Bruce Schneier | |||||||||||||||
Schneier on SecurityA blog covering security and security technology. « Mossad Hacked Syrian Official's Computer | Main | Interview with Me » November 6, 2009The Doghouse: ADE 651A divining rod to find explosives in Iraq: ATSC’s promotional material claims that its device can find guns, ammunition, drugs, truffles, human bodies and even contraband ivory at distances up to a kilometer, underground, through walls, underwater or even from airplanes three miles high. The device works on “electrostatic magnetic ion attraction,” ATSC says. Complete quackery, sold by Cumberland Industries: Still, the Iraqi government has purchased more than 1,500 of the devices, known as the ADE 651, at costs from $16,500 to $60,000 each. Nearly every police checkpoint, and many Iraqi military checkpoints, have one of the devices, which are now normally used in place of physical inspections of vehicles. James Randi says: This Foundation will give you our million-dollar prize upon the successful testing of the ADE651® device. Such test can be performed by anyone, anywhere, under your conditions, by you or by any appointed person or persons, in direct satisfaction of any or all of the provisions laid out above by you. And he quotes from the Cumberland Industries literature (not online, unfortunately): Ignores All Known Concealment Methods. By programming the detection cards to specifically target a particular substance, (through the proprietary process of electro-static matching of the ionic charge and structure of the substance), the ADE651® will “by-pass” all known attempts to conceal the target substance. It has been shown to penetrate Lead, other metals, concrete, and other matter (including hiding in the body) used in attempts to block the attraction. One interesting point is that the effectiveness of this device depends strongly on what the bad guys think about its effectiveness. If the bad guys think it works, they have to find someone who is 1) willing to kill himself, and 2) rational enough to keep his cool while being tested by one of these things. I'll bet that the ADE651 makes it harder to recruit suicide bombers. But what happened to the days when you could buy a divining rod for $100? EDITED TO ADD (11/11): In case the company pulls the spec sheet, it's archived here. Posted on November 6, 2009 at 6:55 AM • 113 Comments To receive these entries once a month by e-mail, sign up for the Crypto-Gram Newsletter. Seems like when people go looking for cheap and effective, they often forget the effective part. No doubt this device is much cheaper than maintaining a sufficient number of sniffing dogs. But there's the pesky little fact that sniffing dogs actually find bombs, while these can't except by pure luck. Posted by: Joshua at November 6, 2009 7:26 AM According to this (http://www.prosec.com/docs/ADE651.pdf) it works up to 5000 meters on aircraft, and can detect everything from THC to people. lol what a joke Posted by: Mike W at November 6, 2009 7:30 AM It's all fun and games until someone loses a life ... plenty of blogs about this type of device, and this wonderful video of what I guess the manufacturers would call 'operator error' (warning, pretty graphic): http://video.mthai.com/player.php?... What a joke (except that it's not a funny joke) indeed *sigh* Posted by: Rr at November 6, 2009 7:43 AM I wonder why these people do not go to prison for an extended time and have their ill-gotten gains conficscated and returned to the victims... Posted by: Arno at November 6, 2009 7:52 AM 2 Weeks ago on an International TV Channel I heard a Pakistani expert claiming that technology to detect a bomber (in a car) 300-400 meters away was cheaply available. He quoted a price of $15K - He also said that their government was buying it and was only concerned that they didn't have enough trained operators! Now I know what he was basing his expertise one! Your tax $'s at work -- BHO just signed a $7.5B Bill for Pakistan. Posted by: sooth sayer at November 6, 2009 7:57 AM "What happened to the days when you can buy a divining rod for $100?" Buy? The old-style diviners used to whittle the rods from wood that they took from the trees themselves. The idea that the wood was freshly-cut was supposed to have been part of what made dowsing work. Posted by: Romeo Vitelli at November 6, 2009 8:07 AM @Bruce "What happened to the days when you can buy a divining rod for $100?" You can make them yourself. My dad used to use two "L" shaped wire rods made from fencing wire when he was digging out drains. He was a complete skeptic when it came to religion and all sorts of quackery (which the ADE 651 clearly is). What I remember as a child watching him is that it seemed to work although I now read that experiments haven't shown much evidence for it. Anyway, I don't remember him digging out many holes and not finding a drain. Who knows how or why. Most of the people we knew who dowsed were farmers and others whose families had lived on the land for generations (this was in the UK). They were a very pragmatic lot. I guess the question is whether the rods were detecting water or just reflecting their own acute sense of judgment in such matters and local knowledge of where the drains would be located. Posted by: AlanS at November 6, 2009 8:11 AM This device might not be effective at detecting explosives, but I cynically suspect that it's a Fourth Amendment defeating device. Have the divining rod alert the cop on the scene, and presto, he has probable cause to conduct an exigent search. It's like a bomb-and-drug-sniffing dog delivering a false alert, only without the dog. Any bets that the US judiciary is scientifically illiterate enough (or biased enough in favour of cops, however corrupt) to go for it? Posted by: Another Kevin at November 6, 2009 8:13 AM This scam reminds me of the "sniffing planes" political scandal that happened in France in the early 1980s. Posted by: Mailman at November 6, 2009 8:22 AM "What happened to the days when you can buy a divining rod for $100?" Bear in mind that these are _military grade_ divining rods which detect _any substance_. You pay a premium for that. Posted by: TFBW at November 6, 2009 8:26 AM @ AlanS, "I guess the question is whether the rods were detecting water or just reflecting their own acute sense of judgment in such matters and local knowledge of where the drains would be located." It's the latter. You could regard them as being "gut feeling" magnifiers. The way you are supposed to use them makes them fairly sensitive to small shoulder muscle movments. The thing about "looking across the tips" is a way to make your brain's sub concious free ascociate on the info coming in from your eyes, whilst occupying the concious mind with an unrelated task. So the devices would possibly work as a "sensing hinky" amplifier as well. But they cannot actually detect a thing, they only alow you to get at your subconcious thinking. Posted by: Clive Robinson at November 6, 2009 8:30 AM Here is Cumberland's write up. They'll pull it down soon, I'm sure. http://www.cumberlandindustries.com/content/... Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir. Posted by: fraudbuster at November 6, 2009 8:50 AM You would think that the "international community" (whatever that is) would demand that each country vet their security companies for just such a scam and punish the wrongdoers -- given that security products are usually life-threatening if they go wrong, and "caveat emptor" vary rarely helps the victim in these cases. It seems to me that there is no downside to this, nothing that a given country would have to lose. So much for sanity. Posted by: shadowfirebird at November 6, 2009 8:53 AM Why would the company take up James Randi on his offer of a $1M prize? The reporting says they have already made over $85M in sales. First I miss out on inventing pet rocks, now this. Posted by: db Cooper at November 6, 2009 8:57 AM I think someone is laughing all the way to the bank. With luck, they'll get blown up by a suicide bomber because of their perfidy... Posted by: spaceman spiff at November 6, 2009 9:02 AM This reflects a cultural aversion to dogs as much as anything. It's just as expensive and not remotely as effective, but at least you can find people willing to use the thing and actually sit to be searched. I've been putting a bunch of money into drug sniffing snake research... sooner or later that big oil state Iraqi defense contract is going to come my way. Posted by: Vincent at November 6, 2009 9:06 AM @alanS: "I guess the question is whether the rods were detecting water or just reflecting their own acute sense of judgment in such matters and local knowledge of where the drains would be located." Actually, that's not the question. There isn't really a question there at all. The obvious fact is that divining rods really work thanks to having 48% more magic than regular rods. PS: Your dad was deluded. Posted by: nick at November 6, 2009 9:17 AM > It comes with a hardware three year warranty. So... how do you tell if it requires maintenance or replacement under the warranty? Posted by: yet_another_coward at November 6, 2009 9:19 AM I grew up on a small family farm. I remember being amazed when I watched my grandfather use a dowsing rod to locate a site for a new well. They drilled and found water just like he had predicted. When I got older, and learned about aquifers, I realized that they could have drilled anywhere in the vicinity and found water. Maybe when you live in a war ravaged country, you can search any random person and have good odds of finding some sort of contraband... Posted by: Grande Mocha at November 6, 2009 9:37 AM Remember not to be overly hard on the Iraqi government without also saving some criticism for the West. Some US police forces use lie detectors of various varieties, which are just divining rods at worst, or anxiety tests at best. The French even use handwriting analysts to screen job applicants. How insane is that? Posted by: nick at November 6, 2009 9:48 AM It's just as effective as the polygraph, and for the same reasons, too! Posted by: pegr at November 6, 2009 9:50 AM I would like to sell them some of these metal detectors: http://www.fisher-price.com/us/products/... Posted by: Xyz at November 6, 2009 10:38 AM Please don't confuse all this hokum with the detection of very real magnetic fields generated by buried pipes and cables made from various metals. Depending on the type of detection you use, they can be sensed at surprising depths using fairly inexpensive equipment. Posted by: Ed Hurst at November 6, 2009 10:45 AM Bruce, Next thing you'll be telling me that my ADE650 (which is fantastic and keeps crocodiles from approaching up to a mile from my house) doesn't work either !!! Dom De Vitto Posted by: Dom De Vitto at November 6, 2009 10:47 AM this reminds me of a simpsons quote Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm! Lisa: That’s specious reasoning, Dad. Homer: Why thank you, honey. Posted by: kog999 at November 6, 2009 11:07 AM Hi, the army in Mexico has some of this kind of devices, in some towns in the southern part of Mexico this has detectec ammunitions and weapons, the person walks in the street with the device, and this thing alerts when there is a house or place with traces of explosive substances. Some times it can detect non-hazardous materials, as this has erroneous detected explosives in a dairy products transport truck that was confiscated by error. Posted by: Emiliano Zapata at November 6, 2009 11:13 AM We'll probably find that the company is owned by the people who are placing the orders, billing their government. How else could you sell a $16,000 divining rod? Posted by: Leo Tohill at November 6, 2009 11:23 AM I think Another Kevin has hit the nail on the head. The device is a "scientific" excuse to conduct searchs where they wouldn't otherwise have cause. Posted by: A Nony Mouse at November 6, 2009 11:53 AM I think its also targetting LA police and African regimes for customers. At least it says it will detect "Black Power" in the 2-page brochure http://www.prosec.com/docs/ADE651.pdf referred to mt Mike. Posted by: TimH at November 6, 2009 12:03 PM Why do people living in a country that believe in lie detectors laugh about an electrostatic divining rod? Posted by: Magnus Redin at November 6, 2009 12:06 PM Of course this is the kind of thing that govt can controll (where they ARE our tax dollars) by putting a clause stating no monies will be used to buy the ADE...of course as soon as you do this the free market freebooters begin beating their chests about unfair constraints. The market only delivers what the people want right? People WANT shoddy merchandise sold by unethical firms. Posted by: BF Skinner at November 6, 2009 12:06 PM Another thought: If an LEO used this to work around warrantless search to fake probable cause, the LEO had better be prepared to plant the evidence too. If speed detectors can be challenged for accuracy, the PC detector can be challenged too. Love to see it proved