PhD student guilty of 3D-printing 'kamikaze' drone for Islamic State terrorists A PhD student has been found guilty of building a potentially deadly drone for Islamic State terrorists, in part using his home 3D printer. Mohamad Al Bared, 26, a mechanical engineering graduate who was studying at Birmingham University in England, was convicted on Thursday of engaging in conduct in preparation of terrorist …
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“ I know. Fucking bureaucracy gets everywhere. You can't even blow things up these days without first filling out a form.”
Tell me about it, cant even destroy planets for a new intergalactic bypass without filling in some form
IS were well-known for having an unusually good bureaucracy and documentation for things that other groups might not write down, such as exactly who they stole what from and whether the person from whom it was stolen was murdered, enslaved, imprisoned, or escaped. I'm not surprised they have application forms, given that their recruiters were probably quite eager to collect as much personal information on possible supporters as they could.
"Suddenly they have lost all scariness."
Yeah, I took one look at that and though, it ain't gonna fly unless it's got a rocket or micro-turbojet the model aircraft crowd[*] use, the latter not being cheap throwaway devices.
* Or people building "Ironman" flying suits!
I don't know what the dropout rate is between expressing interest in joining a jihad and starting to murder people, but I suspect it's not low.
Knowing that there is a filled out IS application form that they could, if they wanted, forward to your local anti-terrorism police must come in handy to keep the figures down.
Particularly if not actually killing people or trying launching your drone still gets you a life sentence.
I've worked to help students do things for years now, mostly just showing them how things can be done that work in the biomechanics and software analysis worlds. A few were Iranian students who were all very impressive with excellent intelligence, but no understanding of the university political and administrative actions because they had not grown up as kids in an American culture.
All students concentrate on doing work to get their PhD without thinking a lot about results of potential working related interactions ... So I have always said, "Work to prove that your data collection does not work ... because when you fail to prove that your data is bad then you will get your degree"
However, someone has to agree to supervise the PhD, and most very likely wouldn't want the drag of an insufficiently capable student. It's not like some supervising Professor X gets to pocket the fees.
A few years ago I was working with a colleague who had left Iran under questionable circumstances (questionable in the sense that when he got married his bride and her family came over to Turkey for the wedding because he's have got into a spot of trouble if he'd entered Iran)(he was officially a refugee). Like a lot of younger engineers he was into drones and had built himself quite a nice one using commonly available parts and open source software. Some weeks after demonstrating it our company's parking lot he turned up with video of the Pacific Coast. All very scenic bit that part of the coast includes the US Navy's Pacific Missile Test Area. I pointed this out to him -- I didn't want to sound unwelcoming or paranoid but should the Black Helicopters descend on him he would have had a hell of a job talking his way out of that situation -- actually a situation that lots of us enjoy without a second thought. (It was those halcyon days before FAA registration, potential Remote ID, flight plans and FRIAs, BTW. You just built it and flew it and kept out of everyone's way.)
The particular 'thing' seems to have the aerodynamic capabilities of a bit of plastic drainpipe. Wings for it would have been a tad inadequate if they were printed on a domestic 3D printer -- too small, too heavy and too weak. (#d printers are handy for aeromodellers but they're used for bits like custom servo arms and detail for scale models.) But once PC Plod (or Special Agent Dragnet) zeros in on you you're well screwed because they don't have common sense on their side -- their job's to make a case and sell it to people who's job is to prosecute it. Truth? Common Sense? Logic? Irrelevant details.
"(#d printers are handy for aeromodellers but they're used for bits like custom servo arms and detail for scale models.)"
For small parts such as servo arms, filament printers suck. I made some small replacement parts for my table saw and noticed they have cracked. I also find that many times filament printed parts have really bad mechanical properties. For some projects I'm thinking I'll 3D print a mold and use 2-part epoxy or cast polyurethane to make the parts. It's not super efficient, but I could make the molds one-time use by having to break them to get parts out once cast that have undercuts and overhangs.
Most consumer grade 3D printers are also very slow. What is shown in the photos probably took days and days to print where I could knock up something like it in a single day using other methods and materials in my shed. The biggest lesson I've learned by getting a 3D printer is how it can be rather inadequate for all of the things I was thinking it would be good for.
Generally speaking, unreinforced thermoplastics are not very useful in aerospace outside of non-stressed stuff like glide bearings.
There are alternatives that are sooo much better.
On top of this, expect fdm printed plastics to (in the Z-direction) have 1/3 of the already abysmal tensile capacity of the basic thermoplastic material, and you know for sure that this is not how to make flight-worthy parts.
Now 3d printed metals are interesting, however, I continue to look for good / certifiable data on fatigue.
It is possible to build reasonable quality structural parts on a hobby level 3D printer, but only if your loads follow the main direction your filament is laid down in. It's possible to get pretty good strength from nylon and polycarbonate, but you do need to know how to get your printer to print them properly. i.e.extrusion temperatures, cooling and speeds, layer thicknesses, infill patterns as well as part orientation on the print bed.
Saying that, metal 3D printing technologies can produce much stronger parts, but I can't see the printers ever dropping to hobbyist prices, and the raw powdered metals are never going to be all that cheap.
If these nutters weren't occasionally, and often accidentally, capable of mass homicide they would be a joke.
"The Life of Brian"'s "People's Front of Judea" (PFJ) ["What have the Romans ever done for us?"] would appear to be better organized.
Application forms, social media posts, weekly reports and chemical weapon/explosives documentation - only a police background check and working with children clearance appear to be missing.
Suppose we should be grateful that this lot were standing in the queue for a second helping of stupidity when the cluestick was being swung.
If these nutters weren't occasionally, and often accidentally, capable of mass homicide[running a country] they would be a joke.
By that I mean, the current UK Government. There's only 1 competant office holder in Downing St...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Mouser_to_the_Cabinet_Office
Joke icon: Just covering myself in case the crazy one in charge of the Home Office sends the boys and gals in blue over to take me down the station for a nice cup of tea.
The even more crazy thing is, she could replace Sunak after the next General Election.
This man's crime was helping terrorists without explicit advance authorisation by the Home Office to do so. Arming terrorists with UK Home Office authorisation is (and will continue to remain) legal, especially when it involves encouraging infighting between what's left of Al-Qaeda and Islamic State.
Yeah, you don't want to get on the wrong side of TLA, eg by building strange projects. Despite having nothing to do with energetic chemicals, got in big trouble just for collecting actinides. I didn't know that a Home Office license was needed, even for NORM (ie monazite) and some folks in suits turned up one day. They were more concerned about the heavy metal oxides than other things, as all my MSDS sheets were in the form of PDFs, apparently the documents should have been on paper. The exact phrase used was, ' how did you get all this stuff?'
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