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Possible Government threat to HV research?

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LAN_403

likewhat

Tue Jun 09 2009, 03:47AM

Account deactivated by user request on 6/11/2009.
Registered Member #1071 Joined: Fri Oct 19 2007, 02:13AM
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Posts: 44

what a joke. Airplanes get struck by lightning all the time and nothing happens, like someone with a tiny marx generator they somehow magically get past security could even affect a plane.

KLH

Tue Jun 09 2009, 04:29PM

Registered Member #1819 Joined: Thu Nov 20 2008, 04:05PM
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Posts: 137

Just another way for politicians to lobby for votes... passing laws that ban amateur HV research and HV product sales would certainly land them votes in the "concerned with homeland security" department. Everybody, including these politicians and journalists, is more likely to die of heart disease or a car accident instead of an even more "conventional" IED on a plane.

Information Unlimited is a valuable resource for any HV hobbyist. For it to be shut down would be detrimental to those doing innocent HV research, which includes almost all on this forum. I'm optimistic about the fact that no one here is researching and gathering information on this forum to shoot down a plane with an EM burst, however close to impossible it may be. Logically, a shutdown doesn't make any sense, because Information Unlimited requires signed MSDSs for their more dangerous products, which acknowledge full liability for the uses of the product.

Conundrum

Tue Jun 09 2009, 07:39PM

Registered Member #96 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:37PM
Location: CI, Earth
Posts: 4062

likewhat wrote ...

what a joke. Airplanes get struck by lightning all the time and nothing happens, like someone with a tiny marx generator they somehow magically get past security could even affect a plane.

um, AF447 has been speculated to have been downed by lightning.. possibly carbon fibre isn't as good a shield as they thought. in fact it seems that it is actually worse than useless as it can fail due to delamination when hit.
apparently a few boat owners know all about this..

#include "2mins_silence.h"

HV Enthusiast

Tue Jun 09 2009, 09:21PM

Registered Member #15 Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 01:11PM
Location:
Posts: 3068

Conundrum wrote ...

#include "2mins_silence.h"

The cause of AF447 has been speculated from everything under the Sun from aliens to meteor strikes.
There is no factual evidence at this time to suggest that lightning was a cause in the accident.
Lets not jump to conclusions until the complete investigation is completed into the crash.

Proud Mary

Tue Jun 09 2009, 10:39PM

Registered Member #543 Joined: Tue Feb 20 2007, 04:26PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4992

So long as "terror" is used as vehicle for pushing through unpopular and repressive government legislation - as we have seen in Britain - there will always be a risk that our hobby might be identified as a new 'terror weapon' by politicians and their media enablers.

So long as we are open and honest in our dealings with others, and make it clear to new members that our interests are in the lawful, peaceable exploration of high voltage technology, I don't think we have much to fear.

I would imagine that in Britain, at least, where everything is scanned and surveyed, the secret police have long been aware of 4HV.org.

Clearly, we have a duty to ourselves and to the 4HV project to ensure that nothing said or done here could be construed as a desire to harm others, even in jest, or else, as some members have suggested, it is not impossible that the days of the unregulated amateur scientist could well be numbered, a sad loss to us all.

The misbehaviour of hooligans shining lasers at helicopters has already made it an offence for green lasers to be included in consumer items in Britain, or to be imported as consumer items (though possession of such a laser, or the diode itself, is not yet an offence)

So we must be on our best behaviour till the political "terror" craze passes into history.

Hon1nbo

Wed Jun 10 2009, 02:47AM

Registered Member #902 Joined: Sun Jul 15 2007, 08:17PM
Location: Pacific Northwest USA
Posts: 1042

a couple things:
first, I doubt it will get too serious in regulation, maybe the companies just start keeping tabs on what you buy or ask you give a reason (Texas just asks you to give written purpose for why you are getting Laboratory Glassware, regulated by the DEA, for example) - and that's if anything in my opinion

two: as for people being freaked out by this stuff, I think it lies more along the lines of what the average person knows... and from my experience, the average person deems this stuff automatically way too complicated, so some might seem it to be a threat, some might compare it to building a satellite in your garage and launching it without anyone knowing...