working in court! Posted by: TimH at November 6, 2009 12:08 PM One has to wonder how they managed to design 650 BAD iterations of this wodnerful product. At least the 651 is good for one thing. Reading about it caused my bullsh!t detector to go off. Which begs the question, if you're searching for bullsh!t, will the ADE 651 find itself? Posted by: Lars Vargas at November 6, 2009 12:10 PM I don't know what your problem with this is. It almost certainly uses the same technology that the Acme Homing Missile does. It probably even has a large dial on it with settings like "rabbit" and "roadrunner". Posted by: Kevin G. Austin at November 6, 2009 12:18 PM I wonder if they have been selling a similar device to LE agencies in Louisiana and east Texas for use in locating "drug money" in the cars of African-Americans. ~EdT. Posted by: EdT. at November 6, 2009 1:06 PM "Proponents of the wand often argue that errors stem from the human operator, who they say must be rested, with a steady pulse and body temperature, before using the device." That's exactly what people with self-proclaimed ESP powers say when they fail. They say they failed due to "wrong mind waves" from skeptic observers, or whatever. Posted by: D0R at November 6, 2009 1:24 PM Well, I know *my* ESP works much better when everyone in the vicinity already believes it does... *explodes* Posted by: Shane at November 6, 2009 1:43 PM Reminds me of the WOM (Write Only Memory) we had waaaaay back. Huge quantity of storage, it could store >1GB back when 4kB was alot. Of course, it was just a block of wood with 2 wires attached, and since it was WRITE only there was no way read anything back to prove it was or was not storing anything... Posted by: bob at November 6, 2009 2:25 PM I also remember WOM chips from back in the 70's. The ones I designed with were not a block of wood though, they were a DIP and we sourced them from Signetics. Ye ol' data sheet can be found here: http://www.national.com/rap/files/datasheet.pdf Posted by: db Cooper at November 6, 2009 3:17 PM @db Cooper: Very nice! I especially like to all-too-realistic plot on "ramaining pins vs. number of insertions". Posted by: Arno at November 6, 2009 3:36 PM @TimH: I'm not a lawyer, but there's a difference between evidence sufficient to convict and evidence sufficient to conduct a search. Under some circumstances, a LEO can conduct a search given reasonable suspicion and articulable cause. "My drug detector went off" is an articulate statement, and grounds for suspicion. The fact that it's functionally equivalent to a used paper towel may or may not be relevant. This is in contrast to the speed detector, which provides direct evidence of an illegal act, and which will be used in court. The results of the detector placebo won't be brought up by the prosecution. Its reliability would be brought up by the defense, arguing that the search was illegal, so any evidence gained from it is "fruit of the poisoned tree". So, the question is whether a LEO is justified in searching based on entirely unreliable evidence. There may be laws or precedents dealing with this anyway, but as I said I'm not a lawyer and I don't know. Posted by: David at November 6, 2009 4:01 PM I'd love to see the owner of the company manufacturing that product personally clean out a minefield. Posted by: Anonymous coward at November 6, 2009 4:09 PM @ nick, "The obvious fact is that divining rods really work thanks to having 48% more magic than regular rods." It has been shown that some farmers can tell were things are buried several feet or more under their fields just by looking at the way the crops grow above them. When the same fields are looked at using photos taken from an aircraft it is usually apparent to most peoples eyes. Put simply the crop grows differently to that in other areas, and although the difference is not that noticable at ground level to an inexperianced eye a more experianced eye will spot the difference. Likewise leaking pipes and broken drains can be spotted simply by the difference in a crop, as can sub surface natural drainage. Some metal ores can be found by simple chemical analysis of plants that grow above depositis and in the case of some metals this produces differences in the foliage that can be detected. Some native people can just look at what appears to be arid land and spot small differences that tell them where there are pockets of water often upto 6 feet under the surface. There is no magic involved just a life time of experiance. Posted by: Clive Robinson at November 6, 2009 4:52 PM Let me make a correction to the text above. This is not “a useless, quack, device which cannot perform any other function than separating naïve persons from their money”. Nothing could be further from the truth. The device was carefully crafted so as to separate one’s *government* from its money, with benefit not only for the seller but to the not so naïve person doing the buying as well. As such, it’s not all that different the useless puffers that TSA bought (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=7649241) or even the financial “rescues” of recent times. Of course, Iraq is a war torn country and now the scams there are not as subtle and sophisticated as the ones in more advanced countries. Asking the Iraq people to come up with sophisticated cons at this time in history is really not fair. Posted by: Mauro S at November 6, 2009 5:38 PM My son (an MP in the Marines) was part of a public-service operation on Halloween, using a wand to screen for metal in bags of candy. Not a bad idea (putting aside whether this is systematically effective), except for the constant false positives. Seems there is a surprising amount of metal in the air. Posted by: Preston L. Bannister at November 6, 2009 7:51 PM Money aside, I'm sure the makers of the device are rolling on the floor laughing when they think of the users "walking in place" to charge the device. It's just too precious. It's actually better than watching Bill Murray in "Stripes". Posted by: jack at November 6, 2009 11:23 PM I object to comparing this to lie detectors. Don't get me wrong. Lie detectors are a useless piece of crap as far as detecting spies/thieves etc. Their false positive rate, in combination with the low density of actual thieves and spies, means that even at the 90% accuracy that the Polygraph association claims the devices are all but useless. Worse, 90% is a huge over-statement of the actual device's accuracy. BUT It does measure something. Even at 51% accuracy, one can think of some (hypothetical, useless) cases where it would come in useful (for some definition of "useful"). The polygraph's accuracy is, probably, much higher than that (at a guess, I'll put it at 60%-65%). The ADE 651 is totally useless, with no better than chance accuracy. Don't confuse polygraph (bad science coupled with marketing) with the ADE 651 (simple fraud). Shachar Posted by: Shachar Shemesh at November 7, 2009 12:47 AM A rod that cuts through the USA-Iraq governments red tape, and saves lives by solving people process problems? Paying off the right people for access to info and help is the system, it just often is masked by flaky stuff. Maybe not a bad payoff device. Posted by: PackagedBlue at November 7, 2009 5:32 AM There are so many possibilities here. 1. Practical application of Thieves' Belief System Tenet #2: "If you were stupid enough to believe me, you deserve what you got." 2. If the buyer is truly naive, see #1. 