Comment by cogman10
4 years ago
Just doesn't seem like it's worth it even for terrorists.
Why invest a bunch of time and effort making more and more deadly poisons when we've already got a wide variety of them that are cheap to manufacture, well known in how they work, and don't cost a bunch of research money to uncover?
At the risk of putting myself on a watchlist, They already know that, so They have an eye on certain kinds of labware, different precursors, and such. And They already have antidotes to some of these poisons.
One could optimize for compounds with hard-to-monitor precursors. Compounds that can be transported with low vapor pressure and volatility, so they cannot be easily sniffed out.
Or imagine a lethal compound with a high delay factor. Or something with specifically panic-inducing effects, perhaps hemorrhagic with a side effect of your skin sliding off in great slick sheets. Another interesting high delay factor compound might induce psychosis: have fun tracking where these gibbering maniacs were a week ago.
With a sufficiently dark imagination, "needs" could be identified for all sorts of compounds.
Remember, the goal is to throw a monkey wrench into the gearwork of an opposing civilization, not necessarily to kill. Fear of the unknown is very effective for this.
> At the risk of putting myself on a watchlist, They already know that, so They have an eye on certain kinds of labware, different precursors, and such. And They already have antidotes to some of these poisons.
Errm, maybe They Do.
On the other hand, I used to work in an organic chemistry research lab, and at least within my ex university's context, we could basically order anything we wanted from the standard chemical suppliers without anyone batting an eyelid. Pre-signed but otherwise blank order forms were freely handed out, you just filled in what compounds you wanted and handed it over, two days later it arrived and you collected it from Stores.
I personally ordered a compound for a reaction I was planning and it was only after it arrived - when I read the safety data sheet - that I realised just quite how toxic it was.
I backed carefully away from that particular bottle, and left it in the fridge, still sealed. Then found another - safer - way to do the reaction instead...
Right, and if you had ordered 3 barrels of the stuff, you'd get a visit from the feds.
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Is that toxic bottle still sealed, in the fridge, after you've left the institution? I've had to deal with a few EHS situations like that.
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> I backed carefully away from that particular bottle, and left it in the fridge, still sealed. Then found another - safer - way to do the reaction instead...
I've wondered how manufacturing plants handle this. You back away because you're afraid of touching the stuff - how does a giant factory that produces and ships the stuff handle it?
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"They" are not proactive, because they know people hiding bad things need time and coordination. So, only taking notice (and notes) and investigating strange patterns is enough.
But also a lot of what the GP says doesn't apply, because on the case of terrorism, "They" is either the police or random people, so "They" definitively do not have antidotes or training on how to handle known poisons.
I've also worked in chemistry research labs and there are certain compounds (in the US) at least that will need approval. Anything on the DEA precursor list will do it. There are certain chemicals that are dual use for chemical weapons and chemotherapy synthesis (things to make melphalan for example). Those required some extra forms to order.
Flourine compound? Organic heavy metal? I'm curious.
>Another interesting high delay factor compound might induce psychosis
This kind of exists already. BZ gas is the well-known delirium-inducing compound with a delay of several hours: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-Quinuclidinyl_benzilate#Effe...)
The effects are probably mostly temporary though.
> Or imagine a lethal compound
You'll get nuked (or similar WMD) for that.
Imagine a somewhat more realistic set of applications for hot new research chemicals.
How about aircraft or shells or covert actors spray some "thing" that shorts out electrical insulators 1000x more often than normal. Or makes the vegetation underneath power lines 1000x more flammable than normal vegetation. Our power is unreliable causing a major economic hit both directly and via higher electrical bills. If "they" want to invade now the civilians won't have power and be more likely to get out of the way long before the front line troops arrive. I mean you could probably put nano-particles of graphite in a spray can right now, then stand upwind of a power station or substation, but I bet extensive research would do better. A lot of high power electrical "Stuff" relies on plain old varnish being inert for a long time ... what happens if it wasn't? Again you shut down a country they gonna nuke you, but what if electrical power transformers and switching power supplies only last one year on average instead of ten? Thats a huge economic and maybe military strategic advantage but would you get nuked back because some nation's TVs burn out in one year instead of the carefully value engineered ten years?
