[119039] in Cypherpunks
Re: Thieves steal six ballistic missiles in Poland
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sean Roach)
Wed Oct 13 14:12:21 1999
Message-Id: <3.0.6.32.19991013123754.00858100@mail.intplsrv.net>
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999 12:37:54 -0500
To: cypherpunks@algebra.com
From: Sean Roach <roach_s@mail.intplsrv.net>
In-Reply-To: <199910130322.XAA05693@cti06.citenet.net>
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Reply-To: Sean Roach <roach_s@mail.intplsrv.net>
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At 11:18 PM 10/12/99 -0400, Jean-Francois Avon wrote:
>
>This is something the new Firearm Act will prevent.
>
>Yeah, right! And pigs can fly...
Haven't you heard of being clocked by air?
...
>[Note by JFA: yeah, only, easy-to-use CNC machines and powerfull
>design software, a group of jack of all trade can probably whip up
>an operationnal missile within a few months that will have a high
>probability of firing properly on the first shot. The new finite
>element analysis software are amazing AND cheap! And all of that
>done during lunch time at the workstation! ]
>
>[note by JFA: A missile with only a few kilos of propellant does
>not represent much accrued danger to the citizen over regular pipe
>bombs, car bombs, trash can bombs, etc that are easily
>manufacturable from hardware store components for their usefull
>payload is quite small. OTOH, because of their self-propelled
>capabilities, they represent a much accrued menace to people who
>can afford to have guarded entrances with metal gates and security
>systems, i.e. govt officials and corporate headquarters. My
>conclusion is that this tidbit of news will be used to justify some
>more controls on the honest citizens, to protect the shivering
>pork-barellers... But there are only my conclusions and I strongly
>advise you draw your own.]
>
...
And I always thought all it would take would be a piece of PVC pipe
for the body, a trip to an RC model store for the actuators, maybe a
few BASIC stamps, and then the payload itself. Making the propellent
shouldn't be any harder than preparing the explosive. Sensors
wouldn't have to be complicated, the first guided missiles probably
didn't have anything more complex than what is found in consumer
electonics on the low end now.
It SEEMS like this has been possible for quite a while, of course, I
can only speculate as I've never developed such a device. Making a
rocket drone to test the feasibility could be fun though. My luck,
the manufacture of the rocket motor would be construed as making a
bomb.
Sean Roach
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