!@#$% Posted January 26, 2010 Share Posted January 26, 2010 How in the fuckin hell do people fall for this shit? Seriously, how gullible do you have to be to think that a device with no power source will work?! http://gizmodo.com/5455692/ade+651-magic-wand-bomb-detector-is-a-fraud-probably-killed-hundreds Jim McCormick promised his ADE-651 wand could identify anything, including bombs, simply by waving it around with the right RFID card inside. Yeah, totally fake, and now he's in prison. Too bad Iraq already spent $85 million on them. Updated. Literally, the $40,000 (apiece) devices did absolutely nothing. Nada. Zilch. Experts think the insides contained nothing more than a dumb RFID card. Powered by nothing. Nope, not even a power supply. Just some snake oil, if that. $85 million! Even worse, "inventor" McCormick was a firm, open believer in dowsing (as in, finding water with a stick), and that's what the device was based on. Dowsing! The BBC ran an investigative report on the device, during which McCormick claimed, without breaking his stride, that the device could detect explosives up to one kilometer away. Video below (money shot at 7:30 when the insides are shown to be empty..see video at link) Now the money lost is bad, but the loss of life is worse. Immeasurable. Security personnel and Iraqi soldiers were using these powerless dowsing rod devices in the field to detect bombs at security checkpoints and who knows where else. Scores died with this murderous thing gripped tightly in their hands. Hundreds more when the security checkpoints, armed with these devices, failed to protect them. Update: We ran the US's doubts on this device in November. This story confirms without a doubt that devices were fake, probably resulted in hundreds of deaths, and that McCormick, thankfully for the human race, has been arrested and is awaiting trial (although he's currently out on bail). Update 2: The story gets worse. As some have pointed out below, the Iraqi government is standing by these useless devices, even after the BBC report and complaint were filed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hey Posted January 26, 2010 Share Posted January 26, 2010 hahahaa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Realism Posted January 26, 2010 Share Posted January 26, 2010 That guy in the truck is looking at it like it's gonna bite him, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abcs Posted January 26, 2010 Share Posted January 26, 2010 hmm. RFID cards are used to read RFID tags right? Assuming it had a power source which I guess it didn't did what? Was it designed to detect Walmart bombs? Now that dowsing concept. Suppose you hit a bomb hard enough with a stick you will find your bomb all right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christo-f Posted January 26, 2010 Share Posted January 26, 2010 McCormick got arrested, really??!! Wasn't aware of that. Wonder what the charges where, who bought them against him and if it even had anything to do with this case. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
!@#$% Posted January 26, 2010 Author Share Posted January 26, 2010 it was related to this case. fraud. Bomb detector' maker Jim McCormick arrested Jim McCormick sells the hand-held detectors from his offices in Somerset ATSC's Jim McCormick, 53, was detained on Friday on suspicion of fraud by misrepresentation, Avon and Somerset police said. He has since been bailed. It comes after a BBC investigation alleged the ADE-651 did not work. Earlier, the British government announced a ban on the export of the device to Iraq and Afghanistan, where British forces are serving. .... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8476381.stm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Decyferon Posted January 26, 2010 Share Posted January 26, 2010 haha somerset I bet the guy was pissed out his face on cider when he came up with this scam. Why am I not surprised this is from that area of the UK!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MAR Posted January 26, 2010 Share Posted January 26, 2010 I heard about this yesterday and it made me so mad. I don't know how anyone in their right mind could do what he did. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christo-f Posted January 27, 2010 Share Posted January 27, 2010 it was related to this case. fraud. Bomb detector' maker Jim McCormick arrested Jim McCormick sells the hand-held detectors from his offices in Somerset ATSC's Jim McCormick, 53, was detained on Friday on suspicion of fraud by misrepresentation, Avon and Somerset police said. He has since been bailed. It comes after a BBC investigation alleged the ADE-651 did not work. Earlier, the British government announced a ban on the export of the device to Iraq and Afghanistan, where British forces are serving. .... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8476381.stm That's excellent news. Some one should strap the prick to the front of an Iraqi ministry building or hotel in Baghdad...., with an ADE651 jammed in his mouth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shai Posted January 27, 2010 Share Posted January 27, 2010 Your tax dollars at work! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soup Posted January 27, 2010 Share Posted January 27, 2010 We probably just weren't holding them right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soup Posted January 27, 2010 Share Posted January 27, 2010 This product apparently has been used since before 1995 under a different name. We just cant get enough dowsing rods. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
