Merged [Ed] Get involved detecting the ade 651 detector / Jim McCormick arrested

[zooterkin]

Some possible explanations. Fewer bombs were found because the US withdrew from Iraq and the need to plant bombs decreased.

The device was over provisioned/designed to be useful after the war where items other than bombs could be programmed for detection (elephants, dollar bills, skeptics etc.)

You do understand that the device does not work? At all. Don't you?

 

[Garrison]

Some possible explanations. Fewer bombs were found because the US withdrew from Iraq and the need to plant bombs decreased.

The device was over provisioned/designed to be useful after the war where items other than bombs could be programmed for detection (elephants, dollar bills, skeptics etc.)

It was a fraudulent device; it not not only didn't work as claimed it couldn't work as claimed, that has in fact been demonstrated 'beyond a reasonable doubt' in a court of law.

 

[Mister Earl]

It was merely electronic-looking chunks stuffed into a case. Those chunks, in many cases, weren't even connected. There was no power source, either.

 

[godless dave]

List of quotes by senior US officials and others claiming Iraq had WMDs.

WMD, Who Said What and When
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4882.htm

This was all before the invention of the ADE 651. So some other intelligence or technology was used to determine that as a fact before the invasion of Iraq.

It was never determined as a fact, a bunch of politicians just claimed it because it suited their desires.

 

[godless dave]

Where did I say the ADE 651 was used to search for WMD? It was invented after the US invasion of Iraq.
According to Iraqi reports.
"The Iraqi Interior Minister, Jawad al-Bulani, also defended the device, telling Al Iraqiya television that the ADE 651 had "managed to prevent and detect more than 16,000 bombs that would be a threat to people's life and more than 733 car bombs were defused."

The gadget found more bombs than what the US were using to find WMD.

...Because there were bombs to be found.

 

[Sherman Bay]

I understand that if you put a real bomb down in front of it and said, "Look, there's a bomb!" the device pointed directly to it without hesitation.

 

[Lambda Ray]

Can this be used as an example of how woo is bad for your health/safety/civilisation, or am I being naive?

 

[Professor Yaffle]

A businessman who was found guilty of selling fake bomb detectors was given advice by British government officials on how to market his products to United Nations agencies, it has emerged.

Jim McCormick, 57, who was convicted at the Old Bailey on Tuesday of three counts of fraud, was trained at a "how to sell to the UN" seminar organised by UK Trade and Industry in March 2008. He also held meetings with officials at UK Trade & Investment, the export-promotion arm of the Department for Business.

McCormick faces up to 10 years in jail for a crime that detectives said "showed a complete disregard for the safety of those that used and relied upon the device for their own security and protection".

The devices were compared to dowsing rods and magic wands by people who used them, although their sales in Iraq and other war zones helped make McCormick a £55m fortune, and allowed him to buy a £3.5m mansion in Bath formerly owned by the actor Nicolas Cage.

There is no evidence that the business department knew the devices were useless. But it also emerged that the same department ignored a warning in 2008 about the dangers of the fake detectors from a whistleblower, who said they put lives at risk.

Ian Pearson, the Labour minister who oversaw export controls at the time, was emailed a detailed dossier about McCormick entitled "Dowsing rods endanger lives" in November of that year but his ministerial office did not reply.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/a...elped-fake-bomb-detector-fraudster?CMP=twt_gu

 

[Ladewig]

I understand that if you put a real bomb down in front of it and said, "Look, there's a bomb!" the device pointed directly to it without hesitation.

Indeed, yes.

I am not aware of the device ever failing an unblinded test.
I am also not aware of the device ever passing a blinded test.

 

[Ladewig]

the ADE 651 had "managed to prevent and detect more than 16,000 bombs that would be a threat to people's life and more than 733 car bombs were defused."

Of course, raw numbers mean nothing; if there were 32,000 bombs and it detected 16,000 bombs, then it is operating no better than 50/50.

.
Maths. It is simples, yes?

 

[joolz]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/a...elped-fake-bomb-detector-fraudster?CMP=twt_gu

Is it my eyes or does he look a bit like 'gorgeous George' in the big photo?

PM on Radio 4 were being discourteous to the victims of the fraud today by saying 'why couldn't they tell it didn't work'. I guess the only way to prove it is to have your own mine to test it on or wait until you stand on a live mine R4 said McCormick had even added some blue flashing lights to the joke golf toy to 'make it look more realistic'.

It's also interesting that your link says that the army had to x-ray it before they were sure it was useless. If they can't tell just from looking at it then how can civilians tell?

Selling fake Rolex watches to idiot snobs who can't tell the difference is one thing, maliciously putting innocent people's lives at risk by selling them fake bomb detectors is in another league, he deserves the maximum sentence.

 

[Biff Starbuck]

It was merely electronic-looking chunks stuffed into a case. Those chunks, in many cases, weren't even connected. There was no power source, either.

