
The Zero-Armed Bandit - ca98am79
http://www.damninteresting.com/the-zero-armed-bandit/
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yellowapple
> Back in Lake Tahoe, FBI agents and members of the bomb squad strapped on air
> filtration masks and protective gear and crossed the field of glass
> fragments to enter the wounded casino tower. __It looked as if a bomb had
> gone off. __

You don 't say.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
One paragraph later:

    
    
       FBI agents scrutinized every smithereen
    

I don't think I've ever seen "smithereen" in print before. Merriam-webster.com
only has "smithereens" a "plural noun". But the singular nicely fits the
sentence.

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murbard2
I've always wondered why the bombs often portrayed in movies weren't designed
according to those same principles. It seems that it is indeed possible to
make it completely tamper proof.

~~~
yetihehe
Maybe exactly not to give possible bombers good ideas...

~~~
murbard2
More prosaically because it allows the hero to defuse the bomb at the last
minute. But it always pinches my suspension of disbelief when it happens.

~~~
Digit-Al
Yeah. Why does the hero always defuse the bomb with exactly one second to
spare?

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shabble
I wonder how effective some of the newer EOD disruptors like the PigStick[1]
would be. It uses a shaped charge to generate and direct an incredibly high
pressure water jet for similar sorts of 'decapitation strikes' on detonators
and the like.

Although, we also have much better and faster radiographic imaging systems, so
it might have been possible to get a better idea of the internal construction
and identify a weak point for, say, drilling and endoscopy.

It sounds liek the guy really put a lot of thought into the tamper detection
though - there are parallels with the protection of crypto security modules,
some of which do all these things and more.

[1]
[http://www.chemringeod.com/products/defeat/PigstickDisruptor...](http://www.chemringeod.com/products/defeat/PigstickDisruptor/)

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pavel_lishin
Nice use of "vomitoria".

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japaget
TL; DR: Bombing at a Nevada casino in 1980. See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey%27s_Resort_Hotel_bombin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey%27s_Resort_Hotel_bombing)
for a more concise summary.

~~~
bradezone
Thanks! Why would someone think I want to read a novel-length article about
this?

~~~
tomerv
Because it's really well-written!

