Very nice article, thank you.

I completely agree, education is the best tool and deterrent for these problems our society faces within itself.

Amen.

I can’t understand how they’d put the kid through counselling. Because he’s doing his homework?

Maybe he just needs to work on getting a more polished final product. ;)

The terrorists have won, we live in fear!

Further to Spazed’s Arguement:

I guess this has something to say about the concept of good design. There are bombs that don’t look like bombs, and science projects that do look like bombs. Maybe in this day and age, if a project is going to be in the public eye, it’s necessary to add intelligent design to minimize the possibility of panic. That being said, It may not even be possible to design a project that can’t be misconstrued. Remember the Mooninites?

@spazed
Good point, the teachers were right to suspect something, however its important to realise that there was a time when that mentality simply didn’t exist.
You must remember, prior to that important date back in ’01 nobody would have suspected the worse and all these costly stop and searches would never have happened.
It is quite insane to think that a set of dangling wires and circuit boards in plain sight are suspected when the real dangers exist in the ones that are not in sight at all.
Until the time comes when scaremongering can settle down a bit (not helped by this insane underwear bomber) then this sort of thing should simply be accepted by all of us in the hardware hacking community. I am surprised, however, at how even a multimeter can be suspected!
I do wonder, however, how much of our work would be overlooked by security types if they were professionally ‘finished’ in professional boxes, as opposed to bottles!

Oh, never forget BOSTON, JAN 2007!
Now that was group insanity! Most disturbingly, it was insanity on the part of government and authority!

“Where the rational human being sees a rope, the horse sees a snake and shies. As the average intelligence drops, expect people with tech interests to be regarded as being magic users who need to be burned at the stake.”

I hope i’m not around then…

It’s not that the questioned it.. it’s that they went to the nth degree and STILL suggested MENTAL counseling for the kid.

Surely checking with the teacher who assigned the homework would have cleared it up in a few minutes.

Fully true, but why does this article appears here and not in the New York Times (or such)? Here at HaD everybody knows already.

Very good writeup!

We had somewhat the same problem in Denmark last year for Roskilde Festival.
A Norwegian guy had forgotten his home made laser show at the train station and when the box with protruding wires was found, the bomb squad was called in to destroy it.
In the meantime nobody could use the whole station

http://kpn.dk/popmusik/article1741154.ece

We have turned into the movie Brazil.

Excuse me while I mount a Fresnel lens in front of my undersized CRT monitor.

The story about the kid in San Diego spawned a long conversation about terrorism earlier today, the general consensus? Crap like this is proof that the terrorists are winning.

Think about it. Terrorism, REAL terrorism, is psychological. It’s an attempt to destroy our way of life from the inside out.

They do something to scare the ever-loving shit out of us (For example, 9/11) and and then they just periodically push our buttons to see how we’ll turn on our fellow man.

That asshole with the bomb in his underwear? Think about that for a second. Does that strike you as a serious thing? The shoe-bomber proved that you’d probably be found out before you managed to set it off. Maybe the guy is just an idiot, but what if all this stuff is more thought-out and organized than that?

What if someone wanted to see what it’d take to have TSA strip search all passengers for the next six months?

Because really, if someone doesn’t care whether they live or die and seriously want to blow up something or kill someone, about the only thing that can stop them is sheer luck.

And yeah, as a quirky and eccentric individual with hobbies like these, it really goddamn worries me.

@bill: Rational and prudent response in schools died when they all went for zero-tolerance policies. They take any judgement out of the hands of the teachers and even the faculty. They are required to act exactly as in the manual with no leeway for a proportional response.

@Bako: Right on the money. Every time some crackpot does something stupid on a plane, more regulations get stacked on top of the existing ones. That’s how government policy evolves. Any time there’s a screwup, they add another procedure. You end up with layer after layer of crap, and no one remembers exactly why they do it. As long as we keep to that model, a determined force can keep doing stupid crap until we can’t even move within our own country.

