On Sat, Aug 12, 2006 at 07:29:29PM +0530, Udhay Shankar N wrote: > Rishab Aiyer Ghosh forwarded a note from Perry Metzger: [ on 09:33 PM > 8/11/2006 ] > > >So, I'm doing a bunch of reading, and I find the claimed method the > >"highly sophisticated" attackers came up with for bringing down > >airliners kind of implausible. I wonder if it could ever work in > >reality.
I don't know what's the point in unfettered speculation is. Trying to make TATP onboard wouldn't work. Many other methods would have (me and a friend of mine used to blow up things by remote control using TATP, ethyl nitrate, and many other things while in highschool). In principle you can't prevent people from bringing bombs onboard, and maintain civilian airflight. However, such events are so rare it isn't worthwhile the disruption. I personally fail to see the point in the whole hullaballo. > Here's some more informed speculation from the SciAm blog. Perry and > a couple of other interested parties are copied on this note. Feel > free to copy silklist on your responses, if any. > > Udhay > > http://blog.sciam.com/index.php?title=what_was_the_explosive&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1&ref=rss > > August 10, 2006 > > What Was the Explosive? > > News reports [1] of the multi-plane bombing plan mention an explosive > that could have been smuggled as seemingly innocuous fluid and mixed > together on board. > > One possibility is triacetone triperoxide [2], or TATP, which may > have been used in the London Underground bombings and in the alleged > shoe bomb. Last month, a student in Texas City, just south of > Houston, died [3] when he created some in his apartment and it > literally blew up in his face. TATP can be readily made from hydrogen > peroxide, acetone, and a small amount of acid, typically sulfuric > acid. (I'm not giving anything away to mention these ingredients -- > they are widely known.) It takes hours to crystallize out of > solution, but the New York Times [4] reported that a bomb-maker would > not need crystals; the solution itself could be detonated. > > New Scientist [5] quoted experts saying it might have been > nitroglycerine, but that nitro would have quickly reacted to form > ammonia at easily detectable levels. > > The Independent [6] cited several other possibilities: nitromethane, > nitroethane, methyl nitrate, and the Astrolite family. I think we can > rule Astrolite because hydrazine, one of the binary compounds used to > make it, is so toxic. Nitromethane is the primary component of PLX > [7], thought to have been used by North Korean agents to blow up > Korean Air flight 858 in 1987. Methyl nitrate can be made from nitric > acid, sulfuric acid, and methanol, but it takes some care. > > I'm interested to learn just how tightly sealed the containers were, > what sort of chemistry lab the terrorists proposed to set up on the > plane, and how they proposed to detonate the explosive. > > Andrew Sullivan [8]suggested that the liquid may not have been an > explosive but a binary chemical weapon. > > My colleague Dave Biello has more [9] to say. > > Posted by George Musser > > [1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6006388,00.html > [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetone_peroxide > [3] http://www.houstonist.com/archives/2006/07/21/khou_tx_city_me.php > [4] http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/11/world/europe/11liquid.html > [5] http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn9712 > [6] http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article1218318.ece > [7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLX > [8] http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/08/their_igod.html > [9] > http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000A108C-BE4B-14DB-BE4B83414B7F0000&ref=sciam&chanID=sa003 > > > > > -- > ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com)) -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org";>leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
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