Comment by TeMPOraL | Hacker News Reader

Comment by TeMPOraL | Hacker News Reader

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True, but note that this project can be done by any random teenager (closer to 12 than 18 years old) with no access to specialized materials or equipment. Aluminium and copper is around everywhere, and you can pry HV capacitors from off-the-shelf equipment (as a kid I used to get them from spent single-roll analog cameras). Instructions you can find on-line. In contrast, making a working gun at home (and more importantly, ammo!) is much more difficult (though still doable), requiring some specific chemicals and a lathe if you want to finish it in under a decade. Though the latter is changing as well, as the lathes are more precise, cheaper and easier to get than they used to be.

And this is still very low in the category of actual damage - close to the top I'd put a resourceful teenager halting a desalination plant or crashing the power grid in some country using only his laptop. Actually, I'm still a bit surprised it hasn't happened yet given the laughable state of infosec in the industries.

The point of the quote is - our technological advancements tend to raise the amount of damage a single person can do by using products of the system against the system itself. And this is a big problem, because while you can hope for some level of control over countries or even corporations, with 7 billion people on this planet, some accident is bound to occur eventually, and individuals hell-bent on destroying the world pop up by pure chance.

> note that this project can be done by any random teenager

This thing is optimistically as powerful as a handgun. Any random teenager with over $50K and two years of time to sink into this kind of project can get a gun.

A teenager with $50K can obtain a car and just run people over, too. That's both more likely and more effective.

> The point of the quote is - our technological advancements tend to raise the amount of damage a single person can do

Our technological advancements also tend to raise the amount of "the sky is falling" paranoia. When drones first started getting popular, I saw several articles about how terrorists were going to build smart bombs with GPS-guided drones. This is a legitimately plausible scenario. The question is whether someone with the resources to build a drone with sufficient range and carrying capacity to do real damage could do the same without drones, and the answer is most certainly yes.

New tech doesn't necessarily mean more danger, even if it means new types of danger.

$50k would be the retail cost. The guy got his for < $4k.

> Our technological advancements also tend to raise the amount of "the sky is falling" paranoia.

I've noticed that too. I don't want to sound paranoid about technology in general, and I'm not worried about terrorists doing their terrorist things. I'm worried what an average random individual could do, whether by accident or on purpose. Most of the popular dangers don't multiply the power of an individual enough. But biotech does.

> The guy got his for < $4k.

Thanks. I missed that. How did he manage to get these for 1/10th the cost? Still, I'm pretty sure a black-market handgun or a beater car can each be obtained for <$4k.

> Most of the popular dangers don't multiply the power of an individual enough. But biotech does.

I could see that. I'm not sure how much biotech is really going to be accessible, though. I think much of it will end up locked down (legally), and I suspect that the regulations will be fairly effective. There are already biological agents that people can harvest, but it's relatively uncommon.

> Thanks. I missed that. How did he manage to get these for 1/10th the cost? Still, I'm pretty sure a black-market handgun or a beater car can each be obtained for <$4k.

I don't know, but one of the way I used to source (much smaller) HV capacitors for free was disassembling flash modules from single-use cameras that were thrown away after film was extracted from it. Generally, there are ways. In my city there is an electronics market where you can source a lot of parts (some extracted from old devices) cheap. I haven't asked for how much they sell those big HV capacitors in Shenzhen yet, but I'm willing to bet it won't be anywhere near $800/pc.

> I'm not sure how much biotech is really going to be accessible, though. I think much of it will end up locked down (legally), and I suspect that the regulations will be fairly effective.

I don't know either; we'll find out in a decade. But I don't see it effectively locked down in the longer (10+ years) run, unless something slows down current wave of progress that is happening around biotech equipment. Like with 3D printers, a lot of things you needed shit ton of money for can now be done with DIY equipment in a garage. This gave rise to community biolabs (biohackerspaces).

> There are already biological agents that people can harvest, but it's relatively uncommon.

True. I ascribe this to people generally not being evil or having murderous instincts. What worries me more are accidents and incentives-induced-stupidity. As an example of the latter, the most common bioattack people are doing right now is coming to work sick. It's actually mind-blowing that so many companies (outside IT) force people directly or indirectly to come in sick, even though it results in other employees getting infected and overall productivity in the company taking a hit.

   " individuals hell-bent on destroying the world "

Ha, on Criminal Minds my favorite quote is from a scene where it was observed that a teenaged boy profiled as a sociopath. The boss replied "Every teenaged boy profiles as a sociopath; you know that!"

Eh!

I'll start worrying when the actual amount of danger exceeds what a rural teenager can do with access to a farm supply store and $20.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANFO

Slam-fire shotgun can be built, in a day and in total secrecy, by a 12 year old with some loose change in any modestly equipped garage. It is extremely easy to conceal and carry, you can reach 30+ shots per minute with little training and, sadly, ammunition for it is probably less time (read: resource) consuming to acquire in many countries than the knowledge of electrical engineering sufficient to build a working railgun of that scale.

Never heard of slam-fire shotguns before. I'll look into it. As a kid I had seen designs for railguns though.

I disagree that the shotgun would be easier because of ammo issue. It may be as you say in the US of A, but in Europe it's not that easy to get your hands on live rounds. Also, I doubt people often sell ammo to a 12 year old - so in order to get it, you'd have to interact with a grownup. Railguns are easier; your parents will never know what you're building even if you're spending your lunch money on high voltage capacitors.

Didnt he say he spent 50,000 on those caps?

No, he said that would have been the retail price. He bought them for much less. In other places, he mentioned that his total cost for the project was about $4,000.

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