Airport security can be problematic, I agree… but I thought I’d share a good story:

I was flying into the US with homemade electronics for a conference I was speaking at, having put them in my checked luggage. It was a medium sized steel box with wires hanging out, no less!

Of course I was “randomly” selected to be searched and asked questions… but the security guard and I turned out to have a common interest in antique mechanical watches, we ended up talking about that instead. In the end, he never did search my bag or ask me any questions.

I think the media and ‘sheeple’ in general when they hear the word “hacker” immediately think of nasty people using computers to break into NASA/military/bank systems etc. – they’ve all seen WarGames (1983), Hackers (1995), Swordfish (2001), Leverage & a slew of other films & tv shows over the decades with people using computers to break into systems for nefarious purposes and that’s what they associate the word “hacker” with.

I really like the word/term “re-purpose” because it embodies the meaning of the word “hack”, at least to us who are reading this site on a regular basis.
It’s really quite satisfying when you fix/enhance something (usually electronic for me) so that it works better or does more for your needs. Even simple things like recently I noticed an LED my headtorch stopped working so I replaced all 8 with ones that give off a better beamspread and now I like it a lot more.

I purchased an LED lamp setup from an electronics store online, I blew mine up when i hooked it up to a bad power supply, however months after the fact, and a couple of days after this incident http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2006/05/19/1643159.htm i got a call from the police, asking if i still had the kit, and if i had modified it in any way.

It appears that someone had fitted it to a housing with a rechargeable battery, for use while reading on the toilet, and had forgotten to pick it up one day… the bomb squad terminated it via robot powered 12 gauge.

I was interested that they were able to track me down, i guess my purchases aren’t private.

All software should be open source and there should be no restrictions on the radio spectrum or zoning consideration on any form of electronic device.

The IT industry would become a hobby institution and people would be walking around with birth defects and physical deformations if not dead from microwaves and radiation or electrocution.

Dare to be radical!

Personally, I’ve found that talking about electronics usually makes people go away.

My advice: Wear a beer logo hat. It doesn’t have to be Bud or PBR. It can be microbrew. Whatever, nothing says “I ain’t Mohammad” like a hat with a beer logo on it. I have a Sam Adams hat that not only covers your eyes a bit from the non-working security cameras, but is like an express pass of ‘mericanism too. I like beer and not being hassled, so why not mix the two?

During times of boundless optimism, cultures value tinkerers, inventors, eclectic artists, and out-of-the-box thinkers, and tend to see them as shaping the cultures future.

Conversely, during times like this where the culture is one of pervasive fear, those same type of people are always viewed as the biggest threat. There is a reason the intellectuals are always purged first.

Honestly, in today’s environment, you don’t even need wires protruding from the box. An empty cardboard box is enough to shut down an airport; it happened here, in Detroit, sometime early last year.

An empty cardboard box, sitting in the terminal, led to it being shut down for most of an afternoon.

True Dat

oie…this article is a call to America…GROW A SET… fear breads fear

the San Diego incident is nothing. my high school got shut down because of a box of cupcakes in a stairwell. just goes to show what a little fear and a direct line to the bomb squad can do.

Or what about that mass terrorist attack with all the hackable christmas cards sent in the mail last month? Un-believable

I went to high-school in the late 70′s in Australia where our science teachers actually encouraged us to learn and experiment. We did quite a few dangerous things that in today’s risk-averse environment would not be allowed. Our annual science fairs had their share of boxes with wires sticking out and no-one called the bomb squad.

I think there are a couple of problems. One is that people in authority want to minimise their exposure to risk. Second is a lack of thinking and an expectation that kids (or adults for that matter) are not intelligent enough to handle potentially dangerous activities.

In my younger days, hobbies like electronics, chemistry and model aircraft/ rocketry were commonplace. All potentially dangerous. All allowed.

Now I can’t fire rockets or fly model aircraft unless I’m a member of an approved club in an approved park during approved times with approved insurance otherwise the park rangers fine me. I can’t buy a chemistry set with real chemicals to teach my children basic chemistry. If I try to buy chemicals (or even a simple syringe) at the chemist I am either a suspected terrorist or drug maker or user and am usually refused. If I carry home-made electronics on a plane, I get pulled aside at security.

