

The Bomb-Detecting Device That Didn't Work, Except to Make Money - danso
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-07-11/in-iraq-the-bomb-detecting-device-that-didnt-work-except-to-make-money?google_editors_picks=true

======
eksith
There's a special place in hell for people who do things like this.

And a special place in the corner of the room and Dunce hat for people who
didn't convict them and who paid good money to buy crap when lives were at
stake.

Edit: Some links

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadro_Tracker](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadro_Tracker)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADE_651](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADE_651)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GT200](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GT200)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_6](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_6)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sniffex](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sniffex)

And some food for thought by Stephen Fry

    
    
      The use of the GT200 as a means of tracking smuggled 
      ivory in Kenya has also been questioned. Stephen Fry, 
      who saw the GT200 being used by Kenyan rangers in an 
      attempt to catch poachers, described the misinformation 
      which accompanied the devices as "cynical, cruel and 
      monstrous." He told the BBC's Newsnight programme: "I 
      was horrified. They had spent a vast sum of money on a 
      modern equivalent of a hazel twig divining rod. There 
      was no possibility that such a thing could work."

~~~
Volpe
Likely that beyond whatever punishment he receives under the judicial system,
there will be little other consequence to him for his actions.

People do bad things, and get away with it all the time.

EDIT:

Interesting aside: Just world fallacy [1]

[1] [http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/06/07/the-just-world-
fallac...](http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/06/07/the-just-world-fallacy/)

~~~
eksith
Sadly, I fear you're right. At the most they'll probably get a slap on the
wrist and those who were complicit in buying the Snake Oil (knowing they were
bunk or not) will get scarcely above a stern word or two.

Rather depressing to think about.

~~~
sageikosa
As long as the process (of evaluating and purchasing the items in question)
did its job, no one has to be accountable.

------
pmorici
Something that isn't mentioned in the article but probably plays some role in
the desire to believe that these things work in parts of the world where Islam
is prevalent is the low stature of dogs in the religion. Since dogs are the
typical go to bomb and contraband detecting technology in the world it's easy
to see why a police department in a Muslim area might find a device that can
detect bombs w/o the use of a dog attractive.

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1029887/Muslims-
sear...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1029887/Muslims-searched-
sniffer-dogs-despite-religious-objections-say-police.html)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_animals#Muslims_and_s...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_animals#Muslims_and_sniffer_dogs)

~~~
parfe
Fairly ignorant comment you've got there. What you wrote is akin to saying
Jewish men won't touch unrelated women or their own adopted children because
you once met an Orthodox Jew who told you about negiah
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negiah](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negiah)).
Also the daily mail is full of shit.

Here's some Muslims getting along just fine with their bomb sniffing dogs:
[http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/01/as-soldiers-
leave-...](http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/01/as-soldiers-leave-iraq-
bomb-sniffing-dogs-stay/)

What happened here was a man committing outright fraud and the fact you're
blaming it on the religion out of your own ignorance is pretty sad.

~~~
pyre

      > the fact you're blaming it on the religion
    

However misguided, the parent's comment amounts to 'Muslims are more
gullible.' While that may not be true, it doesn't excuse a conman from
defrauding someone just because they were more gullible than someone else, and
I don't believe that the parent is trying to claim this either.

~~~
Someone
I don't think he is even trying to claim Muslims are more gullible, in
general. He just claims this may be a weak spot for Muslims. In other areas,
they may not have weak spots that others have.

~~~
DanBC
It doesn't explain why Americans spent so much money buying these devices.

Or why a Lebanese general (that country is roughly 60:40 muslim:christian)
believed it. Or why the non-muslim American inventor believed he had created a
working detector.

It _might_ be connected to Muslim dislike of dogs. Or maybe it's just that
conmen are conmen and can persuade people to buy junk regardless of religion.

~~~
VMG
> Or why the non-muslim American inventor believed he had created a working
> detector.

Did he?

~~~
DanBC
It's possible. That's what someone quoted by the article suggests.

People can be stupid without being malicious.

> _Although Kelly is unequivocal about the Quadro principals’ fraudulent
> intent—“They were con artists,” he says—Murray feels that Quattlebaum, at
> least, genuinely had faith in it. “I think he did believe in it—it was his
> invention,” he says. Quattlebaum could have fallen victim to the ideomotor
> effect, the same psychological phenomenon that convinces users of dowsing
> rods and Ouija boards that they are witnessing the results of a powerful yet
> inexplicable force. In response to suggestion or expectation, the body can
> produce unconscious movements, causing a sensitive, free-swinging mechanism
> to respond in sympathy. “It’s very compelling, if you’re not aware of what’s
> causing it,” Murray says._

Some of the people peddling homeopathy really do believe it works, and that's
just as clearly nonsense.

