping to the floor with blurred vision, his chest muscles no longer hearing commands to breath, and his pants filling with his own shit.

And while an own-goal still has terrorising effect, and possibly more with chemical attacks, I rather think a terrorist chemist would strive to survive the manufacturing process so they could do it again.

Could somebody write a set of instructions that a group of suicide bombers could use to brew-up a batch of poison, in a way which wouldn't kill them before delivery? Or would they need direct skilled support?

If they need a live chemist, who isn't willing to throw their life away for one attack, there's a weakness for the investigators and intel to exploit.

Edited by author 11-17-2005 07:29 AM
Dave: dimethyl mercury doesn't kill fast. I don't know if anyone has ever died of a massive dose, but given its mode of action I'd be startled if it was possible to die of it in less than half an hour, or (more likely) half a day.

This is one of the reasons why it's useless as a military weapon.

A chemist who whips a batch of the stuff up is likely to poison themselves, but unless they completely ignore all the safety precautions it will take months to catch up with them.

Also note that a disturbing proportion of Al Qaida's suicide cases are intelligent men educated to graduate level. Smarts and education are no protection against the kamikaze meme.

Edited by author 11-17-2005 12:24 PM
Suicide was never a major part of military tradition. Wars are similar to sports where usually there are ethics involved etc. So terrorism doesn't factor into that. ie. you can't defeat evil with the military alone and the evildoers aren't going to use military tactics all the time.
Wars are never completely won anyway. Advantages are gained and territories are controlled but corrupt mindsets are not completely defeated. Example: Neo-Nazis, Hate groups, organized crime.
Essentially these minor groups of today are manifestations of past larger state run organizations, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin etc. but they don't need the state anymore in the new D.I.Y. (Do it yourself) era which steps outside the bounds of linear state deployment or is at least more efficient.
These groups are similar to non-profits on the web today where there is a tight hierarchy with limited to no bureaucracy. So having a large bureaucracy go after these groups wont work. Nation-building etc.

The ‘military’ or a defense group has it’s purpose but they should go after the higher ups that are not committing suicide.