
The story of the fake bomb detectors (2014) - wglb
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-29459896
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pure-awesome
"It does exactly what it's designed to - it makes money," McCormick is said to
have responded to concerns about his useless ADE-651.

Wow. Did he legitimately say this? That seems likely to be a bad move if you
plan on continuing to scam people successfully.

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ZeroGravitas
Could be interpreted as "Of course it works, would people buy it if it
didn't?".

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krapp
"There's a sucker born every minute."

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DamagedApe
We still use this crap every day in Syria, by all branches of the army.

Supposedly it costs tens of thousands of dollars, and everyone swears by it. I
just giggle whenever I walk past one.

Oh and it gets a TON of false positives, annoyingly.

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Udik
Well, if the bombers also believe it's working, that might actually be of some
benefit. They'll keep away from them.

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lawlessone
Good thing ISIS aren't known for having internet access...

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dbatten
It would be interesting if security forces were all aware of this and used it
anyway... You'd have an effect on criminals who assumed it worked, plus it
makes for great security theater.

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UncleSlacky
Just like they already do with "lie detectors", then?

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dbatten
Yep. Plus pretty much everything at the airport.

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sideshowb
Good account of a scam. Notable points for me were (1) exploiting the fact
that the military are trained not to question authority (2) officials still
refusing to admit they were conned.

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yason
And during all this time none of the buyers did verify the applied method and
operation of the detector by taking it apart or at least by doing a positive
check with known substances and materials that should've "made the thing
beep"?

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deadbunny
That my thought, how the fuck did this even get past a preliminary test?

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woliveirajr
And a placebo effect, perhaps? Not for the person using it, but for those who
were tested. I imagine that some would not carry explosives anymore, afraid of
being detected. Some would change their behaviour and the soldier would also
change, moving the magic-wand and "detecting" because both behaved
inconciously different?

Until it's known not to work, it might have really helped in some cases.

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ballenf
I'm fascinated by its first use as a golf ball finder. I frequently have the
idea that my subconscious has a much better idea where my ball went than my
conscious mind does when my central vision loses the ball (or never had it).

You need to at least partially believe or suspend disbelief regarding such a
mechanism for it work.

I similarly wonder if the micro facial ticks or subconscious "gives" from an
attacker could be read by the user of the fake bomb detector. Essentially the
device let's people make judgment calls using their "gut" feeling instead of
being distracted by conscious false assurances.

Don't read this as justifying the fraud, just that the device may have a
slightly greater than zero value. In a very different way than intended. If
the choice was this security theater plus subconscious unlocker or nothing,
maybe it was the right call. The problem with eliminating the fraud is that
the slight value vanishes if no one believes in it.

