#Bombs

[luchaaa]

find a man who's love language is also an obsession with blowing things up

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Battery rationality

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/06/shoenabombers/#paging-dick-cheney

After 9/11, we were told that "no cost was too high" when it came to fighting terrorism, and indeed, the US did blow trillions on forever wars and regime change projects and black sites and kidnappings and dronings and gulags that were supposed to end terrorism.

Back in the imperial core, we all got to play the home edition of the "no price is too high" War on Terror game. New, extremely invasive airport security measures were instituted. A "no-fly" list as thick as a phone book, assembled in secret, without any due process or right of appeal, was produced and distributed to airlines, and suddenly, random babies and sitting US Senators couldn't get on airplanes anymore, because they were simultaneously too dangerous to fly and also not guilty enough to charge with any crime:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/20/damn-the-shrub/#no-nofly

We lost our multitools, our knitting needles, our medical equipment, all in the name of keeping another boxcutter rebellion from rushing the cockpit. As security expert Bruce Schneier repeatedly pointed out back then, the presence of (for example) glass bottles on the drinks trolley meant that would-be terrorists could trivially avail themselves of an improvised edged weapon that was every bit as deadly as 9/11's box cutters.

According to Schneier, there were exactly two meaningful security measures taken in those days: reinforcing cockpit doors, and teaching basic self-defense to flight crews. Everything else was "security theater," a term coined to describe the entire business, from TSA confiscations to warehouses full of useless "chemical sniffer" booths that were supposed to smell out bombs on our person:

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/01/airport-scanner-scam/

Security theater isn't just about deploying measures that don't work – it's also about defending yourself against risks that don't exist. You know how this goes: in 2001, Richard Reid – AKA "The Shoenabomber" – tried to blow up a plane with explosives he'd hidden in his shoes. It didn't work, because it's a stupid idea – and then we all took off our shoes for a quarter-century:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Reid

In 2006, a gang of amateur chemists hatched a plan to synthesize explosives in an airplane toilet sink, scheming to smuggle in different reagents and precursors in their carry-on luggage, then making a bomb in the sky and taking down the plane and all its passengers. The "Hair Gel Bombers" were caught before the could try their scheme, but even if they had made it onto the plane, they would have failed. Their liquid explosive recipe started with mixing up a "piranha bath" – a mixture of sulfuric acid and hydrogen peroxide – that needs to be kept extremely cold for a long time, or it will turn into instantly lethal gas. If the liquid bomb plot had gone ahead, the near-certain outcome would have been the eventual discovery of an asphyxiated terrorist in the bathroom, lips blue and lungs burned away, face down in a shallow sink filled with melting ice-cubes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_transatlantic_aircraft_plot

The fact that these guys failed utterly didn't have any impact on the dramaturges who ran the world's security theater. We're still having our liquids taken away at airport checkpoints.

Why did we have to defend ourselves against imaginary attacks that had been proven not to work? Because "no price was too high to pay" in the War on Terror. As Schneier pointed out, this was obvious nonsense: there is a 100% effective, foolproof way to prevent all attacks on civilian aircraft. All we need to do is institute a 100% ban on air travel. We didn't do that, because "no price is too high to pay" was always bullshit. Some prices are obviously too high to pay.

Which is why we still get to keep our underwear on, even after Umar Farouk "Underwear Bomber" Abdulmutallab's failed 2009 attempt to blow up an airplane with a bomb he'd hidden in his Y-fronts:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar_Farouk_Abdulmutallab

It's why we aren't all getting a digital rectal exam every time we fly, despite the fact that hiding a bomb up your ass actually works, as proven by Abdullah "Asshole Bomber" al-Asiri, who blew his torso off with a rectally inserted bomb in 2009 in a bid to kill a Saudi official:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_al-Asiri

Apparently, giving every flier a date with Doctor Jellyfinger is too high a price to pay for aviation safety, too.

Now, theatrical productions can have very long runs (The Mousetrap ran in London for 70 years!), but eventually the curtain rings down on every stage. It's possible we're present for the closing performance of security theater.

On September 17, the Israeli military assassinated 12 people in Lebanon and wounded 2,800 more by blowing up their pagers and two-way radios whose batteries had been gimmicked with pouches of PETN, a powerful explosive. This is a devastating attack, because we carry a ton of battery-equipped gadgets around with us, and most of them are networked and filled with programmable electronics, so they can be detonated based on a variety of circumstances – physical location, a specific time, or a remote signal.