3. If the buyer is in on it: a) quid pro quo; b) money laundering; c) gaming strategy. If 3(c), be on the look out for the owner of the problem to ride in with the solution. Every human is infected with some level / form of moral corruption but cheats and thieves make me sick. Book 'em, Danno ... Posted by: vanilla at November 7, 2009 7:37 AM In case the company gets embarrassed and pulls the spec sheet, it's cached at http://www.webcitation.org/5l74dFZBl Posted by: Kelvin Washington at November 7, 2009 12:27 PM This segment should be called "Snake Oil," rather than "The Doghouse." Posted by: Lollardfish at November 7, 2009 3:25 PM Indeed dog houses are usually reserved for much more sophisticated and reliable detection systems. Posted by: Charles at November 7, 2009 9:11 PM It's a great British Traditional industry. For many years they had detector vans - black vans with scary looking antennae that could detect your unlicensed TV. Everybody who knew anything about RF knew that these contained an intern to rotate the antennae and his sandwiches, but people were convinced and paid for their license. Posted by: NobodySpecal at November 8, 2009 3:02 PM @ NobodySpecal, "In the UK you have to pay a tax ($200/year) for your TV to pay for the BBC." Err it might be nearer $150 now whereas it was nearer $300 last year. Such is the down turn in the value of the GB pound (£). Oh and with regards too, "Everybody who knew anything about RF knew that these contained an intern to rotate the antennae and his sandwiches" Originaly the detector vans (actualy run by the Post Office on behalf of the Post Master General) could and did detect televisions. Those large black antennas where actually used to detect radiation from the LOPT driver valve. The same valve used to be used by amature radio operators to get between 50-150 watts in the HF bands befor the KT66 (audio amp) or 807 (driver for 813) valves became more widely available. As the interferance problems caused by early valve TV'S became unacceptable due to more use of broadcast radio the manufactures took a little more care to stop the LF signal being radiated from the VHF (Band I & III 405 line BW in those days) antenna coax outer. The Post Office then had to redesign their kit and started to pick up the local oscilator signal from the VHF/UHF tunner as the country moved over to 625 line PAL Colour. Or a multiple of the TV IF signal which could easily be picked up at the bottom end of Band II (88-108MHz). In the 1970's I used to do just that myself with a portable VHF radio to find out what the neighbours where watching. Again interferance problems forced the TV set manufactures to clean up their act which co-incided with the first transistor UHF tunners, which did not need high level local oscilators to drive the mixer and also used a higher IF frequency so further reducing the LO radiation. After the detection of licence fee avoiders effectivly became "privatised" (one of the "Milk Snatchers" ideas in the 1980's) it was discovered that a small portable battery television and an ear to the house letter box worked better than the "detector vans" ever had at catching people. Today the process is to send out "scary letters" to people without licences as sending "expensive" minimum wage manpower around to addressess without licences is just not cost effective. However they are sent to addressess where the licence has stopped being paid. Or that are known to have bought Tv's from ordinary retailers or repairers (they had a legal duty to inform the post office of all sales of TVs, but only had to pay 5 GBP for a five year "retail licence" ;). Apparently the best way to deal with these minimum wage "snoopers" if they knocked on your door and you made the mistake of answering was to have "religious mania" and scream such things as "Television is the work of the Devil" and "All worshipers of Satan should be burned at the stake" and "The demon preists working for Satan should be eviserated" whilst waving your arms around and with a wild eyed look was guarented to get the off the property fairly sharpish, and filling their paper work in as "no receiver on premises". I've been told by somebody who worked for the licence fee agency that most people who get caught deliberatly not paying it are usually quite stupid (ie have the TV visable from the front of the property, have it on so loud it can be heard at the front door, and answer the door to compleate strangers...). Posted by: Clive Robinson at November 8, 2009 7:10 PM @NobodySpecal: You never heard of radar detectors, or IF leakage? Or TEMPEST, even - detecting the TV scan frequency would be enough; you wouldn't have to prove they were watching broadcast TV before making nasty accusations... Posted by: Jay at November 8, 2009 7:54 PM Yes in theory you could detect RF leakage from a heterodyne tuner in an old TV - although good luck picking up a digital-tv card inside a laptop with an LCD from a street away. The point is that the detector vans have been fake for at least 20years (pretty much since the GPO/BT split) the bomb detector is just continuing this technology. Posted by: NobodySpecial at November 8, 2009 8:09 PM I'm detecting a LOT of leakage here. Mostly from between the ears. Posted by: McCoy Pauley at November 8, 2009 8:51 PM @Clive Robinson "There is no magic involved just a life time of experience." Agreed. But local knowledge and experience of this sort are often dismissed. It reminds me of a wonderful essay by Brian Wynne on government scientists and sheep farmers at odds over the source of nuclear fallout in Cumberland, England (see first chapter in "Misunderstanding science?: the public reconstruction of science and technology" Cambridge UP, 1996.). Which brings us back to $16K security gizmos. Even if such gizmos do what their makers claim, so what? They are selling you a mindless substitute for experience and the ability to make good judgments and there is no substitute.
