" It requires no battery or other power source; its manufacturer claimed that it is powered solely by the user's static electricity. To use the device, the operator must walk for a few moments to "charge" it before holding it at right angles to the body... According to Husam Muhammad, an Iraqi police officer and user of the ADE 651, using the device properly is more of an art than a science: 'If we are tense, the device doesn't work correctly. I start slow, and relax my body, and I try to clear my mind.' In one promotional video McCormick claimed that the device could detect elephants from 48 kilometres (30 mi) away."
They should be charging this guy with murder. Not fraud.
>its manufacturer claimed that it is powered solely by the user's static electricity.
He missed out on a great opportunity to sell proprietary magic battery packs, then. A lump of concrete and a coin cell to shine a LED, all wrapped up in plastic with an oddball connector.
However the purchasers should be charged with criminal negligence. It's up to them to check the claims of the device in question and test it before putting it in the hands of people.
For one thing, as far as bribes have been payed, I'd like to see this guy being charged to the full extent.
Also there are charlatans selling magic stones or other nonsense to the mentally weak, and I think that humans susceptible to this kind of fraud should be protected from it, so I'd say if he had sold this to private persons I'd love to see him convicted of fraud.
That being said, apparently many of his loyal satisfied customers have been the military or police, and seriously that's pretty disturbing: These are the people trusted by their citizens (well... in theory...) to keep up the peace and safety in their country. And in exchange they get to arrest people, and run around with guns. At the sam time these are the people who were not able to distinguish the equivalent of a dead rock from a scientific device to detect miniscule traces of chemical compounds used in explosives. Sure, there's some blame to put on the guy selling the disfunctional device, but quite an insignificant amount of blame, given how gullible his highly decorated customers were.
I'm not sure that this is necessarily a valid claim. The people who have to use the device are not normally the people who purchased it.
I'm sure that most of us have been in a position where we have been forced to use a product that is inferior or even completely broken, trying valiantly to make up for the shortcomings in the product. The person who purchased the product may have done so in good faith; misled by a smooth sales pitch, or may be actively corrupt and complicit in the deception.
I have no doubt that many of the people who were forced to use this product were aware that something was not right, but I doubt many of them were in a position to do anything but shut up and soldier.
According to other articles I've read about the devices, they were advertised as "running on the body's static electricity", and able to detect not only bombs, but also "illegal immigrants, truffles, contraband ivory and 100 dollar bills" from a distance of three miles.
It's utterly bizarre that various governments have paid over $100,000,000 for these things.
I imagine this is just fraud. The government official's brother buys 10,000 of these for $5 and sells them for $5,000. He and the politician enjoy the spoils. Many autocratic and corrupt nations do this trick. Usually not this painfully obvious, but it just sounds like a typical mark-up scam.
Security forces probably love this thing because it gives them leeway into searching and stopping anyone for any reason.
This device is perfect for corrupt politicians and corrupt cops. From a purely amoral perspective its genius. It gives the politicians what they want (graft) and the police what they want (arbitrary searches).
Here in lies the problem. People who don't understand proper testing protocols won't blind their testing. And they'll subconsciously influence it to work. And if it doesn't work, they'll let someone else who is more "experienced" try it.
Well, it is easy to come up with glib moral indignation. However, more interesting aspect of this story is the prevailing atmosphere of hysterical wars on "terror" and "drugs" which provide fertile breeding ground for this kind of operation. Clearly, authorities everywhere want these kinds of devices at any price. So, whether they work or not is just a boring detail. This is a typical symptom of advanced irrationality, of course. This time, worryingly, on the side of the authorities.
Mr McCormick is a genius at spotting timely market opportunities. The only thing he missed out on is an internet startup around that idea <irony warning>.
As everyone here has said, this is clearly fraud, if not worse. Which makes this line from the article completely crazy:
"Meanwhile, Roe’s device had attracted the attention of the F.B.I., which tested one, determined it was worthless, and sent out a Teletype warning to law-enforcement agencies."
The FBI tested this thing, found it was bogus, and did the equivalent of writing a letter to Consumer Reports. If only the FBI were, I don't know, familiar with some kind of department of the government whose job it was to prosecute illegal interstate acts. Some kind of Justice Department maybe? It's wild that they didn't relay this to a federal prosecutor.
I was in Iraq when these were first starting to hit police checkpoints and the article's description of the utterly absurd spectacle of the technology in action is not exaggerated.