What's more, PETN-gimmicked batteries are super easy to make and effectively impossible to detect. In a breakdown published a few days after the attack, legendary hardware hacker Andrew "bunnie" Huang described the hellmouth that had just been opened:

https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/2024/turning-everyday-gadgets-into-bombs-is-a-bad-idea/

The battery in your phone, your laptop, your tablet, and your power-bank is a "lithium pouch battery." These are manufactured all over the world, and you don't need a large or sophisticated factory to make one. It would be effectively impossible to control the manufacture of these batteries. You can make batteries in "R&D quantities" for about $50,000. Alibaba will sell you a full, turnkey "pouch cell assembly line" for about $10,000. More reputable vendors want as little as $15,000.

A pouch cell is composed of layers of "cathode and anode foils between a polymer separator that is folded many times." After a machine does all this folding, the battery is laminated into a pouch made of aluminum foil, which is then cleaned up, labeled, and flushed into the global supply chain.

To make a battery bomb, you mix PETN "with binders to create a screen-printed sheet" that's folded and inserted into the battery, in such a way as to produce a shaped charge that "concentrat[es] the shock wave in an area, effectively turning the case around the device into a small fragmentation grenade."

Doing so will reduce the capacity of the battery by about 10% or less, which is within the normal variations we see in batteries. If you're worried about getting caught by someone who's measuring battery capacity, you can add an extra explosive sheet to the battery's interior, increasing the thickness of a 10-sheet battery by 10%, which is within the tolerance for normal swelling.

Once the explosive is laminated inside its (carefully cleaned) aluminum pouch, there's no way to detect the chemical signature of the PETN. The pouch seals that all in. The PETN and other components of the battery are too similar to one another to be detected with X-ray fluorescence, and the multi-layer construction of a battery also foils attempts to peer inside it with Spatially Offset Raman Spectroscopy.

According to bunnie, there are no ways to detect a battery bomb through visual inspection, surface analysis or X-rays. You can't spot it by measuring capacity or impedance with electromechanical impedance spectroscopy. You could spot it with a high-end CT scan – a half-million dollar machine that takes about 30 minutes for each scan. You might be able to spot it with ultrasound.

Lithium batteries have "protection circuit modules" – a small circuit board with a chip that helps with the orderly functioning of the battery. To use one of these to detonate a PETN-equipped battery, you'd only have to make a small, board-level rewiring, which could deliver a charge via a "third wire" – the NTC temperature sensor that's standard in batteries.

Bunnie gets into a lot more detail in his post. It's frankly terrifying, because it's hard to read this without concluding that, indeed, any battery in any gadget could actually be a powerful, undetectable bomb. What's more, supply chain security sucks and bunnie runs down several ways you could get these batteries into your target's gadget. These range from the nefarious to the brute simple: "buy a bunch of items from Amazon, swap out the batteries, restore the packaging and seals, and return the goods to the warehouse."

Bunnie's point is that, having shown the world that battery bombs are possible, the Israelis have opened the hellmouth. They were the first ones to do this, but they won't be the last. We need to figure out something before "the front line of every conflict [is brought] into your pocket, purse or home."

All of that is scary af, sure, but note what hasn't happened in the wake of an extremely successful, nearly impossible to defeat explosives attack that used small electronics of the same genus as the pocket rectangles virtually every air traveler boards a plane with. We've had no new security protocols instituted since September 17, likely because no one can think of anything that would work.

Now, in the heady days when the security theater was selling out every performance and we were all standing in two-hour lines to take our shoes off, none of this would have mattered. The TSA's motto of "when in trouble, or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout" would have come to the fore. We'd be forced to insert our phones into some grifter's nonfunctional billion-dollar PETN dowsing-box, or TSA agents would be ordering us to turn on our phones and successfully play eleven rounds of Snake, or we'd be forced to lick our phones to prove that they weren't covered in poison.

But today, we're keeping calm and carrying on. The fact that something awful exists is, well, awful, but if we don't know what to do about it, there's no sense in just doing something, irrespective of whether that will help. We could order everyone to leave their phones at home when they fly, but then no one would fly anymore, and obviously, no one seriously thinks "no price is too high" for safety. Some prices are just too high.