Posted by: AlanS at November 9, 2009 8:48 AM "But what happened to the days when you could buy a divining rod for $100?" Best guess is they fell victim to the heuristic that estimates the quality of the acquisition by what the acquirer sacrificed to obtain it. Posted by: False Data at November 9, 2009 11:38 AM Wasn't this same device (marketed under the name "Sniffex") previously covered here: Posted by: antibozo at November 9, 2009 6:37 PM re:You can make them yourself. My dad used to use two "L" shaped wire rods made from fencing wire when he was digging out drains. He was a complete skeptic when it came to religion and all sorts of quackery (which the ADE 651 clearly is). What I remember as a child watching him is that it seemed to work although I now read that experiments haven't shown much evidence for it. Anyway, I don't remember him digging out many holes and not finding a drain. Who knows how or why. Most of the people we knew who dowsed were farmers and others whose families had lived on the land for generations (this was in the UK). They were a very pragmatic lot. I guess the question is whether the rods were detecting water or just reflecting their own acute sense of judgment in such matters and local knowledge of where the drains would be located. -Posted by: AlanS at November 6, 2009 8:11 AM Astounding Science Fact and Fiction magazine (now Analog) published an article in the 50s about this, and did some tests. I used it as the basis for a highschool science project, using two coathangar wires bent in an L held loosely in two thin hard plastic tubes. The article indicated they were useful in detecting wires and pipes, with a certain degree of skepticism. You held them in front of you and the wires would line up, both pointing outwards, when walking over pipes or wires. While I did not confirm underlying pipes or wires, they did seem to line up consistently at the same places when I walked with them, indoors or out. I did not win a prize. tOM Posted by: tOM Trottier at November 11, 2009 5:01 PM The following document has been written in an attempt to avert a number of controversial papers and unwarranted advice over ‘warnings not to buy “Bogus” detection equipment.’ Although I would agree that in principal, advice of this nature should be given, I do disagree by which the methods used to discourage potential users in the effectiveness of ‘alternative’ methods of detection.
Posted by: jasmine at November 15, 2009 10:43 AM @ Bruce, The above posting by "jasmine" alluds to be scientific but is nothing more than mumbo jumbo as far as I can tell (I could be wrong but...). And no I would not object in any way to you removing both jasmine's post and my post about it. @ jasmine, I have never heard of anyone in a technical or scientific field use expressions such as "pure volts", "electrostatic magnetism". Would you care to define them in some way? And to make the following statment shows a compleat lack of understanding of physics, "On average, each of us produces approximately 2000 ~ 3000+ volts…….there is no (or very little) amperage, but pure volts." A voltage or Electro Motive Force (EMF A.K.A "a Potential Difference or PD) is as the name suggests a force. The current or amperage is a flow of charge (coulombs/sec). The rate of flow is usualy moderated by "resistance" and there is a formula often called "Ohms Law" to give the steddy state current I = V / R. Thus if the resistance is infinite then the charge does not flow, if the resistance is zero the current is by the formula infinite irrespective of the EMF providing it is not zero (in theory and practice there are other limitations such as the speed of light which all forces are constrained by). Now for a classic bit of "arm waving" rhetoric, "However, depending on our state of mind, our anxiety, our levels of testosterone, our wellbeing, etc; the amount of voltage we can produce can raise and in some instances, exceed over 20,000 or 30,000 volts!" You forgot to mention the effects of which direction the wind is blowing (which can effect static build up). I would be interested if anyone can cite a peer reviewed publication of a link between static electricity and testosterone? Further this delightfull little snippet from your section 11, "It is reckoned that substances such as Narcotics or Explosives, ‘emit’ a radio-wave-signal in the frequency band 1~8 Hertz and it is this ELF that makes the basis of our product being able to detect these very low frequencies." All substances do emit EM radiation (heat) but to make a claim that "Narcotics or Explosives, ‘emit’" "1~8 Hertz" is at best a little fancifull (compare the size of a chemical molecule to the wavelength...). And where would the cohearant energy source to power such radiation come from? Just for fun lets explore your notion that an individual chemical molecule could radiate ELF using some unknown everlasting internal energy source, What about all the molecules around it emitting their own ELF signals? Well without a method for the molecules to oscillate synchronously they would all add together incoherantly and the output would be indestinquishable from thermal noise (or as once put "The square root of bugger all")... So by what method do they become syncronised to be able to emit coherant radiation at ELF? Also having worked with ELF for secure communications systems I'm well aware of the limitations of any kind of detector in this and lower frequency bands, and belive me a short metal rod (say a foot) is not going to be efficient in any way. "jasmine" as you so nicely puts it, "Now this is hardly ‘rocket-science’ but it is an import part of the principal behind which the equipments, ... do function." Shortly after saying, "Well Sandia [National Labs], you may have a valid point but, let me try to explain, (in my limited experience)" Jasmine a little chalenge for you, cite peer reviewed articals from reputable journals for you notions (and no patents / applications are not reputable). Oh and also how about your qualifications to make your statments (as would be required by a judge of any supposed "expert witness"). Posted by: Clive Robinson at November 15, 2009 2:44 PM