I can’t even get fireworks anymore because the government thinks I am not smart enough to use them safely.

The answer seems to be to just sit at home, turn on the computer (or telly) and do as I’m told.

@Haku
Really though, stop using the term “sheeple.”
It makes you look like a pretentious tool, detracts from your (essentially valid) argument, and alienates the very people you’re trying to reach.

That term is firmly in the domain of ignorant bloviating teenagers and is usually followed by some variant of “ANARCHY RULZ”

Oh, I forgot to mention one other thing. I should have added at the end that here in Australia, even the Internet will soon be censored by the government. I can only visit sites not on the government’s (secret) blacklist.

I can’t get through security without my camera bag getting a cavity search. Now I do pack every pocket and subpocket with some electronic device that the cameras may need to my trip, and they’re all store bought, but we are being a little overcautious, don’t you think?

My wife thinks that the only appropriate wear at the airport in the near future will be skin tight spandex. She’s likely right, since it’s against the law to use finely honed skills to single out people of interest. To make everyone feel all warm and cozy, we need to make everyone else who has no ill intent feel like a criminal with every pass through a terminal.

The San Diego thing, maybe the kid should clear bringing in a project like that with a teacher, who is familiar with their interests and can vouch for them. If you saw some of the crazy stuff I built in High School for stagecraft use, you might have called it a bomb…but I thought that a phone ringing system for the stage was kind of innovative. Better yet, they still use it 25 years later.

I work in the ATC area as an engineer, and I was told once by a guy working on the X-Ray scans that you can get a gun passed through them, if you know what you are doing. Another interesting situation was looking at a security guy doing a thorough inspection on a air traffic controller, probably one of the few persons that CAN bring down a large number of aircrafts at the same time.
So, airport security as we see it is joke, or rather a show put up to make people feel safer. Airport safety is what [Roman] said: in Israel, security officials are interviewing passengers. THAT works and everybody knows it, but it is to expensive and less of a show…

A few years ago, when the shoe incident happened, and we all had to take out our shoes in the airports, I said that the next incident would be exploding underwear, so that everybody gets striped searched… I got that one right.

James, excellent article, very very true.

WOW I was JUST thinking about this, this morning actually. People have gotta lighten up and realize that each person wants to express themselves differently. I say, that Hackers are simply the modern day impressionists. Sure to the untrained eye it may appear sloppy,but to someone who takes the time and learns about the efforts it took to create that peice, then the product can be appreciated as a whole.

I was actually thinking about this too on my trip to Japan. I would not be able to bring any kind of hacked device or modified equipment on board a plane simply because of the suspiciousness of it.WTF!?

I’m of the opinion that the root of the problem is three-fold: lack of education, semantics, and current events.

The lack of education can be adequately summed up by Arthur C Clark’s 3rd law of prediction: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. While the tech developed, modified, and implemented within our community may not be “advanced” per say (not to say that some projects are not), their is a perception that we should not be able to achieve these feats, especially when we are perceived as individuals. This is a generalization and an opinion, but I would think that the bulk of projects we have all seen were collaborative works, enabled by the advances we have made in communications. This issue is further exacerbated by a perception of difficulty, as Haku pointed out: “…they have the same reaction to showing them computer stuff – an instant “ahh it’s too complicated” reaction…” I’m of the opinion that the way to solve this problem is through teaching the general populace that what we do is science, not magic. Large entertainment installations are a good step in this direction as they engage the public in a friendly and non-threatening way.