I started thinking about all this last week, when I was in New Delhi to give a keynote for the annual meeting of the International Cooperative Alliance, which was jointly held with the UN as the inauguration of the UN International Year of Coops, with an address from UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres:

https://2025.coop/

When I arrived in New Delhi, my hosts were somewhat flustered because Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had just announced that he would give the opening keynote, which meant a lot of rescheduling and shuffling – but also a lot of security. I was told that the only things I could bring to the conference center the next day were my badge, my passport and my hotel room key. I couldn't bring a laptop, a phone or a spare battery. I couldn't even bring a pen ("they're worried about stabbings").

Modi – a lavishly corrupt authoritarian genocidier – has a lot of reasons to worry about his security. He has actual enemies who sometimes blow stuff up, and if one of them took him out, he wouldn't be the first Indian PM to die by assassination.

But the speakers and delegates gathered in the hotel lobby the next morning, we were told that we could bring phones, after all. Because of course we could. You can't fly people from all over the world to India and then ask them to forego the device they use as translator, map, note-taker, personal diary, and credit card. Some prices are just too high.

They took a lot of security measures. Everyone went through a metal detector, naturally. Then, we were sealed in the plenary room for more than an hour while the building was sealed off. Armed men were stationed all around the room, and the balcony outside the room was ringed with snipers:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/54165263130/

We were prohibited from leaving our seats from the time Modi entered the room until he left it again, despite the fact that the PM was never more than a few steps from the single most terrifying bodyguard I'd ever seen:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/54164805776/

And yet: the fact that we were less than two months out from an extremely successful, highly public demonstration of the weaponization of small batteries in personal electronics did not mean that we all had to leave our phones at the hotel.

After that, I'm tempted to think that, just possibly, security theater's curtain has rung down and its long SRO run has come to an end. It's a small bright spot in a dark time, but I'll take it.

[bloghrexach]

💣 … well, the USA and Israel must be very proud of these ‘records’, right?

I’m being facetious, of course!! … 💣

@hrexach

[disease]

AI WEIWEI 艾未未 / "BOMB" / 2020 [inkjet print in B&G on paper | 51 1⁄4 x 37 3⁄8"]

[andstuffsketches]

[comic of a Tears of the Kingdom korok quest. Link holds up a backpacker korok with ultrahand, squinting at the distance. He says, "That's your friend, at the bottom of the hill?" Down a long slope of a slot canyon, a smoke signal is visible. The korok says, "Yep! I can't wait to catch up!" Link flings him down the hill while he says "I need to reach my friend!" Link glides down above the korok as he bounces down the hill. An explosion goes off next to Link and as the korok rolls to a stop he lands, looking up and yelling, "Who's throwing bombs?!" Link looks back as another square bomb lands right next to the korok. Link stares at it, blank-faced, thinking "is that bad", and then "can he die" The bomb glows, about to go off, and Link scrambles to engage ultrahand and whips the korok away just as the bomb goes off. The korok says "help!" and then "kaboom!!" finally, there is a sketch of the korok and his friend at their tent, link relaxing next to them, exhausted]

based on a true story 💥

[kindaasrikal]

Technically all the ninja have the capabilities to explode. Theoretically speaking.

Kai can literally just light his insides on fire and boom. Kai-boom. He could technically drink gasoline too. Wyldfyre is a mini Kai except she seems much more capable of lighting her entire body on fire without question. Also, fat tissue is apparently flammable.

Nya could theoretically make her blood cells explode. Or she could drink a lot of water. And since our bodies are like 60% or so water already…

Zane was a bomb once and exploded, no explanation needed there. He just has to charge up his heart with enough elemental energy and boom. The custom Zane-bomb. Ready to sacrifice from 9-5 on all working days. Except Fridays. That’s when he has to cook dinner.

Pixal may not be a ninja, but she is a samurai, so she’s included in this. Pixal is Pixal. She probably has a “if bomb is needed, flip this switch” option just in case. Her dad can fix her up again.

Lloyd is Lloyd, no explanation needed there either. He just has to make a really big elemental energy ball thing like he did in the early seasons, surround himself with it, and fling himself at someone.

Jay is a bomb in every sense of the word. Electrical pulses are sent to the brain using the nervous system, so like he could make his head explode too.

Cole is the only exception except if he can make himself a rock suit, who’s to say he can’t make one with dangerous materials that come straight from the ground? Also, he might need Kai and Nya’s help. Something about rocks with moisture being explodable and heat being needed to make them go boom.

Sora has also made a bomb, and she could slowly make herself more robot limbs if the need is ever there and kaboom her way to sacrifice. She could make a bomb suit, except it doesn’t protect her from the bomb, it makes her the bomb.