Posted by: M Yasin at November 16, 2009 3:22 AM Let me start by this ihave used the ADE 651 over and over again and it work Posted by: sam at November 16, 2009 4:01 AM I have use the ADE 651 is sudia Arabia Posted by: Waddah at November 16, 2009 4:04 AM This article will aim to provide a satisfied customer’s point of view on ATSC’s ADE651, and also gives the other side to the argument from the current one sided blogs and disussion forums on the internet. Many people will ask why i bothered myself to write such an article? Being head of security for a large organisation in Spain and after these so called anti skeptic websites were brought to my attention by a colleague and after reading quite a few articles, i noticed that these people were making quite childish and unfounded accusations about the product and its manufacturer without ever having used the product. This article aims to set the record straight from a customers point of view, who is neutral, but found that all current websites on the subject of the ADE 651 to be biased, one sided and frankly quite aggressive. Before even buying an ADE651 unit you are provided with a full demonstration under which you would set the conditions for the test. Certain people however, seem to believe that governments and large organizations such as the one I work for would actually go ahead and purchase such a piece of equipment without strenuously testing and re-testing the unit under their terms and conditions. This of course does not happen. If an end user such as myself would not be happy with the results why would people go ahead and purchase it. I do not claim to know the scientific reasoning behind the product and as the end user I frankly don’t care. All that matters to me is that the product actually works and that me and my team are currently using the ADE651 and every time we have demonstrated or tested the products it has worked. I have a staff of about 40 security officers working for me and every month or so I do so called spot checks and when used properly the device has never failed me. This is why I really am finding it difficult to understand why people who have never used the device will be so against it. I am one of many customers, of whom most I have spoken to who have been amazed and astounded at the accuracy and effectiveness of the ADE651 when its being used by well trained staff. Posted by: User at November 16, 2009 4:08 AM The only thing i can understand from this blog, is that Only the American technologies work and any thing else does not.......... Posted by: Paul at November 16, 2009 4:16 AM Can anyone give us the exact description of the ADE651? Thank you, Posted by: Sami at November 16, 2009 4:21 AM why the blog is taking one side and the side of the people who never tested the device Posted by: ahmed at November 16, 2009 4:54 AM If the end user is satified with the result of the equipment why all this noise..... Posted by: sameer at November 16, 2009 5:35 AM let me ask one question? Posted by: mohammed at November 16, 2009 5:38 AM I don't understand the blog Posted by: Ahmed at November 16, 2009 5:41 AM ADE 651, at costs from $16,500 to $60,000 each Where did you get this price? Posted by: mohammed at November 16, 2009 5:45 AM To date, there are over 5000 ADE’s world-wide and although it is not the answer to everyone’s requirements, it does fit into the current market we pose today. Used correctly, it will effectively prove a valuable, first-line, detection tool. Posted by: salem at November 16, 2009 5:55 AM Iraq (Baghdad): 80 units of ADE651™ were sold to the Iraqi Ministry of Interior. To face regional problems the Ministry of Interior in Kurdistan (North of Iraq) is today equiped with ADE651™. Jordania (Aman): the terrorists' wave which directly attacked international hotels gave increase importance to detect explosives and firearms. After a long time searching and testing solutions to avoid similar problems, the King only allowed Hotels equipped with (and only a genuine) ADE651™ detectors, to use their underground parking again. It appears in this case that ADE651™ grew as a national guaranty of security and safety Posted by: saleem at November 16, 2009 7:19 AM Ahmed/Sameer/Mohammed/Saleem: limit yourself to a single identity when posting to this blog from now on. Changing names to create the impression that you have a crowd of supporters is a cheap trick, and you're not doing it convincingly anyway. Posted by: at November 16, 2009 12:36 PM Well spotted MOD. They tried it on the Ministry of Truth blog as well, see the below link: Posted by: Techowiz at November 16, 2009 1:14 PM Thanks for the link. Our logs show that at least 3 computers are involved: User (in Spain), Paul, and Sami are one, M Yasin in Cairo is another, and most if not all of the rest are the same computer. All come from the same IP address in Jordan. I'm not surprised that people would resort to sockpuppetry to defend this product, but I am a bit surprised that they're doing it so ineptly. Nobody could be convinced by this. Posted by: at November 16, 2009 1:36 PM @ Moderator, "I am a bit surprised that they're doing it so ineptly." Probably from their view point "any port in a storm" when "you are trying to defend the indefensable". Or more aptly "a drowning man will clutch any straw", I hope they sink without trace... However I suspect they will crawl under a rock somewhere and wait untill the sun shines on them again and they will slither out on the make. A thought occures perhaps the IP addresses corespond to "sales agents" in those geo areas. I just hope that nobody is hurt or killed due to the use of this device. I just cannot see how they can not be guilty of taking money under false representation. Posted by: Clive Robinson at November 16, 2009 3:43 PM Hi MOD, Gets even better, poster (User) above could he/she be the same person/s as, people who have posted as John and then Frank as heads of security companies in France and Dubai, check out the following and play spot the difference: http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/2009/11/05/... http://www.armybase.us/2009/11/... regards Posted by: Techowiz at November 16, 2009 3:58 PM Clive, They're all at the same IP address in Jordan. Spain and Egypt are just where they're claiming to be. The odd one out is Jasmine, who comes from a different IP address in Jordan, but entered a fake e-mail address that's only one character different from User's fake e-mail address. Posted by: at November 16, 2009 5:25 PM Jasmine is in