Semantics is another issue pointed out by Haku: The term “Hacker” has become a smear word (much the same as “terrorist” and “extremist”). However, unlike other smear words, the negative implication of hacker has been influenced by the media (movies, T.V. shows, fiction). It is not a matter of truth vs. lies so much as perception vs. reality. Bomb makers are hackers & makers the same as us, but they use their talents to nefarious ends. And we all know how much the media loves tragedy and sensationalism, so it would seem to logically follow that the only hackers those outside the community are exposed to are the ones with ill intent in mind. While I realize it is not fair, we must either change the perception of the term or change what we call ourselves. I predict that if we do nothing to change how we are viewed, calling ourselves hackers will bring attention in a negative way.

Lastly, there is the trend in current events. Those who remember the Columbine incident know that there were several statements put forth by the media implying that the shooters got their inspiration for the type of attack by the movie “The Matrix”. While that may or may not have been the case, that is what was perceived and ultimately perpetuated. Given that most adolescents are given to imitation, there were copycat incidents and attempts. With the recent media coverage of bombings, it makes the general populace give pause when they encounter an “electronic looking device” that they do not understand. We can work toward changing this with education as well, but it is mostly out of our hands.

Very good article. I agree with most of the comments, especially with the fact that “terrorism” is the act of creating fear in your opponent. So in that front, they have won, based on the fact that most people are in fear. Lucky for me, I don’t fly very often, I prefer to drive. As for publishing this article, it really should be on the front page of every newspaper.

@Dielectric

It is very true that zero tolerance policies and similar shenanigans are to blame for the problem. However, there is nothing stopping us from changing that. Sites like this show that the world is what you make of it. We need to make something better.

I am just surprised at the amount of people that view electronics as akin to witchcraft, and the hackmonkeys that believe window decoration and splash screens are hacking.

I don’t understand why kids can’t be taught electricity from an early age in the schools. Computer skills are now almost required, why not a basic understanding of electricity? (My lab partner in my ASE transmission repair class refused to remove a starter until I disconnected both battery cables, not just the negative cable.)

And I know a guy who just recently lost an eye to a car battery explosion (~2 weeks ago). Makes me double-think what I am doing around batteries, that is for sure.

@Haku only sheeple use the word sheeple to describe other people they are too ignorant to know anything about. Grow up man, this isn’t the “Letters” department of 2600 lol. You can fix LED lights and they can drive a minivan and raise kids much better than you so you are both good at something. AND FINALLY if sheeple didn’t breed we wouldn’t have the pleasure of meeting you, my friend.

Sorry but that is such a trollish, dickish word.

@spazed: If on the other hand a student brought in a tangle of wires in a home made case and it actually was something dangerous, the teacher and anyone else who saw the device would be in hot water for not saying something.

Um, this happened at Millennial Tech Middle School. One might expect the staff at a science- and technology-oriented school to understand homemade electronics, or be able to find someone who understands. That’s what makes this story so frustrating.

I was stopped by the TSA because I had an MP3-Player in an altoids can. I calmly explained to them that I was fed up with the way the batteries only lasted an hour, and case-modded it to fit larger ones.
I guess it looked professional enough, ’cause they let me through. They didn’t even ask about the three modded flashlights I had too.

@nubie…just a quick point here when removing the battery cables….the negative could fall and make contact with the vehicle chassis or body thus making a ground rendering it functional. remove the positive and let it hang worse case scenario you have a ground with no energy no energy = no injury. And one other question for you which way do the electrons flow in that circuit positive to negative or negative to positive? This is a test.

Well done, James.

People fear what they don’t understand. They can’t understand what they cannot control. They cannot control what they cannot learn. They cannot learn without an open mind.

Yes, you can quote me on that and I firmly believe it to be true. So many people are so closed-minded that they do not want to learn about the world around them. They are already comfortable with what they know and think that it is safe for them to be in that “bubble.”

Then something happens that’s outside the scope of their understanding and then it’s time to instill control measures to keep it from happening again. Usually this starts with someone uttering the phrase “We/I/You never thought/think this could happen to us…” Then the authorities step in with a bunch of what-if senarios to prove that they need these controls. Meanwhile, noone thought to ask the experts( and if they did, those experts are already bias in their opinions towards the issue) about wether or not what they are doing is best or their advice on what to do.