The article made me wonder whether McCormick eventually started to believe the technology actually worked. The fact that he spent hours trying to patiently explain the science behind it when first arrested suggests that either he started to believe his own story or was really, really confident in his ability to lie to others. Of course, the best liars to some extent do believe their own lies to some extent, which is what makes them so good at it....
> he fact that he spent hours trying to patiently explain the science behind it when first arrested suggests that either he started to believe his own story or was really, really confident in his ability to lie to others.
Or he knew that what he was going to be charged with was fraud, which requires intentional deception. Therefore failing to keep up the lie would be exactly the same as pleading guilty.
If this guy can convincingly maintain the lie that he personally believes they work, then he has plausible deniability.
I was in Pakistan a few months ago on a project. Security at the main Benazir Bhutto International Airport in Islamabad were using these. As I arrived at the airport, with massive and completely over-the-top security everywhere, stern-faced soldiers are marching up and down holding these devices out at arms-length.
Terrifying to realise, in that moment, that this is all that stands between a bomb and me.
Obligatory Advertising Gripe: The site/article feature two(!) overlapping modal windows - the top shows an ad, the second layer shows a subscribe call-to-action. You have to close both to access the content. This takes bad UX to a whole new level.
That's pretty clever. Unless you hand every operator a sample bomb (or elephant!) they are very unlikely to ever come across the real thing. The positive rate on things like this must be very, very small, so it would take a really large number of samples to get even one detected bomb.
If you've ever been at an airport where they dust you with a pad (I guess for drugs?), that device could be broken and you'd never suspect it unless you had a sample of some sort.
But of course the authorities who spend the public's money on equipment must have thought about this, right?
The conspiracy theory version of this is that the people responsible are really just fighting against the larger nation states. The type of bomb that these things are designed to detect are mostly used by people rebelling against such nation states. So in a sense, McCormick has stuck a blow for the "little guy" in a way that a reasonable person would think impossible.
A true anti-patriot... Possibly the most effective anarchist ever...
If you read the article, you'd see he was sentenced to 10 years in jail (and some of his 'colleagues' also received custodial sentences) and they're beginning the slow process of clawing back some of his assets.
The real issue is that "officials in Baghdad continue to defend the A.D.E. 651" - either through embarrassment at being conned, or simply because they believe in it.
Not to be confused with the fake bomb detectors who work every day in the airports in the United States, though their success rates appear to be similar.
It's very hard to have sympathy for believers in dowsing. The victims of the explosions resulting from the gross negligence, yes, but not the negligent, superstitious idiots.
Just shows the whole Iraq project was doomed all along.
[+] [-] _nedR|10 years ago|reply
From the wikipedia article is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADE_651
" It requires no battery or other power source; its manufacturer claimed that it is powered solely by the user's static electricity. To use the device, the operator must walk for a few moments to "charge" it before holding it at right angles to the body... According to Husam Muhammad, an Iraqi police officer and user of the ADE 651, using the device properly is more of an art than a science: 'If we are tense, the device doesn't work correctly. I start slow, and relax my body, and I try to clear my mind.' In one promotional video McCormick claimed that the device could detect elephants from 48 kilometres (30 mi) away."
They should be charging this guy with murder. Not fraud.
[+] [-] shiggerino|10 years ago|reply
He missed out on a great opportunity to sell proprietary magic battery packs, then. A lump of concrete and a coin cell to shine a LED, all wrapped up in plastic with an oddball connector.
[+] [-] tacticus|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] batou|10 years ago|reply
However the purchasers should be charged with criminal negligence. It's up to them to check the claims of the device in question and test it before putting it in the hands of people.
[+] [-] sneak|10 years ago|reply
Buying them with public funds for public safety applications, however...
[+] [-] cnvogel|10 years ago|reply
Also there are charlatans selling magic stones or other nonsense to the mentally weak, and I think that humans susceptible to this kind of fraud should be protected from it, so I'd say if he had sold this to private persons I'd love to see him convicted of fraud.
That being said, apparently many of his loyal satisfied customers have been the military or police, and seriously that's pretty disturbing: These are the people trusted by their citizens (well... in theory...) to keep up the peace and safety in their country. And in exchange they get to arrest people, and run around with guns. At the sam time these are the people who were not able to distinguish the equivalent of a dead rock from a scientific device to detect miniscule traces of chemical compounds used in explosives. Sure, there's some blame to put on the guy selling the disfunctional device, but quite an insignificant amount of blame, given how gullible his highly decorated customers were.
