OT: Isn\'t this ridiculous??
 

Forcing webpages to close due to concerns about "homeland security"? I think someone's getting a little paranoid...

Click Here

So what if the webpage in question had information on various bombs and how to make them?? Its not like someone with evil intent couldn't find out how to make a halfways decent bomb if they felt like it anyways...

Kinda seems like censorship to me.

Re: OT: Isn\'t this ridiculous??
 

A webhost can close any page they want.

Re: OT: Isn\'t this ridiculous??
 

Please don't talk about anymore bombs! I don't want them to close this site too! AND while were at it there'll be no more talk of stellar manipulations, neutron bombs, bio tech and all those evil nasty things that go boom in the da...da...da...dark! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif

Re: OT: Isn\'t this ridiculous??
 

It's ridiculous and moronic, kinda like most of the visible US response to the "terrorist threat".

Re: OT: Isn\'t this ridiculous??
 

I doubt the stated reason would be "for homeland security" if it was merely the webhost who wanted the page taken down... It smells like government intervention.

Re: OT: Isn\'t this ridiculous??
 

All webhosting companies based primarily in the US are very, very eager to please anyone involved in law enforcement deeply enough to mostly write up their own warrent.

Why?

Well, electronic media is subpenable (sp?) documentation. As are the computers it is on. It is perfectly valid, the way things are written up, for a warrent for "all electronic documentation" to get issued. In which case, the police can come in and take every scrap of electronics from the specified location. If you're highly international, such as Google is, then you can prepare for it with multiple redundant backups in different countries. Otherwise, well, your backups are all taken in as possible evidence as well, and you have no access to them until long after the trial is over. Which can take years. Tell me, what happens to a business when all of it's tools, documents, and client records are taken from them for a period of years? Especially when the tools and documents taken included the stuff the customers were paying to keep protected.....

Re: OT: Isn\'t this ridiculous??
 

Jack's right. Take any common website from your run of the mill hosting company and you'll find hundreds of other websites hosted on the same server.

If one website posts something that breaks the law such as bomb instructions, sensitive government data, etc and the police seize the servers, hundreds of websites are down because one guy for as much as a week while the hosting company restores from a backup company and shuffle the other customers around to new servers.

Re: OT: Isn\'t this ridiculous??
 

Oh, it gets worse than that.

You see, all the backups are subpenaed as well (the one little itty bitty thing they are looking for might have been deleted at some point, but still be on one of the backups). As is the equipment itself. Hard to restore from backups when the backups are in an evidence locker. Hard to restore from a remote backup when the server is in an evidence locker. In order for a smallish webhosting company to survive the police getting annoyed, it needs to have backups in a sufficiently foreign location that they can't be siezed as part of an investigation AND be able to replace all their equipment within a timeframe that means they still have customers (they have to buy the equipment, or have it out of country, otherwise, the police can sieze it). The giants (Google, Yahoo, MS, et cetera) are international already - they do their own backups in foreign countries, and have servers in foreign countries ready to go on-line at a moments' notice (not specifically because of police actions - usually, although it does work for that very well - but because of local disaster possiblities).

Re: OT: Isn\'t this ridiculous??
 

Steve Jackson Games had this happen to them back in the 1980s. All their computers were taken. They were full of projects they were trying to get to market. Years later some of the equipment was finally returned with no explanation on what it had been through. It came very close to putting them out of business.

Re: OT: Isn\'t this ridiculous??
 

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but posting bomb instructions is NOT illegal in the US, as long as you aren't advocating the use of said bombs, and try to cover your arse by saying that this information is for your information only, and not to be used, etc. So if they aren't breaking the law, what reason could the law have to seize anything?

Oh, and the reason I find it hard to believe bomb making instructions are illegal in the US is because of certain other things, like the fact that it's legal for the average American citizen to own assault rifles, etc. And please do correct me if I'm wrong here, I'd like to know http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: OT: Isn\'t this ridiculous??
 