Euphrasia and Morro could technically fill their lungs with so much air/wind until they explode. Oxygen is also has a small percentage of Air/Wind, and our blood or smth carries a small amount of it too…so can’t they pull a Nya and make their blood explode as well?

Didn’t they also say something is Dragons Rising about the ninja feeling their elements in specific areas? Who’s to say they can’t just charge those areas up and go boom. Like Zane.

Edit: just to clarify, no i am not mentally ill nor unstable it was 4am and i was thinking about avatar the last air bender and how it’s logic can be used in Ninjago. Please guys this post is funny haha not “are you ok????” I imagine them exploding like balloons with a bunch of confetti.

[kathaynesart]

Okay, so I was absolutely giddy reading the newest post when I thought about something.

I remember in a previous explanation that each brother has their way of communication with Leo. Ninja mind meld with Raph, Donnies big book of codes, and pretty much just wingin' it with Mikey.

With that being said, it makes sense why Mikey was confused here, since Donnie was using, what could be considered complicated codes.

Anyways, I loved it, can't wait for more, and tysm for this amazing series!!!

Hahaha! This is very true in some regards and I'm glad you picked up on it! There will always be a bit of a communication barrier between Donnie and his other brothers when he's not taking the time to give proper context.

I'm sure though Donnie would argue that "Mach Stem Barrier" is not code at all and if his brother knew ANYTHING about bombs then there would have been no confusion.

In which case *puts on nerd glasses* I think a little lesson on bombs is in order (because if I had to study all this stuff for this comic then you get to suffer along with me).

BOMB LESSON

A Mach Stem is basically the huge shockwave of pressure that comes from the blast of a bomb when it merges with its own blast being reflected back up by the ground. It's basically the thing that causes that huge slice of pressure which levels everything around ground zero. This strength of this wave is normally about twice the pressure of the actual blast itself, doubling its destructive power.

It's so powerful you can actually see it with the naked eye: VIDEO

To counteract this and reduce collateral damage Donnie created the shield we see which he calls the "Mach Stem Barrier." It acts as a giant cylinder that contains all that pressure and heat and then releases it high up into the stratosphere, protecting the surrounding area from harm. Luckily the blast is radiation free so no fear of fallout. The attacks works more like a pressure oven, the heat inside reaching up to temperatures of 200 million degrees Fahrenheit (about 100 million degrees Celsius), or about four to five times the temperature at the center of the sun, incinerating anything within its confines, even Krang tech. Crazy stuff and all backed by actual science, just as Donnie would have it! ...Now if Mikey would just get with the program!

[randomitemdrop]

Item: bomb that, when exploded, fires arrows in all directions

[jimmyboltonart]

The president of Eden, and his teacher, the seven-crowned king of red.

[dontforgetukraine]

Between November 18-24, 2024, Russia launched against Ukraine... -Over 800 aerial bombs -Nearly 460 combat drones -over 20 missiles

[liv-log]

the US may have independence day, but us brittish people have bonfire night on the 5th of november, and its amazing.

[hyperfixatedoncrimminalminds]

Aaron Hotchner X Derek Morgan X ADHD Autistic teen reader

Summary: Aaron Hotchner and Derek Morgan interrogate a 14 year old daughter of Unsub who has ADHD and is autistic, she was abused by her father her whole life. A bomb gets set off and she protects them

Third person pov...

14 year old Y/N had been in a small interrogation room for the last hour alone, your probably wondering how she knows that because she's been keeping count in her head.

Early on that day the police came looking for her farther but he wasn't there, instead she got taken to the police station and handcuffed (after she accidentally lashed out when they touched her) she's autistic and doesn't like touch- the police didn't listen when she tried to explain to them.

So here she sits, for the last 5 minutes she has been tapping her foot repeatedly on the floor, she has ADHD and couldn't sit still for long, but she was handcuffed to the table so she couldn't stand up and stim.

She then started humming the same tune over and over and over until a man shouts at her to shut up over the com. "Someone's grumpy" she mutters, deciding to go back to tapping her foot repeatedly.

She was beginning to get overwhelmed with everything. "Can I go now please?" She asks into the room but obviously towards the two way mirror.

She got no response. "Please, I don't like it here" she whispers shouting not going to work she realised, suddenly the door is opened two men walk in.