We then end up with a set of control measures that either don’t work or causes more harm than good. All because of instead of increasing our ability to understand, we restrict it to what has been already proven safe.

As hackers, it is within our power to increase the understand of the world so that others may follow and improve on it. To hell with just breaking the mold, it is our purpose in life to deconstruct it, learn it, rebuild it, improve it and share it.

I hate ignorance to the point of extreme prejudice, but I cannot let that hate guide my actions. The people are letting their fear guide their actions instead of their minds. So, everyone here should do what they can to help in demystifying the “magic” of science and technology.

Curiousity didn’t kill the cat, ignorance did.

It’s only too bad that average intelligence is on the decline: I see it all around me (Hungary), at my university. Even if we’re only talking about computers and software, I find it hard to believe that I can solve problems my roommate can’t, and he’s supposed to be studying said problems of programming.

But it’s not just that, people are getting caught up in the rat race life has become. Recession or not, global economic crisis notwithstanding, I find it amazing how people become consumers, most of them lacking knowledge to fix even the simplest problems. It’s just easier to buy a new whatever. Granted, many appliances are over the head of an average citizen of whichever country to fix safely, and anti-tampering mechanisms only add to the problem, but people no longer have the will to examine, they lost the time to question, and the interest to ‘poke and prod’, regarding those that retain this curiosity as oddballs.
Personal example: I build a small LASER just for the fun of it, to see if I can do it, and everyone asks me “Okay, but what is it good for? What can you do with it?” That’s okay, I don’t think many people could answer the question “What can you do with a 300 mW red laser?” right off the bat, present company and the site’s visitors excepted. But what gets me down is the “Why?”, and when I start to explain, I look up halfway through, and see just glassy eyes, no actual understanding. It’s at this point that I say “If you have to ask, you probably wouldn’t understand if I told you anyway.”

I find there’s an upside to this too, at least for the time being: John Smith views us a superior, in a way. For now, we are needed. We can save them from some expenses. Personal example again: “Why throw away a set of headphones and speakers, just because the speakers’ jack doesn’t match your Discman and the headphones are broken? Gimme those, and five minutes!” Five minutes later, my classmate had a pair of speakers for his Discman. Even if they view us, and our hobbies, as a sort of oddity, they come to us when there’s trouble, because we can help them for a whole lot less then stores can.

And not only does Average Joe need us, we could assist in so many more areas. I see reports in the news about some rescue robot being developed for n billion dollars, and think “I saw something like this on Hackaday for a few hundred bucks a few weeks/months back. Granted, not as professional as this one, but give the guy ten percent of this budget, and he’ll make something at least as good as this…”

Here’s a thought: bring back MacGyver! I ask you, how many of you watched his adventures? I did when I was young. Hell, I have the whole series and the movies! Did it do me any good? It sure did: even if some of his solutions work only if some very special conditions are satisfied, and some don’t work at all outside the studio, it did teach me that every problem has a solution, even if a not immediately obvious one. I taught me that junk could be used for cool stuff (even a bipedal-fire-breathing-motorcycle-monster-thing). It even taught me basic science long before I got to those kinds of classes at school.
That’s what TV-stations should be playing, not mindless reality shows. I’m trying very hard not to sound too much of an extremist, but those really drive up my adrenaline. People were not sheep, they didn’t need to be led. When did most of us lose the initiative? Airport security (and teachers, apparently) don’t need complicated, intrusive and useless control processes, we need to know what to look for, and what to skim over because it’s obvious it’s not harmful; they need to know what answers can be expected to a question (“Son, what was in this pipe?” “Batteries, sir. The jack shorted to the case, and it heated up, so I threw it away.” “Good, be careful not to burn/shock yourself.” – instead of – “Son, why did you make a pipe bomb? And where did you learn it? Are you a terrorist?” “It’s not a bomb sir, it was just a battery case, and the plug shor…” “IT WAS A BOMB!”).

And now, place your bets: how much for the next post to read tl,dr? :D