Backyard Skunkworks

Wed Jun 10 2009, 11:11PM

Registered Member #1262 Joined: Fri Jan 25 2008, 05:22AM
Location: Maryland, USA
Posts: 451

I doubt anyone really views us "amateur HV researchers" as much of a "threat." Although the writer at newscientist has a point that one could theoretically make a small EMP device, anyone with enough technical know-how can easily see there are far bigger fish to fry than the remote chance that someone uses a hacked together device like that.

aonomus

Thu Jun 11 2009, 01:33AM

Registered Member #1497 Joined: Thu May 22 2008, 05:24AM
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Posts: 801

One could theoretically set off a small firework which scares some birds which get sucked into a jet engine which crashes the plane and gets billed as 'terror'. Its the new 'in' thing to be afraid of.

The only thing I would recommend is trying to raise awareness through science fairs, safe demonstrations, and talks. Always in history, people have been afraid of what they don't understand. If someone from the past saw a can crusher or a tesla coil, they'd be afraid too.

Chris

Thu Jun 11 2009, 02:17AM

Registered Member #8 Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 04:34AM
Location: Harlowton, MT, United States
Posts: 214

All of you who are doubtful this could lead to harmful legislation should think twice. It doesn't matter what amateur experimenters are *actually* capable of or what is really going on. All that matters is what politicians and the media think, or want the public to think. Those people will always tend toward paranoia if given the chance. You might have thought the same thing about things like ammonium nitrate or saltpeter being heavily regulated, if you had been presented with the idea that they would back in the early '90s. You cannot assume anything remotely technological is safe from prohibition to the ordinary citizen because people are scared of all technology.

Proud Mary

Thu Jun 11 2009, 08:56AM

Registered Member #543 Joined: Tue Feb 20 2007, 04:26PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4992

Chris wrote ...

All of you who are doubtful this could lead to harmful legislation should think twice. It doesn't matter what amateur experimenters are *actually* capable of or what is really going on. All that matters is what politicians and the media think, or want the public to think. Those people will always tend toward paranoia if given the chance. You might have thought the same thing about things like ammonium nitrate or saltpeter being heavily regulated, if you had been presented with the idea that they would back in the early '90s. You cannot assume anything remotely technological is safe from prohibition to the ordinary citizen because p:-)eople are scared of all technology.

When I was a boy, the local chemist shop (pharmacy) would sell me sulphuric and hydrochloric acids, ether, mercury, and many other chemicals which even adults may not buy easily today - but the pharmacist would not sell nitrates to boys, because he knew what they were wanted for!

Bit by bit, year by year, all this has become controlled and regulated, and you would now have to go to a specialist supplier to buy things such as metallic mercury or conc. HCl.

The erosion of this freedom has happened over a long time, but accelerated fantastically after 9/11 when the fear of "terror" became a means of manipulating the British population into accepting repressive laws.

Everyone is a "terror" suspect, and we are encouraged to spy on our neighbours!

Circumstances may differ from one country to another, and from one jurisdiction to another, but the image of the dangerous deranged crank scientist building a "terror" doomsday machine like Dr Strangelove (or the Unabomber) is exactly what our politicians and their media enablers need to feed the 'terror' machine, so we must take care not to make ourselves available for this kind of misrepresentation.

I don't think Tesla builders are at any risk, but things look different if we consider the latest scare stories about how "terrorists" could if they thought of it (!) interfere with aeroplanes by what the newspapers called 'microwaves.'

If this scenerio were taken seriously, then scientists would be asked to submit lists of necessary components to the Secret Police, and chances are that big hydrogen thyratrons would appear on it.

So they would start to look for irregular or unusual buyers of large hydrogen thyratrons, and finally arrive at me, and I would have to explain why I had large thyratrons - after my house had been all smashed up, that is, and the case reported as one of "terror" in the tabloids like the famous "Ricin Plot That Never Was" that Tony Blair reported to the US Congress as true, even when he knew it was not.

The most ridiculous part of this scenario is that 'terrorists' in the UK usually have so little technical expertise that their attempts at murder often fail because even the simplest devices fail to go off. How such people - who often as not set fire to themselves rather than their intended victims - are supposed to build a giant UWB interference transmitter has the same logic as the "terrorists" who we must all fear are building a nuclear weapon in the flat above a curry house - as if the entire, vast industrial complexes and massive staff of the Manhattan Project could be squeezed into the back room at the local mosque.

Clearly, reason and logic have little to do with it, and for that reason I feel we should at this time take especial care not to be misunderstood.

Anyone remember the old Buffalo Springfield song:

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It begins when you're always afraid
Step out of line
the man come and take you away.
Watch out children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's goin' down...

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