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Text message blows up suicide bomber by accident (leaderpost.com)
56 points by FSecurePal on Jan 27, 2011 | hide | past | favorite | 47 comments



Spam saving lives.


Bad business, though: they lost a customer.


But saved a dozen potential ones.


This happened on the 2009 Christmas episode of Bones.

A guy gets forced into a suicide bomb vest and then it's prematurely detonated. The trigger turned out to be a radio signal from a nearby pirate radio broadcaster who happened to be on the same frequency as the bomber's detonator.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1541172/synopsis


So, does this make the one who sent the text message a murderer?


Nope, it makes them a hero for saving so many lives and not putting a black mark on the New year celebrations that night in Red Square


Message was sent by robot (automated congratulations from mobile operator). So, does this make it a murder of human by robot?


They're here to protect us! I knew it!


It will only be so long before we all experience the same fate....


Better get started on implementing Asumov's laws then.


You are probably joking, but if not, murder requires intent.


Manslaughter doesn't, however.


So the bombing at the airport wasn't an isolated incident, but a planned attack. What's the motive behind it? Why Russia?


>Why Russia?

Your question seems to indicate the belief in a global terrorist organization. I would recommend the BBC documentary "Power of nightmares" to clear up this misunderstanding.

In short, Al Queida is a name we made up and there is no global terrorist organization. There are and were a lot of isolated terrorist groups but they don't have some common goal. They're as likely to fight each other as anyone else. The terrorist groups that do exist attack their own enemies (e.g. IRA attacked England, Chechen separatist attack Russia, etc.).


However they do seem to offer mutual logistical and training support.


Has anyone from Chechnya ever met Osama Bin Laden or any of his people?



Thanks for the link, but these points you highlighted set off a lot of bogosity alarms. To wit:

>allegations of Chechen links with Al Qaeda

Well, since Al Qaeda is a made up name what do they mean with this? Are they calling any Islamic group that provides financial aid to groups that are implicated in terrorist activities "Al Qaeda"?

>is influenced by the fact that no Chechens were captured by the US forces in Afghanistan

"Terrorists" captured in the first probes into Afghanistan were, in all likelihood, not terrorists at all. Locals were paid to brings some terrorists so they brought some people and said they were terrorists.

The biggest "evidence" this site seems to have is that some Islamic charity groups gave money to the Chechen rebels. Isn't it just as likely that an Islamic group would give money to help out another Islamic group they see as being oppressed? Assuming that their only possible intention could be to finance terrorism is quite a leap.



that's why http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Chechen_War

The chechnyan islamists have been terrorizing the area since the 1990s.

they were the first ones that i know of, that used the 'force' of producing and distributing videos of 'peer' civlians getting beheaded.


There are lots of examples of terrorist acts from the Chechen separatists: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budyonnovsk_hospital_hostage_cr..., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kizlyar-Pervomayskoye_hostage_c... and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_apartment_bombings.

The lesson Russia is failing to learn is that if you keep killing civilians (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Chechen_War#Human_rights_...) and calling it a war, the civilians will organize, fight back and fight dirty.


I've thought the link to the first war would be good start for someone who had no clue about the story behind it ;-)

It's true Russia has a lot of blood on it's hands. But I think each time, we excuse some cruelty with another cruelty from the past, we're just excusing the future ones.


I agree. There is no excuse for harming innocent bystanders, by either side. However, IMHO, the trick to peace is to make the other side not want to attack you (by a combination of "we'll fight back" and a peaceful attitude towards those not attacking). Russia is doing the opposite with its policy regarding Chechnia.


The Russian (government) is responsible for a fair share of civilian slaughter. This does not excuse terrorism, just shows that there is no righteous side in this war.

As a side note, the airport attack could not have been prevented by the nude scanners.


As a side note, the airport had at least one nude scanner when I flew out of it several years ago.


I think you only underscore his point further.


At the time it wasn't general use, I only went through it due to special circumstances. And no, of course they had no effect, you don't get scanned to go into the arrivals lounge.


Any evidence that a nude scanner wouldn't have spotted the bomb? I hadn't heard that sad about this incident.


The nude scanner may spot the bomb, but that doesn't prevent the attacker from blowing himself up in the waiting line. Patch one hole, but there are countless other openings.

n.b. airports are not the only places with crowds


No of course it wasn't an isolated incident.

Also the Chechens seem to have a bit of an issue with telecommunications gear:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzhokhar_Dudayev


That's why you buy a new pre-paid phone to use as the trigger.


Don't know about other countries, but in Russia, mobile operators just love to SMS-spam you with tons of advertising. Even though they provide option to opt-out, but even then will still accidentally send messages. Some carriers even used to spam in USSD queries results, appending ads to useful information (like account balance).

(Therefore I doubt it was New Year congratulations. Probably just an ad (may be New Year-themed, though))


It was most likely an automated "Happy New Years" message from her carrier.


Just use an Android phone and set up Tasker to trigger on a special keyword in the SMS, not just any SMS.


Prepaid Android phone or have them sign a two-year contract?


She started the new year off with a bang.


Why should she use a text-message for a belt bomb? Wouldn't a simple switch be sufficient?

I don't think this is a credible source.


Remote triggers on suicide bombs are not uncommon. Either in case the suicide bomber gets cold feet and can't push the button or so that a spotter with a better tactical view can trigger the bomb at the optimal moment.


It also can be for quasi religious reasons, similar to the American practice of having several people throw the switch in an execution, with only one of the switches being live.


And to remove the fact that you are committing suicide from your cosmic slate which may very well be against your religion.


So the plan is to get into heaven on a technicality?


Mobsters taking confession on their deathbeds in return for a large chunk of cash? When it comes to self delusion humanity has no limits.


Yes.


So, how about sending a text message to every phone every 5 minutes. Vendors could agree on a message they will ignore that will just set off the vibration motor in the phone. You'd have to hack the firmware to get around that, which I would consider beyond the skills of most bomb makers, if not all of them.

Of course it would take a few years to phase out all the old phones but you could then pretty much spot a potential bomber by checking the age of the IMEI.


No. Absolutely not. Are you being sarcastic? I would never buy a phone that vibrated every 5 minutes, that would drive me insane.

That's yet another way to show that the terrorists win every single time. What better way to change the world than to force every single cell phone to annoy the bloody hell out of its user? Who needs to keep killing people when you're able to constantly and continuously annoy every single person in the Western world?


> You'd have to hack the firmware to get around that, which I would consider beyond the skills of most bomb makers, if not all of them.

But it only takes one.


Or you could just equip predator drones and Strykers with IMEI/IMSI intercept and a DoS. Costs a lot less... and it's already out in the field.




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