Meet the Man Behind America’s Most Dangerous Mail-Order Kits | Hacker News Reader

Meet the Man Behind America’s Most Dangerous Mail-Order Kits

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128 pointsjalanco47 comments

Ah that brings back memories. I got my first Information Unlimited catalog back in the early 80's. There was a shop in Los Angeles called "Alltronics" which got a lot of surplus from the various companies that did military work and it was great fun to find things you could re-purpose.

We took one project which had some 1uF @ 1000V capacitors which we ganged together to make a spot welder. You would spend about 15 minutes charging up the capacitors, move the 'welder' into position (basically two pieces of 3/8" copper rod that came together in a a rounded point. And then push the button and "poof!" spot weld. We had to order a push button switch from the IU guys that wouldn't fuse itself on every time you used it. It was some oil/gel filled thing, worked great though!

I want to meet the Lawyers Behind the Man Behind America's Most Dangerous Mail-Order Kits.

Bob Lazar?

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

To the uninitiated, Bob Lazar runs United Nuclear, which is an online store that sells some...dangerous things.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Lazar#United_Nuclear_and_le...

Ahh. Tesla coils. The one I built in 8th grade took out radio & TV reception for a block around.

Heh. It must have been a blast to have you around. Upvoted.

Did you manage to generate some kind of EMP that affected the electronics, or did you manage to generate radio wave interference?

It was a combination of the spark gap used to create the high frequency needed to drive the inductor coils, plus the 8+ inch sparks I was creating off the top of it.

Also - I was able to light a 3' fluorescent bulb held at a distance of 7 feet away. No wires.

I have remarkably tolerant parents. :)

It was a homemade spark gap transmitter!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spark-gap_transmitter

"Another problem with the spark transmitter was a result of the shape of the waveform produced by each burst of electromagnetic radiation. These transmitters radiated an extremely 'dirty' wide band signal which could greatly interfere with the reception of other transmissions on nearby frequencies. Receiving sets located relatively close to such a transmitter would have entire sections of a band masked by this wide band noise."

Interference, surely.

Temporarily or forever? :)

Is there some link with geeks and explosives?

In my youth, if a large bang was heard across the town or smoke was spotted, I was always asked if it was my fault :) (a lot of the time it was :)

Sounds like a well spent youth. I think any one of the many explosive devices I made with my cousins 30 years ago would probably provoke a SWAT team response these days. Things like a 3/4" BIP flying pipe bomb launched with a D engine, an acetylene/oxygen filled kids punching balloon airlifted by helium balloons connected to 10 feet of slow-burn fireworks fuse, balsa model rockets with their cones hollowed out and filled with black powder, etc. Good memories.

Ah, the ubiquitous D engine. I used to clean out model rocket shops of those. Some of the things we put together with the powder from those were... er, fun.

You so would have been my friend at school :)

I fiddled with explosives a bit.

My father more than me.

My father once tried to make a "rocket" by filling some canisters with "solid fuel", but it always exploded.

Back then he thought that the canisters were being destroyed, but then he remembered that he never saw sharapnel...

And concluded that what he made was a cannon, and he wonders if he ever hit something.

Good stuff. One of my friends dads worked in an old Navy yard and had all sorts of random chemicals in the shed. We managed to make a few interesting explosions. Still, nothing beats the time after Christmas when we went around and gathered every tree we could find and stacked up in an empty lot and set them on fire. It went from night to day for about 45 seconds and then it was gone. Taught me a lot about how fast something like a Christmas tree can go up. I'm surprised there are not more fires every year.

I made a lot of fireworks in my heyday. Mostly smokebombs, but sometimes improvisational stuff with other fireworks. I was 16 or 17 going into Home Depot looking for Potassium Nitrate aka Salt Petre aka stump killer :)

And I built most of a Tesla coil. I stopped short when it came time to solder together the capacitor bank. I read too much that made me think I'd kill myself or blow up the house if I shorted something out on accident. Used the transformer for a nice Jacob's Ladder though!

You can still buy real stump killer (potassium nitrate) if you look hard enough. I even found it at a brick-and-mortar store nearby, but only after a fairly extensive search.

I hate to think of doing the stuff I used to do in high school 15 years ago now because of all the extra security and terrorism links.

True, but if you're a HS chemistry teacher with a vial of Na on display and no student has tried to steal it, then you haven't done your job.