Actually, there were NOT even electronic looking chunks. Most were empty or at best had thin metal strip akin to an anti-shoplifting tag or sticker.

In one of the tests of a precurser made in the US in the 1990s, Sandia Labs found only an empty plastic box with a dead ant apparently accidentally stuck in the glue.

 

[drewid]

Where did I say the ADE 651 was used to search for WMD? It was invented after the US invasion of Iraq.
According to Iraqi reports.
"The Iraqi Interior Minister, Jawad al-Bulani, also defended the device, telling Al Iraqiya television that the ADE 651 had "managed to prevent and detect more than 16,000 bombs that would be a threat to people's life and more than 733 car bombs were defused."

The gadget found more bombs than what the US were using to find WMD.

I suspect the number of bombs that were claimed to be found were in direct proportion to the size of the backhander that a particular official got for buying the device.

 

[Rolfe]

Please, please tell me John Wyatt is somewhere in the queue to be hung out to dry on this one? Please?

Rolfe.

 

[joolz]

Please, please tell me John Wyatt is somewhere in the queue to be hung out to dry on this one? Please?

Rolfe.

He may weasel himself out of it. He does some splendid double talk on the film here. He says he wouldn't use the bomb detector 'in a life or death situation' ?? Errrr what?? I assumed that was the exact time you need a (working) detector! He also claims it failed in tests because the Royal Engineers 'weren't trained'. Presumably he means the RE weren't trained to lie.

Presumably this quote (same link) explains why the sellers were quiet about the fact they don't work:

The manufacturer of another of the devices, the Alpha 6, has admitted to Newsnight that they make them for £11 and then they are sold for £15,000 each to the end user.

Ah - good old capitalism

 

[Rolfe]

Wyatt has been telling some lies in connection with the Lockerbie investigation. They are in fact lies aimed at supporting the case for Megrahi's innocence. This is the sort of support we can do without, and the sooner he is nailed the better.

It was actually quite surreal. Newsnight ran an item starring Wyatt as the great investigator who had shown that certain fragments presented in evidence could not have survived the explosion on the plane. This made no sense at all, but of course it's the sort of thing enthusiasts will seize on and repeat endlessly.

Then only a few weeks later Newsnight ran the item you link to above, in which he was in the hot seat and came over like a homoeopath trying to defend the use of shaken-up sugar pills as medicine. I lol-ed.

Oddly enough, part of the Lockerbie evidence which isn't referred to much is the fact that the luggage loaded on to flight KM180 at Malta was screened for explosives by the Maltese military using a hand-held "sniffer device". I have no idea at all what that was, or even whether there is such a thing as a functional device of this nature, but I still wonder if it was an ADE 651. This was December 1988 - is that possible?

Rolfe.

 

[zooterkin]

Oddly enough, part of the Lockerbie evidence which isn't referred to much is the fact that the luggage loaded on to flight KM180 at Malta was screened for explosives by the Maltese military using a hand-held "sniffer device". I have no idea at all what that was, or even whether there is such a thing as a functional device of this nature, but I still wonder if it was an ADE 651. This was December 1988 - is that possible?

Could have been something similar, but I don't think McCormick can have been involved:

Around 2001, McCormick came across a $20 novelty golf ball finder called the Golfinder, which he copied. He stuck an ATSC label onto it and renamed it the ADE [Advanced Detection Equipment] 100, marketing it as a bomb detector. A subsequent revision of the design, called the ADE 101, was sold for up to $7,000 per unit. He also marketed a version called the ADE 650. The ADE 651 was a further development of the same design.

 

[Tolls]

Oddly enough, part of the Lockerbie evidence which isn't referred to much is the fact that the luggage loaded on to flight KM180 at Malta was screened for explosives by the Maltese military using a hand-held "sniffer device". I have no idea at all what that was, or even whether there is such a thing as a functional device of this nature, but I still wonder if it was an ADE 651. This was December 1988 - is that possible?

Rolfe.

That's a decade or so before the founding of the company.
You'd probably need to know the sorts of devices around and then look into whether any of them actually worked.

Didn't they use dogs?

 

[Rolfe]

No, they didn't use dogs. The trial transcripts refer clearly to a hand-held "sniffer" device, which has been erroneously reported as "sniffer dogs" in some commentaries. When I saw it was a device, I wondered about the ADE 651 but reckoned it was probably too early.

I don't know what was available back then, but I have serious doubts whether there was anything that worked. Might have had some deterrent effect if it was known to be used though.

The bomb wasn't in the consignment of luggage the Maltese soldiers checked. However, even if it had been I doubt very much that they would have been able to detect it, so it's a fairly minor point. Even dogs have problems smelling Semtex.

Rolfe.

 

[Cuddles]

I don't know what was available back then, but I have serious doubts whether there was anything that worked.

Why? Explosive detectors are entirely real things. Just because this particular one was a fraud doesn't mean they all are.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosive_detection