Posted on 09/21/2007 7:56:37 AM PDT by Erik Latranyi
(AP) BOSTON An MIT student has been arrested at gunpoint after allegedly walking into Logan International Airport with a fake bomb strapped to her chest this morning.
State police say 19-year-old Star Simpson, a sophomore from Hawaii, had a computer circuit board, wiring and a putty that later turned out to be Play-Doh in plain view over a black hooded sweatshirt she was wearing.
Stay with wbztv.com and WBZ-TV for the latest on this developing story.
“I would think only the LEDs would be supposed to be showing outside the sweatshirt. “
I just don’t have enough info. If the protoboard (or proto kit, same thing) was inside the hoodie with just the lights sticking out, I’m worried about all the LED lights appearing in shoes and on clothes. You can get an electroluminescent shirt with an audio spectal display on it, what would the airport cops do to you with one of those blinking away!
http://www.gadgetoff.com/weblog/2006/10/my_shirt_says_your_off_key.html
If the board was on the outside of the shirt, I can understand the need for further inquiry as to what it is.
The Play-Doh has me stumped. The whole event has me puzzled, but that’s because the story is slowly leaking out and fact right now is thin.
To the slammer and then fine her the cost of the incident.
I didn’t see any play-doh in the pics. She may have used it to ‘mash’ the wires down into the breadboard. I certainly don’t see any blocks of it with wires sticking out, which is what you’d expect of a bomb.
“...look for a guy in a red t-shirt”
Good one!
Like the time they got a fire truck on top of the Institute's large dome:
Or a police car:
The only appropriate reaction from the police at this point: Drop the charges and forget the whole thing. This is even less serious than the suspended six year old who drew a picture of his soldier daddy with a gun.
You’re kind of doing everyone (and her) a disservice by posting a picture of a faceless person holding explosives. Her play-doh isn’t really visible at all.
He is damn lucky he did not get killed pulling a stunt like that.
Unfortunately, she forgot to have “Bush Sucks!” or some other epithet on the bomb. Had she done so, she could have walked through Logan to scattered applause rather than possible jailtime.
Was she forced to enter the airport as a test for someone else? Probing going on all over U.S.
The news reports I read say that she had a chunk of Play-Doh in her hand, not on the board. The news is still chaotic, some reports say it was attached to the board by a wire, some say it was not. I’ve never seen a pic of how big or what color the stuff was.
The protoboard has tape on it, not putty.
The board looks improvised, expedient, and expendable, and you should also look into her behaviour- sure it was not a pipe with red wires and a clock, but I’ve been looking recently at the improvised detonators from Iraq, and they can vary a lot. One will be coated in RTV, another in electrical tape, one will be soldered on perfboard. There is no one signature that lets one determine right away just what a homemade assembly is.
I've been reading up on Home Made Explosives in the past couple of hours.
US Gov right now is putting a lot of effort into Home Made Explosives,
http://www.grants.gov/search/search.do?mode=VIEW&oppId=11020
Here is a link to a grant opportunity for HME detection schemes worth 10 million. Got any ideas? This is one of many similar.
I think pretty much anything that looks home made and has wires and a battery is going to be looked at with suspicion, and people are being trained to look for items that fit that broad definition.
As I pointed out earlier, the only laws she has been charged with breaking involve intent, not mere possession. The absence of any threats and her affirmative statements that the device was harmless tend to suggest there was no intent to alarm. This is going to be a hard case for the police to make.
Play-Doh, most news reports mention either Play-Doh or a putty-like substance, in her hands.
http://www.insurancebroadcasting.com/060506-p6.jpg
Here’s a homemade detonator. As you point out, everything is identifiable as a harmless electronic component, familiar to many people with a high school education or higher. Canadian police say that they also captured a large amount of explosive.
I support the airport goons in this case. There was no reason for her to be pulling this sort of stunt. Was she trying to show how stupid the airport goons are? Or was she too stupid to know how stupid the airport goons would be?
http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-a-cheap-electronic-detonator!/
Interestingly enough, Star Simpson’s screen name at Instructables is stasterisk, but there is no connection between her and this detonator, it’s just a coincidence.
In the picture, you don’t see anything alarming at all, except perhaps the clock display, but the device is intended to “set stuff off”. If I were to use this circuit, I’d take the display off and add one or two of those multicolor LEDs in case security wanted to look at it.
Or, keep it as a kitchen timer. Add a storage cap and small MOSFET inside. What would make it dangerous is an explosive detonator and some plastic explosive, items that I personally would have nothing to do with. Security people would be quite excited to see me with a kitchen timer with a twisted pair coming out of it, for obvious reasons.
I support the airport goons in this case. There was no reason for her to be pulling this sort of stunt. Was she trying to show how stupid the airport goons are? Or was she too stupid to know how stupid the airport goons would be?Nothing to see here, check out this
If I were the judge...the cost of the incident, and 30 days of jail with another 30 days of community service. The minute she mentions MIT classes and how it’d ruin her classtime...I’d just smile and say that this was “my experiment” in human behavior now...and I’ll test you to see how strong you can be in real life.
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