Y/N tenses, with her dad she doesn't like being around men, angling her body away from them she waits until they speak.

Eyebrows slams a files down on the table making her flinch at the loud sound, the Grumpy looking man just stares. "What- Do you know what these are?" He demands, Y/N shakes her head not looking at the man.

She looks down then shuts her eyes. "N-no I don't please" she cries squeezing her eyes shut not wanting to look at the pictures, they where of the victims died in the bombings that happened.

"I don't like it here" she cries pulling on the cuffs trying desperately to yank them off, eyebrows tries to grab her to stop but she kicks out. "No don't touch" she cries almost in hysterics.

Eyebrows holds up his hands and moved out of reach. "Okay I won't touch you, we won't touch you Y/N" he says teying desperately to calm her down.

Grumpy pants- as Y/N dubbed, walked out of the room putting his phone tk his ear, Hotch calls Penelope. "Yello" "Garica, Y/N L/Ns file does it have anything about mental disorders or anything like that?" He asks confused with the girls strong reactions.

After a few seconds Penelope gets back. "It says here that she is Autistic and has ADHD sir" Hotch thinks "that makes sense, thanks Garica" "your welcome Bossman" Hotch then walks back into the room.

Derek is far away from the girl. "Morgan" Derek walks over. "We forgot one thing that all the victims have in common, they are all neurodivergent in some way" he explains to the man.

They then both look over at the girl, she was back to tapping her foot repeatedly

"Y/N, are you autistic?" Asks Hotch, the girl nods her head. "Yes I am, I tried to explain to the idiots in blue but they wouldn't listen" she says it was the most they heard her say.

"Can I have these off now please?" She asks, her voice quiet like she expected to be shouted at. Derek looks ar Hotch the man nods his head. "Sure" he says and unlocks Y/N hands.

The 14 year old instantly jumps up from the desk, absently rubbing her red wrists, she begins pacing back and forth flapping her hands. The men watch her as she stims.

"We just want to talk to you about your father." Says Hotch, Y/N stops stimming and looked up at them with wide, frightened eyes.

She was small in stature, but her piercing gaze held a hint of strength that took the two seasoned agents by surprise. "My father is a monster" she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

Hotchner and Morgan exchanged a knowing glance. They had seen this before – the child of an Unsub who had been subjected to unimaginable abuse and trauma.

"Y/N does you father treat you well?" Asks Derek carefully, Y/N looks down she nervously rings her fingers as she thinks.

"He doesn't" she confesses. "He hates that I'm different, he thinks it's wrong and tries to beat the 'retardness' out of me" she confesses crying as she paces back and forth in the little space.

Hotch and Morgan eye each other from the corner of their eyes then look at Y/N.

"We know, hes a monster which is why we need to find him" Morgan replied gently. 'But we need your help to find him. We believe he may be planning to harm more people.'

Y/N hesitated for a moment, chewing on her bottom lip as she thought. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. It was a map, with a clearly marked location circled in red.

'That's where he's keeping his bombs" she said, sliding the paper across the table. Hotchner and Morgan looked at each other in shock.

They had been searching for those bombs for weeks, and here it was, handed to them by a scared teenage girl.

They immediately sprang into action, calling for backup and racing to the location. But as they arrived, they realized that Y/N had also been telling the truth about another thing – her father had taught her how to make bombs.

Before they could even process the situation, a loud explosion ripped through the air. Hotchner and Morgan were thrown back by the blast, but they were quickly pulled to safety by Y/N who had shielded them with her own body.

She lay unconscious, her small frame protecting them from the debris, Y/N was rushed to the hospital, and after a few days, she regained consciousness.

Hotchner and Morgan were there, by her bedside, along with a team of doctors and nurses who were amazed by her bravery.

"We couldn't have stopped him without you,' Hotchner said, his voice filled with sincerity, the girl looked up at them and smiled weakly. "Can I be part of your team now?" She asked, her eyes sparkling with hope.

Hotchner and Morgan shared a smile, knowing that Y/N had found a new family in the Behavioral Analysis Unit. Despite the darkness of her past, she had shown courage and strength that they had rarely seen before.

And as they welcomed her into their team, they knew that together, they could take on anything that came their way.

The end!

Hope you liked this one shot sorry for the late update been a busy week but I am now on Christmas break and will update regularly.

As usual sorry for any spelling and grammar mistakes.

Request are open!

Word count: 1204

[doweesig]

My favorite Koopaling 🎪 🧡