Subject: Explosive facts on Internet From: Esquire 1 <A HREF="mailto:esquire_1@my-deja.com">esquire_1@my-deja.com</A> Date: Mon, 20 December 1999 06:42 AM EST Message-id: <83l4nr$o3o$1@nnrp1.deja.com>December 20 1999 The Times
_Explosive facts on Internet_
BY NIGEL HAWKES, SCIENCE EDITOR
Finding instructions on the Internet for making bombs is not difficult. Any search engine will quickly turn up references to a publisher, based in Colorado, who offers a wide range of titles "for academic study only".
These include, for example, The Anarchist Arsenal, which has information on incend iaries and explosives. Timothy McVeigh, who was convicted of the Oklahoma City bombings, bought three titles from this catalogue.
When the US Department of Justice made an investigation in 1997, it found more than 110 sites containing bomb-making texts. Since then, Internet providers have closed some of the sites, but the same information has been recycled by others. It is still relatively easy to find the information, although difficult for the non-specialist to gauge its reliability.
Some sites offer advice, or question-and-answer pages. There are newsgroups devoted to pyrotechnics, and police forces all over the world are aware of the potential danger.
"It's just reprehensible that this kind of information is freely available," a police spokesman in Sydney said earlier this year after a series of explosions, and at least one death, traced to Internet information.
In Scotland, a 16-year-old walked into school with a bomb he had made from Internet information, and several small explosions in southeast London were also linked to the Internet.
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========================================================== And whether the contest be carried on with ballots or bullets, the principle is the same; for under the theory of government now prevailing, the ballot either signifies a bullet, or it signifies nothing. And no one can consistently use a ballot, unless he intends to use a bullet, if the latter should be needed to insure submission to the former. - Lysander Spooner http://members.aol.com/Dreom/ ==========================================================