effect Jim McCormick the actual maker and seller of these frauds. Posted by: Techowiz at November 19, 2009 11:27 AM I have M Yasin commenting on my blog with exactly the same bogus comment emailing from ... you guessed it Jordan... Heh maybe we should bombard his email myasin050@gmail.com Bruce... can you use your connections to get these guys closed down? Posted by: Bruce Hood at November 24, 2009 11:23 AM Ok for all you doubters, The ADE651 is going to change to keep you all happy and convince you it works, it is now going to be fitted with 'flashing lights'. Yes you read that right flashing lights, read the story below: Posted by: Techowiz at November 30, 2009 8:51 AM McCormick (ATSC ADE651) has invited Bruce Hood to a demonstration, Should be interesting. Posted by: Techowiz at December 2, 2009 5:09 PM "Buy" a divining rod? Why? A guy I used to work with used a pair of welding rods from our kit, with the bare ends bent in an "L". I would have liked to see a formal test, since he seemed to be able to repeatedly find voids in the ground (we were installing city water lines). Never took it very serioiusly, but it seemed to work better than random chance (or the ADE651). Posted by: da at December 8, 2009 1:36 PM I see the ADE651 fails AGAIN in the latest series of explosions to roick Baghdad. Posted by: Techowiz at December 9, 2009 9:34 AM Just spotted what looks like another incarnation of this device appearing in the recent issue of (respected?) defence trade magazine 'Defence & Security Systems International' (www.defence-and-security.com). The article can be seen at Posted by: An EOD gremlin at December 16, 2009 8:17 AM Well spotted EOD Gremlin, These are the clowns that originally marketed the scam device know as, 'sniffex plus', that has been ridiculed. Posted by: Techowiz at December 20, 2009 11:35 AM Hi, All coments on 6th of November it-'s incredible . How much money do they pay you to post so many times in the smae day . You are the most corrupt i see. Kr, Posted by: Xue at January 8, 2010 5:51 AM XUE, Don't you mean the comments posted on the 16th alleging to be multiple supporters, but found to be all form the same ip address? Posted by: Techowiz at January 19, 2010 2:47 PM GREAT NEWS, the scammer-in-chief of the ADE651 has been arrested for the fraud that is the ADE651, see the link for the story; http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/... regards Posted by: Techowiz at January 22, 2010 10:56 AM interesting argument, and the ppl on both sides are very sure of the rightness of their point of view. In about 1973 I helped a subcontractor lay a mile long water main down the side of a wood to a remote farm. The farmer thought there was a stoptap somewhere in a stackyard covered in mud and crushed chalk, but had no idea where it was. When it came to finding it, the guy driving the trenching machine went to a hedge and came back with two peices of rusty fence wire and proceeded to form a couple of L shapes, and began dowsing. I was fascinated, He did it every day. He found the stoptap in the third hole. 1and 2 were a clay land drain and a pipe going to a long forgotten field tank. I questioned him, it's easy, he replied,most people can do it, bit of practice, and he showed me. You hold a clear picture in your mind of what you want to find, and when the wands cross, you have found..... something. I have found sewers, long lost wells buried cables etc etc, very often in places where the local worthies, who were around when they were buried insisted they werent! In short, it is no good looking for mysterious emmations from cables, pipes and the like, and equally it is no use to attach a pair of rods to a robot and expect a result. the sensing device is the human being holding the rods, the rods are merely the indicators, like the needle on a voltmeter. From that analogy you could guess that I am an electrical engineer by training, and I dont take no bullsh*t or no prisoners. As for James Randi, go to his website and read the rules to his million dollar offer. You will then realise what an empty promise it really is. He has made absolutely sure his money is safe. All I can say is that for me, most of the time, it works, and when its the only tool you got (and we note that all these supposed technophiles are not coming up with an alternative solution) it is a lot better than nothing. If all the dowsing detectors in the world only ever detected one bomb, it is one more than the competion! Posted by: phil at January 22, 2010 4:45 PM Forgot to mention one of the best references. During the Vietnam war dowsing equipment was used to detect undergound tunnels and hideouts used by the vietcong. The guys were trained in America at a specially prepared training area and those who showed exceptional aptitude were badged as engineer dowsers (if I remember correctly) Google it!!! also check out De Re Mettallica, a manuscript from 1430 by the minerologist Agricola, which details how minerals and ore deposits can be found by dowsing. would it really still be in use nearly 600 years later if it didn't work? I doubt it. Posted by: phil at January 22, 2010 5:06 PM Phil, Can you point me in the direction of any credible scientific tests that support your statement that dowsing works, apart from your own experience? Posted by: Techowiz at January 22, 2010 5:48 PM @phil: "we note that all these supposed technophiles are not coming up with an alternative solution" Some of them are. E.g., google for "Bosch wall scanner". No too long ago, everybody you'd ask would have happily agreed that anyone having the kind of insights this sort of device conveys must be in league with satan and ought to be burnt at the earliest convenience. I wouldn't dismiss divining rods either. The human body is still full of surprises, and the example above shows that there are a lot of subtle clues to pick up. However, I would put a strong emphasis on whether the tool in question can actually produce a result under real-life conditions. If it works great for one properly trained shaman but for nobody else you can find or hire, then there's little point for you to equip all your security staff with it. - Werner Posted by: Werner at January 23, 2010 7:52 PM