[+] [-] dragonsky67|10 years ago|reply
I'm sure that most of us have been in a position where we have been forced to use a product that is inferior or even completely broken, trying valiantly to make up for the shortcomings in the product. The person who purchased the product may have done so in good faith; misled by a smooth sales pitch, or may be actively corrupt and complicit in the deception.
I have no doubt that many of the people who were forced to use this product were aware that something was not right, but I doubt many of them were in a position to do anything but shut up and soldier.
[+] [-] frooxie|10 years ago|reply
It's utterly bizarre that various governments have paid over $100,000,000 for these things.
[+] [-] drzaiusapelord|10 years ago|reply
Security forces probably love this thing because it gives them leeway into searching and stopping anyone for any reason.
This device is perfect for corrupt politicians and corrupt cops. From a purely amoral perspective its genius. It gives the politicians what they want (graft) and the police what they want (arbitrary searches).
[+] [-] pjc50|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Thriptic|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] digi_owl|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tamersalama|10 years ago|reply
http://muftah.org/countdown-kofta-gate-egypts-called-cure-ai...
[+] [-] skeuomorf|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aptwebapps|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] russdill|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SagelyGuru|10 years ago|reply
Mr McCormick is a genius at spotting timely market opportunities. The only thing he missed out on is an internet startup around that idea <irony warning>.
[+] [-] billyhoffman|10 years ago|reply
"Meanwhile, Roe’s device had attracted the attention of the F.B.I., which tested one, determined it was worthless, and sent out a Teletype warning to law-enforcement agencies."
The FBI tested this thing, found it was bogus, and did the equivalent of writing a letter to Consumer Reports. If only the FBI were, I don't know, familiar with some kind of department of the government whose job it was to prosecute illegal interstate acts. Some kind of Justice Department maybe? It's wild that they didn't relay this to a federal prosecutor.
[+] [-] mring33621|10 years ago|reply
WAT?
This is what we use in the USA for inter-agency comms in the 21st century?
[+] [-] leroy_masochist|10 years ago|reply
The article made me wonder whether McCormick eventually started to believe the technology actually worked. The fact that he spent hours trying to patiently explain the science behind it when first arrested suggests that either he started to believe his own story or was really, really confident in his ability to lie to others. Of course, the best liars to some extent do believe their own lies to some extent, which is what makes them so good at it....
[+] [-] knodi123|10 years ago|reply
Or he knew that what he was going to be charged with was fraud, which requires intentional deception. Therefore failing to keep up the lie would be exactly the same as pleading guilty.
If this guy can convincingly maintain the lie that he personally believes they work, then he has plausible deniability.
[+] [-] Turukawa|10 years ago|reply
Terrifying to realise, in that moment, that this is all that stands between a bomb and me.
[+] [-] josefresco|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lordnacho|10 years ago|reply
If you've ever been at an airport where they dust you with a pad (I guess for drugs?), that device could be broken and you'd never suspect it unless you had a sample of some sort.
But of course the authorities who spend the public's money on equipment must have thought about this, right?
[+] [-] cpursley|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] upofadown|10 years ago|reply
A true anti-patriot... Possibly the most effective anarchist ever...
[+] [-] fla|10 years ago|reply
No seriously, this is an horrible story. I hope thy all end in jail. Karma will take care of the rest.
[+] [-] jobigoud|10 years ago|reply
How ironic.
I have a batch of Positive Karma Inverter devices, do you want to buy some? It works on the nuclear quadrupole resonance principles.
[+] [-] ablation|10 years ago|reply
The real issue is that "officials in Baghdad continue to defend the A.D.E. 651" - either through embarrassment at being conned, or simply because they believe in it.
[+] [-] js2|10 years ago|reply
e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1070732
Shocking that these things are still out there.
[+] [-] MrZongle2|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yawz|10 years ago|reply
Regardless... the responsible should be charged with murder.
[+] [-] mfoy_|10 years ago|reply
The people in charge of "testing" the device before approving the purchase were probably getting kickbacks.
The prosecution opted to go for fraud over corporate manslaughter because the former was much easier to prove.
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] shiggerino|10 years ago|reply
Just shows the whole Iraq project was doomed all along.
[+] [-] alaaibrahim|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pcrh|10 years ago|reply
What an astounding story. A complete con, but man... I wish I had that kind of talent in sales...
[+] [-] DanBC|10 years ago|reply