How about a spray or microbe or whatever that screws up air filters. Who cares, right? Well most troops (and cops) in most countries have gas masks. Zap their masks via whatever new magical method, then drop simple plain old tear gas the next day or until logistics catches up, which will take awhile assuming they even know they're damaged. Normally when hit with CS, they'd mask up and the CS would have no effect on mask wearers other than reduced vision, but now the side that didn't get their masks ruined has a HUGE tactical advantage.
If you make a bioweapon and kill half the population, they gonna be PISSED and you're gonna get nuked. So try something a little more chill. If your vitamin A reserves are gone, your night vision is temporarily essentially gone. Yeah for long term vit A deficiency you'll get long term skin, general growth, and infection risk problems, but if someone sprayed you with some weird compound that made you pee out all your bodies stores of Vit A before tomorrow morning, the only real short term effect would be night blindness, and that would go away in a couple days with a normal-ish diet or by taking a few days of multivitamin pill or a couple supplement vit A pills. So spray the enemy (and/or the civilians) and they can't see in the dark so magical automatic curfew for the civvies and attack the night blind military and absolutely pound them because they're night blind and can't see your guys. If they have NVGs then hit them at dawn/dusk when the NVGs won't work completely correctly but they can't see without them because of night blindness. Its temporary and never hurt no one other than the opfor "owning the night" until the victims figure it out or naturally recover, so at a strategic / diplomatic level would a country nuke another country because they couldn't see at night for a couple days? Naw probably not. And you can imagine the terror attack / psych warfare potential of leaflets explaining, "we turned off your night vision for a couple days, now obey or we shut off cardiac function next time" Either for the government to use against civilians (think Canada vs truckers) or governments to use against each other (China vs Taiwan invasion or similar). Or give them temporary weird fever sweats or turn their pee robins-egg blue or all kinds of fun.
Now the above is all sci fi stuff I made up and AFAIK I'm not violating any secrets act, unless this post magically disappears in a couple hours LOL.
Think of the new non-lethal battlespace like computer virus attacks. Yeah, we could "EMP" Russia to shut off most of their computers and they'd be really pissed off and nuke us right back so thats a non-starter. But release "windoze annoyance virus number 31597902733" and that could have real world effects. Especially if you release 20,30,4000 new zero-days on the same day.
> How about aircraft or shells or covert actors spray some "thing" that shorts out electrical insulators 1000x more often than normal.
Dropping anti-radar chaff strips is a very good lo-tech way of shorting transformers and power lines. I can't find a link, but IIRC the USAF discovered this accidentally when training missions led to power outages in nearby towns.
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>Especially if you release 20,30,4000 new zero-days on the same day.
Interesting example of how cyber attacks could blow back. Anything you put in a virus can be taken out and used against you.
Release a highly communicable airborne disease with a low fatality rate, but which noticeable reduces the IQ of a large portion of the infected group.
True, though you have to remember that threat is a social construct and isn't necessarily a rational measure. The 2001 anthrax attacks killed 5 people, injuring 17, and shocked the nation. As a direct result Congress put billions into funding for new vaccines and drugs and bio-terrorism preparedness. If 5 people were killed and 17 wounded in a mass shooting by a terrorist, would we really have reacted as strongly?
If you wanted to install fear into a country, I think being attacked by some custom, previously unknown chemical weapon would scarier than sarin.
from what i understand the delivery of a chemical or biological weapon is the hard part. For most things, you can't just pour it out on the ground to have a huge effect. Somethings you certainly can, weapons grade Anthrax probably just needs a light breeze to devastate a city but something like that is beyond the reach of your average terrorist groups.
Hmmm, and then you have to ask, for whom is it worth it?
Who might invent a bunch of time and effort in those areas?