We aren't allowed to own assault rifles which by definition are rifles that fire in automatic mode either selective or fully. We can however have almost-assault rifles (tm)!!! Good thing too since our federal government is becoming way too intrusive and powerful, gonna have to fix that! Your seeing a side-effect of that right now... no it is not illegal to make a website with instructions on how to make various bombs and stuff as long as it doesn't contain anything "SECRET". Posting do-it-yourself instructions for a Maverick missile or MOAB would be bad. However, with the whole Homeland Security/National Interest thing if the Feds want to take a site down they just have to say so. Persons/companies not complying will quickly find all their computers confiscated and costly legal battles begun. Silly person who posted was a dufus in that they put it on a US based server!

Re: OT: Isn\'t this ridiculous??
 

Pipe Bomb

So apparently wikipedia has simple, yet effective way of making a pipe bomb. Take a pipe, put chlorate and sugar in it, affix a fuse to it, and ignite.

Re: OT: Isn\'t this ridiculous??
 

What the 'simple' instructions ussually fail to list is the high change of it going off when you don't want it to. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: OT: Isn\'t this ridiculous??
 

That's why you do it at the bomb site. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: OT: Isn\'t this ridiculous??
 

I think it'd be a good idea to have extensive knowledge of chemistry, at least with regards to redox reactions, since those are the basis of a lot of explosives, before trying to make any form of explosive. Too much could go wrong if you don't have methods of controlling reaction rates and the specific conditions at which they are reacting. For example, just a little bit too much heat when creating nitroglycerin (an easy example) would probably create so many small pieces of your body that you'd hardly find enough to fill a milk jug http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif Things like this are why you hear of morons who blow themselves up while trying to create simple explosive devices...

Don't you just love chemistry! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: OT: Isn\'t this ridiculous??
 

Hmmm...don't you love the world of Ebay?

A quick check shows that you could obtain the materials to create about 5 pounds of black powder for well under $100 US (not including shipping, which would likely be high). Admittedly, black powder isn't by any means a powerful explosive by today's standards, but 5 pounds would be quite sufficient to create a fairly large hole in the ground. And other, high-order explosives (C4, RDX, etc) wouldn't take too much more in the way of materials nor knowledge to create for an low price as well. Kinda scary, actually. Good thing bomb-making doesn't even cross most people's minds.

Re: OT: Isn\'t this ridiculous??
 

Umm... stuff that can make pretty booming noises are actually fairly easy to make... provided you don't go boom with it ... for that matter, there's a pretty high probability that most homeowners have basically everything except the end caps for the pipe around their homes somewhere.....

Re: OT: Isn\'t this ridiculous??
 

The trouble with government comes when they forget they are employees.

Re: OT: Isn\'t this ridiculous??
 

The more you tell someone that they CAN'T have it. The MORE they want it. Human nature at it's basic level. If bombs were legal and TAXED, there be no bombs as nobody would want to pay the taxes on them. (It could happen) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: OT: Isn\'t this ridiculous??
 

Most 'illegal' drugs are in fact taxed to make them illegal. (You can't get the 'tax stamp' to prove that you've paid the tax, so they are permanently illegal.) Machine guns are also legal and taxed. I haven't heard of any drop in demand for either.

Re: OT: Isn\'t this ridiculous??
 

This kinda goes the route of 'weather'. You can talk about it, but there's not much you can do about it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

I guess there was no lesson learned from the 'prohibition' as illegal items will just move to another form of operation and will go on as usual. Nothing changes, except where you have to go, to buy what your looking for.

Re: OT: Isn\'t this ridiculous??
 

Yep, there's too much profit for the government in prohibition, so it's here to stay...

Re: OT: Isn\'t this ridiculous??
 

It's amazing to me that people still haven't learned that trying to outlaw and make impossible everything that seems "bad" on the surface is not only foolish and undesirable, but also IMPOSSIBLE.

Oh no! Someone can buy the ingredients for a black powder bomb!

Meanwhile, we get ads in our junk mail about sales on shotguns and as much ammo as we want from local chain stores. Or, if you think $100 of black powder is a threat, how tough do you think it is to buy $100 of gasoline?

Or, just steal a truck and go on a Carmageddon 4 rampage.

Shocked? Amazed? The TV news might pretend to be, for the sake of selling stories to FOOLS. I.e., the American viewing public.

The thing is, this has actually become a line that many Americans will buy. "Oh ya, that would be bad. No one would ever have imagined that someone would do X. It should be outlawed! Everyone going to a gas station should be strip-searched and their cigarette lighters and shoes confiscated to make us all safer!"