Hey! I had a t-shirt (kinda) like that when I was a kid. No big circuit board though, so just static light show, in my case. It came from a toy store in Charlotte Amalie. There was an iron-on transfer of a snarling leopard, and there were little lights stuck through the design, with wiring on the inside of the shirt, and it was all powered by a 9 volt battery.

It was boss! No idea up to now that it would also make me a terrorist hoaxer. Hn… maybe I’ll recreate it in memoriam of all our salad days of personal freedom.

~cabrilla

I believe it’s time for a line of clothing that has random electronics embedded into it.

“BOSTON – An MIT student wearing what turned out to be a fake bomb was arrested at gunpoint Friday at Logan International Airport and later claimed it was artwork, officials said.”

What turned out to be a “fake bomb”? They call this reporting? Shouldn’t it read “what turned out to be wearable homemade electronics”.

A fake bomb would be what they found in the hospital during the Mooninite scare, which wasn’t related to the Mooninite ad campaign. I don’t have a link but maybe someone remembers this.

Oh here, from Wikipedia…

“According to Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis, phony pipe bombs were also discovered that day, one inside Tufts-New England Medical Center.”

That being so we will be safer if people with guns pull them out and threaten anyone with anything.

Especially if it blinks.

She also had a can of play-doh. It wasn’t ‘connected’ to the device in any way. So… she had something that lit up and a childrens’ toy.

Oh, and she’s ‘a little dark skinned’.

So by all means, whip out the machine guns. She’s obviously a threat.

As for learning a lesson from the whole ATHF episode in January, I would have hoped is was the City of Boston that had learned a lesson as they were the fools in that affair.

I weep for my country. I’m embarrassed by by home city.

Monty

No, in my non-insulated world, everyone blamed the marketing corporation for that one, not Boston.

Before Microsoft and Google were huge state-sanctioned corporations, they were a few individuals with good ideas hunched over their PCs.

Also Apple, Ford … This country used to be ABOUT innovation.

The problem arises from the basic axioms of our country’s security policies:
1) fear is the best strategy
2) distrust your own citizens
2a) state/corporate = safe
2b) independent/uncontrolled/unmonitored = dangerous
3) security concerns trump *all* legitimate civilian activity

Imagine a world where the response was:

1) The only thing we have to fear is fear itself
2) Trust your neighbors. We are in this together
3) Security is not worth the price of freedom.

“Land of the free, Home of the brave” I want my country back.

As Iraq proves you’re not going to stop suicide bombers even with road blocks, house to house searches and torture. Random checks in airports have stopped how may terrorist attacks? I’m betting zero, zip, nada.

just in case any of you are bored at defcon next year you can fire one of those mp5s (the submachine gun used to threaten “deadly force”) (though a non-silenced version) just outside the Vegas city limmits and any one of the “shooting ranges” listed in the phone book. Just look for “automatic weapons/machine guns”.

News media is reporting that the picture you are showing is of the OUTSIDE of the sweatshirt not the inside of the sweatshirt as you say in your “UPDATE: 3″.

It looks to me that you can see pockets on the sweatshirt, so that makes it likely to be the outside…

#68 posted by bricology , September 21, 2007 10:57 AM:

Oh — and anyone who claims “it doesn’t even look anything like a bomb!” has their head up their ass. I assure you, it looks EXACTLY like what a bomb could look like.

Are you actually an expert on bombs, or do you just watch a lot of TV?

Maybe our government’s technophobia is a logical extension of the fact that the only uses they can imagine for wearable computers (and technology in general) is better ways to kill people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Force_Warrior

#82 posted by bricology , September 21, 2007 11:30 AM:

As we all know, women never wear IEDs on the outside of their clothing:

http://tinyurl.com/27tyda

Was that picture taken as the girl was about to sneak into a crowd of people to blow them up, or was the bomb worn on the outside of the clothing at a rally because if it were worn normally (i.e. hidden on the inside of the clothing) it wouldn’t make for an interesting image / statement?

I have a feeling a nice photo of the hoodie & wiring will easily say to 90% of the people either “she’s lucky she’s not dead” or “gah, what an overreaction”.

But until we SEE the device, we can’t say one way or the other.

That being so we will be safer if people with guns pull them out and threaten anyone with anything.

Especially if it blinks.

They did. See this article:

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2007/09/mit_student_arr.html

Star Simpson, 19, was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and approached an airport employee in Terminal C at 8 a.m. to inquire about an incoming flight from Oakland, according to Major Scott Pare of the State Police. She was holding a lump of what looked like putty in her hands. The employee asked about the plastic circuit board on her chest, and Simpson walked away without responding, Pare said.

I will readily concede that there are too many extreme examples of overly-tightened security, and my heart goes out to those folks like the man who was turned away for his so-called “I.E.D”. But seriously, someone comes into an airport with electronics strapped to her chest and some of us here think that everyone should have just looked at her and said, “Oh! An artist!”

BS.

If you’re into DIY electronics, frankly, you’re in a small niche compared to the rest of the nation. It’s unreasonable to expect everyone else to see homebrew electronics on someone’s shirt and deduce immediately at a glance that it’s a novelty device or “art.”

As much as airport security can sometimes go overboard, I’m glad to see that they can respond immediately to what could have been an actual threat by someone a little off-kilter.

I’m glad she’s alright; she is lucky.

Merc, the “interesting statement” that is being made by that photo is “I want to blow up a bunch of Jews.” Interesting!

“She has a lump of putty or playdoh connected to a wire and a battery”! Well, of course we can all understand how stupid that would be.

Then subsequent reports remove the putty, and then the playdoh, and we’re left with a goofy looking light-bright sweatshirt.

Anyone remember the TSA reports of terrorists testing security using cell phones wired to blocks of cheese to simulate bombs? Turned out to be one case of a woman who had both of those items in her bag. She was a grandmother and a citizen, and was completely cleared of any suspicion AT THE TIME! Yet they still cited that case in their public reports of terrorist testing our security.

It’s all deliberate lies and hysteria, of a kind that hasn’t been seen since Nazi Germany.

OTOH a battery can be used to trigger a bomb. Or a lighter, or a match. So what they should do is search for and arrest everybody who turns up in an airport with a battery, or a lighter, or a match. Now, of course that will be stupid and unreasonable, but just a little bit less so than searching for LEDs on a circuit board.

PS: a handphone makes a nice trigger for a bomb. Not only can you use the built in alarm clock, if you want to trigger the bomb earlier, you can also call the number from a payphone, or send it an SMS. So they should probably arrest everybody who carries a handphone as well.