That is very true. I must have stolen half the lab store at school :)

We used to play with Thermite. I think I stole quite a bit of aluminum powder from the lab and my mom was wondering what I was doing baking rust in the oven. ahh the good old days

Yes, everyone I've ever known who made explosives was a geek. Why is that?

The non-geeks ignore the safety and die?

Chemistry is sometimes tricky, and geeks have an interest in chemistry?

Explosives involve an amount of "forbidden knowledge", and that's popular among geeks?

Explosives is on a continuum with arson, at the "more knowledge needed" end. Geeks blow stuff up. Non-geeks burn it down?

But, searching YouTube shows there are plenty of people who don't appear to be geeks who experiment with explosives and fire.

They knew where to find a copy of the Anarchist's Cookbook.

A real geek would know the Anarchist's Cookbook is chock full of dangerous misinformation and avoid it.

Especially the picric acid recipe which our chemistry teacher decided to "do for us" to show how dangerous the JRCB was. Cracked the glass in the fume cupboard.

Best chem teacher in the world: Mr Atkinson, I salute you for making it interesting and turning a blind eye when we were stealing chemicals (because he did it when he was younger) :)

Picric acid is pretty evil. Don't just store it wet, but store it under a layer of water. Even then I'd be wary of it. Heck, just avoid it, it's too dangerous.

The damn thing blew up while being prodded with a stick by a friend, and I'm pretty sure the concoction was still quite wet.

Well, at least nobody was badly hurt, and we accomplished what we set out to do - which was to detonate a small amount of PA somewhere on the outskirts of town. We just didn't envision exploding it anywhere near one of the members of our team. :/

> Mr Atkinson, I salute you for making it interesting and turning a blind eye

Yeah, let's not mention "blind eyes" in this context.

The ones who liked their fingers found the army improvised munitions handbook.

Could be that you know an above-average number of geeks.

That seems likely.

This seems to be a recurring theme round these parts.

I remember a woman - Austrian? - who sold suicide kits that contained something people were to inhale.

I don't know whatever happened to her or that story, but I am sure she's not the only one in the "market".

Enabling people who want to harm themselves is probably more dangerous than this. The superlative makes this article a little bombastic to read.

I'm not sure if I'd consider that 'more dangerous'. Sure, euthanasia is a topic best not brought up at parties, but if I ignore the legal and moral aspect for a second:

The stuff you order from the guy in the article is supposed to be interesting/entertaining, but might kill you when you build it/if you are not careful.

The 'suicide kit' you describe says what it does (if it works, if it's not a scam) on the box. You won't buy it and .. die by accident.

I first thought of Dr Philip Nitschke's 'Euthanasia Kit' when I read the headline.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Nitschke#Exit_bag_and_Co...

I am sure she's not the only one in the "market"

Obviously she couldn't count on customers' loyalty.

You have to admire someone who has built a business like that single-handed.

Let us please not turn HN into reddit.

Let's all give this man a hand!

I can imagine that some of his wares could be very... handy.

I'd give my left hand for that Tesla coil.

Let's hope he never hands off the business to an inferior designer.

You know, someone who can't quite put their finger on a brilliant design.

(Oh god I can't stop, there's just too many puns to make... at hand.)

That was a pretty underhanded comment.

I regret nothing!

You handled it well.

Information Unlimited was the first thing that came to mind. Growing up in the 90's, I would eagerly await the catalog, then read and reread it, saving up all the money I could for the wonderfully dangerous gadgets within. The Ion ray gun was amazing - it would light up a fluorescent tube from 3 feet away, or send a purple corona into space. I would cut school to stay home and solder their kits. Their R&D line fielded many of my calls, and were incredibly patient with me. Pretty awesome to hear about the guy who started it!

I still have his first book, a masterpiece: Build your own laser, phaser, ion ray gun, and other working space-age projects.

You might also enjoy the YouTube channel of 'Photonicinduction'.

(https://www.youtube.com/user/Photonvids)

I still have over a dozen Radio-Electronics and Popular Electronics issues from the 80s and 90s that show how to make all kinds of neat high voltage toys :)

Meet the Man Behind America’s Most Dangerous Mail-Order Kits

I thought this was going to be about Acme Corporation's Roadrunner-catching kits

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