Source: I was there. Person who handled this is a friend of mine.
They weren't milking it for attention. At EMF - at least early on - they were deliberately downplaying it to avoid causing a panic until the risk was known. Unfortunately when Atomicmaya's toot[1] dropped, they felt like they had to respond to squash any potential speculation or rumours. (the fear was someone would hear "orphan source" or "nuclear material" and think "Goiana incident, repeat of" -- Goiana was a much stronger caesium-137 gamma source).
Photos of the unit were being circulated privately in case there were more (the donator's identity was unknown at this point). EMF later announced in closing -- and you can see this on the recording [4] -- that they'd like to know if there were only two.
I've done basic risk assessment in a volunteer role and when there were unknowns, we took the path of assuming the worst, and planning for the best until we had more information. I can't really judge Tryst or anyone else for doing the same. In this case the worst-case scenario was a kid or teen at the camp buying it and taking it apart in their tent, and making the source material airborne.
Several people in the Furry Village google were trying to find information on the MIC based on the photos, and at the time we all found nothing.
The thing also very industrial which probably amped up the risk profile a bit further in peoples' minds, because it wasn't an obvious, recognisable, smoke detector.
This evening I googled the part number and sure enough, it's a very spicy (compared to modern ionisation detectors, about 10x the amount of Am241) early-generation smoke detector, and the Am241 is encased in gold. [2] [3]
TLDR: It's low risk, but that wasn't known at the time.
They weren't milking it for attention. At EMF - at least early on - they were deliberately downplaying it to avoid causing a panic until the risk was known. Unfortunately when Atomicmaya's toot[1] dropped, they felt like they had to respond to squash any potential speculation or rumours. (the fear was someone would hear "orphan source" or "nuclear material" and think "Goiana incident, repeat of" -- Goiana was a much stronger caesium-137 gamma source).
Photos of the unit were being circulated privately in case there were more (the donator's identity was unknown at this point). EMF later announced in closing -- and you can see this on the recording [4] -- that they'd like to know if there were only two.
I've done basic risk assessment in a volunteer role and when there were unknowns, we took the path of assuming the worst, and planning for the best until we had more information. I can't really judge Tryst or anyone else for doing the same. In this case the worst-case scenario was a kid or teen at the camp buying it and taking it apart in their tent, and making the source material airborne.
Several people in the Furry Village google were trying to find information on the MIC based on the photos, and at the time we all found nothing.
The thing also very industrial which probably amped up the risk profile a bit further in peoples' minds, because it wasn't an obvious, recognisable, smoke detector.
This evening I googled the part number and sure enough, it's a very spicy (compared to modern ionisation detectors, about 10x the amount of Am241) early-generation smoke detector, and the Am241 is encased in gold. [2] [3]
TLDR: It's low risk, but that wasn't known at the time.
1: https://tech.lgbt/@AtomicMaya/112536889993443251 2: https://forcetechnology.com/-/media/force-technology-media/p... 3: https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ml0037/ml003770968.pdf 4: https://streaming.media.ccc.de/emf2024/relive/551