Posted by: sniper at January 24, 2010 3:04 AM These appear to be common L-shaped dowsing rods, as portrayed in It is really funny: just offer a "high-tech version", add some pseudo-scientific mumbojumbo and -most of all- a "reset button"(!) and you have a bona fide hightech bomb detector. If I were the manufacturer, I'd offer a PRO version with USB connector and a CD-based explosives database which gets updated on a subscription base. This might look like this litle most efficient program: :-)) Posted by: Alex at January 24, 2010 9:26 AM @ Werner, "I wouldn't dismiss divining rods either. The human body is still full of surprises, and the example above shows that there are a lot of subtle clues to pick up." Yes it does offer better than tossing a coin for certain things (as tests have shown). However it is also a "pup" in that it does not work for most other things. It's like a number of bio-metric feedback systems. The best explanation I have seen is it occupies the concious mind whilst the subconcious pattern recognition/matching part gets to work. For instance a farmer can use it to find objects like pipes etc buried under a field with the same corelation as photographing the area from a thousand feet up and looking for crop markings. The argument appears to be that the subconcious mind sees differences in crop height colour etc etc and puts the match together. The concious mind however does not see the subtal patterns. So far nobody who has carried out limited investigation has put pen to paper for many reasons. However it is clear that people do learn to "dows" for certain things so there definatly appears to be a learning/training element in it. However I would not use it as a "Hinky" detector in the hands of people who don't even know what hinky is. It would be interesting to see the results of more "scientific studies" even if they say no the effect was not seen in a random group etc. Posted by: Clive Robinson at January 24, 2010 10:22 AM OK, techowiz, as far as I know the only Posted by: phil at January 24, 2010 12:46 PM Phil, On a BBC programme on Friday 22nd January an investigative reporter had a computer laboratory take apart one of the detection cards, that the 'inventor' Jim McCormick said was the key to the whole device detecting various explosive and drugs. After opening the card do you know what electrical circuit they found? http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00q9hx6/... regards Posted by: Techowiz at January 24, 2010 1:30 PM @clive robinson: There have quite a number of well-documented investigations in Germany. All turned out disastrous for the dowsers ... @phil: Sorry the tests are documented in German language only ... here's one link to the GWUP society's test: Posted by: Alex at January 24, 2010 1:45 PM techowiz, you make a basic error, I was defending dowsing, NOT the ADE651. If the question is "can you detect bombs by dowsing"? my answer would be "sometimes yes, depending on how well practiced a dowser you are" Posted by: phil at January 24, 2010 2:34 PM @ Alex, "There have quite a number of well-documented investigations in Germany. All turned out disastrous for the dowsers ..." I'm curious what type of tests where they? I know of one test where dowsers produced way way off the bell curve norm results (the wrong way for them). Where as the control group initialy showed what you would expect then started to move marginaly towards the working side. What was not explained was why the dowsers where so far away from the norm (all be it in totaly the wrong direction). One explination was "learning a new environmet". I also know of several other tests where the dowsers produced repeatable "home" and "away" results that again sugests it's a "local knowledge" issue. However all that being said the results have always been marginal with the occasional outliers well within the usual variance. Which gives rise to the questions, 1, Do we know what we are testing. And "people" is one of the problems. For instance there are quite a few examples of "folk knowledge" that science has dismissed only to come back to at a later stage (a large chunk of modern medicine comes from Hedge Medicine etc. The clasic example being stomach ulcers, and the view that "bacteria cannot live in the stomach". Oh by the way I'm neither pro nor anti on dowsing, in the same way I'm not pro or anti "gut feelings". All I will say on the later they make me more cautious or more ambitious and oddly in neither case have they been missplaced. An example being when I was chatting to a friend on the phone about his cottage and how dowing up the kitchen had shown evidence of "death watch beetle". I jokingly sugest he ought to microwave the wooden beams as dry wood is fairly transparent to microwaves whilst grubs are nice and juciy and broil easily. No sooner had I said it than I got a gut reaction also my friend got the same feeling. After another few minutes discussing it we rang off I did some experiments with mince meat and some 2x1 I had around and got very very positive results. The following morning my friend phoned to say he'd done a search on an IP DB or two and unfortunatly there was a company in the US that had had the same idea only recently. Like all good ideas it is obvious with hindsight but the physical "gut reaction" came before the brain had thought it through... So yes I'm with the "lets investigate some more" camp... Provided we can work out "what it actualy is we are investigating"... (which currently appears to be in the "we've not got a clue" area). Mind you there was that other group that found that there where very real reasons for Curry and Larger to be consumed together (hey I might be interested in a repeat of that one 8) Posted by: Clive Robinson at January 25, 2010 5:29 AM Phil, You make a basic error, I know that the ADE651 is not a functioning electronic instrument. My arugument all along is that it cannot detect anything, let alone explosives using the dowsing system. Posted by: Techowiz at January 26, 2010 3:21 AM well Techowiz, It appears to me that the ADE651 is indeed a type of grossly overpriced dowsing device, and I know from repeated personal experience that dowsing can detect things, But it is the dowser who does the detecting, the rod or device is merely an indicator. This definition, like science, is an interesting theory, and like science, it cannot explain everything, and is sometimes wrong. Have you ever been wrong? Posted by: phil at January 28, 2010 5:40 AM Phil, Posted by: Techowiz at February 2, 2010 9:43 AM The ridiculous GT200 has had an exposure of the UK BBC newsnight programme, see the youtube of the prgramme on my blog at: http://explosivedetectorfrauds.blogspot.com/ regards to all Posted by: Techowiz at February 17, 2010 6:46 AM Post a comment
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