~~~
VMG
Thanks, I didn't know that there was an incarnation that was not based off a
novelty toy golf ball finder.

James McCormick himself clearly knew that the tool didn't work.

------
ihsw
One has to wonder when law enforcement will treat polygraphs with the same
disdain, they're effectively the same thing as these 'Quadro' devices.
Unfortunately polygraphs are convenient low-impact torture devices, and
they're also useful for measuring someone's tenacity.

~~~
eksith
That's an interesting perspective.

I've never considered polygraphs to be beyond anything more than a fancy
stress meter (cause be damned), but now that I think about it, it does
function quite well as such an instrument.

Goes so well as a corollary too: "If you've got nothing to hide, you wouldn't
mind some mild torture to verify that fact".

~~~
ihsw
I'm quite serious when I say torture, it's as much punitive as it is
deterrence, both of which are irrelevant to conducting an investigation and
gathering evidence of wrong-doing. It's not practical because it's impossible
to deny polygraph test results, so law enforcement officers have no incentive
to be truthful about the results.

------
rtkwe
Seems like this story pops up every year or so with little new information. It
popped up first in 2009 it seems in the NYTimes. This article doesn't even
mention that he was found guilty ~1-2 months ago.

~~~
abruzzi
It does on page six.

~~~
rtkwe
Ah well I stand corrected. Other than that it's still just mostly the old
information repeated yet again.

------
lancewiggs
A device that actually works for most explosives, the Syft (1) Voice 200, is
the size of a fridge, weighs significantly more and retails at several hundred
thousand dollars. It will detect volatile organic compounds in air, and in
microscopic amounts, but as far as I know does not seem to have been used for
bomb detection. It seems that you need to be better at selling snake oil than
at actually solving the problem to win in this space. They do operate out of
the back of vans, and I can imagine them at checkpoints constantly scanning
the air around cars. But I guess they are focussing on other markets.

(1): Http://syft.com/ I am a small shareholder

------
Cogito
Here is the fulltext[0] - there were 6 pages to click through!

[0] [http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/133612-in-
iraq-...](http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/133612-in-iraq-the-
bomb-detecting-device-that-didnt-work-except-to-make-money)

------
powertower
I don't know why everyone is skipping over the obviousness of this device; it
works by psychology, not by technology.

It's not a bomb detection device; it's a nervousness alerting device.

------
ars
I can kinda of see a use for this IF the operator knows it's fake, but the
target doesn't.

Use the device and watch the person, see if they display signs of nervousness.

~~~
StavrosK
You can do this with any $2 trinket from anywhere.

~~~
ars
Of course. But it works much better if you hold a huge press conference and
make a big deal out of it.

------
chrischen
When I first read the title I assumed it would be about the body scanners in
airports.

~~~
Alex3917
Apparently US airports and police departments also bought them. However an
article about white people being dumb probably wouldn't get as many page
views.

~~~
Volpe
While I agree with your premise, do you have a reference to the US authorities
purchasing these.

~~~
DanBC
It's in the article?

> _By the end of 1995, distributors across the U.S. had sold about 1,000
> Quadro Trackers to customers including police departments in Georgia and
> Illinois and school districts in Kansas and Florida. When Ronald Kelly, the
> agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s office in Beaumont,
> Tex., learned that a local narcotics task force had bought one, he attended
> a demonstration in which a Tracker was used to find a brick of cocaine. He
> wasn’t impressed. “I paid reasonable attention in eighth grade science,”
> Kelly says now. “I pronounced this bulls—.”_

In 2001 the new device was almost sold in Denver, except someone conducted a
double blind test which the device obviously failed.

------
droogie
The Kenya Police was also duped by the same guy
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-
africa-22306632](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-22306632). And the
most embarassing thing is the Kenyan Police actually believed that the
science-defying gadgets actually work.

------
greenyoda
Duplicate:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6040089](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6040089)

~~~
dangrossman
There's no value in linking to a previous submission with no discussion to
read.

~~~
DanBC
There's value in seeing what URLs are and why they didn't get picked up by a
dupe filter.

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lcedp
Well, I'd be a bit skeptical: "the device could effectively and accurately,
from long range, detect the presence and _location_ of various types of
explosives, drugs, ivory, and other substances"

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sirkneeland
The first thing I thought when reading this was "man, these people should
DEFINITELY be running healthcare"

------
sageikosa
This is probably just a prototype for the model that will detect terrorism in
Wi-Fi networks.