injury Posted January 27, 2010 Share Posted January 27, 2010 there's a sucker government born every minute. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UPS! Posted January 30, 2010 Share Posted January 30, 2010 Is anyone else a little bothered the Goverment didnt test these out before spending millions and putting peoples lives in danger? Oh wait theyve already got two wars going on. Silly me 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christo-f Posted January 30, 2010 Share Posted January 30, 2010 I think it was the Iraqi Goct who got duped. As far as I remember the US guys on the ground were pleading with them to use dogs instead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n8galicia Posted January 30, 2010 Share Posted January 30, 2010 Suppousedly the devices were powered by the body's electromagnetic field. Bullshit if you ask me, this idiot should be forced to work checkpoint duty with his useless device Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christo-f Posted January 31, 2010 Share Posted January 31, 2010 Bullshit if you ask me, Gee, d'you think?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.hopeless. Posted January 31, 2010 Share Posted January 31, 2010 Is anyone else a little bothered the Goverment didnt test these out before spending millions and putting peoples lives in danger? Oh wait theyve already got two wars going on. Silly me i was thinking the same thing. with such outrageous claims you'd think SOMEONE would have had the sense to atleast test the product before buying that many of them. but wait wasnt it the iraqi military who bought all of them? if so that makes a little more sense...just saying. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smart Posted January 31, 2010 Share Posted January 31, 2010 Iraqi Govt: Ah, not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working. McCormick: That's specious reasoning, Iraqi Govt. Iraqi Govt: Thank you, honey. McCormick: By your logic, this rock keeps tigers away. Iraqi Govt: Oh? How does it work? McCormick: It doesn't work. Iraqi Govt: Uh-huh. McCormick: It's just a stupid rock. Iraqi Govt: Uh-huh. McCormick: But I don't see any tigers around here, do you? [pause] Iraqi Govt: McCormick, I want to buy your rock! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
viperface Posted February 7, 2010 Share Posted February 7, 2010 they should hand him over to Iraq. That's right they'd hang him by his throat! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christo-f Posted March 16, 2010 Share Posted March 16, 2010 "It works with molecules and the body's energy" Oh FFS!! What is it with dumb people and being dumb??!! Mexico Is Warned on Drug Detector By MARC LACEY Published: March 15, 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/world/americas/16mexico.html?ref=world MEXICO CITY—The British government has notified Mexico that a handheld device widely used by the Mexican military and police to search for drugs and explosives may be ineffective, British officials said. Mexico’s National Defense Secretariat has spent more than $10 million to purchase hundreds of the detectors, similar to the “magic wands” in use in Iraq and Afghanistan, for its antidrug fight. Although critics have called them nothing more than divining rods, Mexican defense officials praise the devices as a critical part of their efforts to combat drug traffickers. At the military’s National Drug Museum, one of the devices is on display, with a plaque that describes its success in finding hidden caches of drugs. Mexican military officials say the black plastic wands, known as the GT 200 and manufactured by the British company Global Technical Ltd., are widely used nationwide at checkpoints to search for contraband inside vehicles as well as to canvass neighborhoods in drug hotspots for drug and weapons stash houses. As of April 20, 2009, the army had purchased 521 of the GT 200 detectors for just over $20,000 apiece, for a total cost of more than $10 million, according to Mexican government documents. Police agencies across Mexico have made additional purchases, records show. “We’ve had success with it,” Capt. Jesús Héctor Larios Salazar, an officer with the Mexican Army’s antidrug unit in Culiacán, said recently. “It works with molecules. It functions with the energy of the body.” But the British government, which is considering legislation to stop exports of the device, notified Mexico and other countries around the world last month that it may not work. That followed reports in The New York Times and on BBC that a similar product used in Iraq and Afghanistan, the ADE 651 manufactured by ATSC Ltd., another British company, was considered ineffective. “Exports to Mexico have already taken place, and the most urgent task was to warn the Mexican government and military, which we have done,” Katy Reid, a British diplomat in Mexico, said in a statement on Friday. “It is now up to the Mexican authorities to take whatever steps they think appropriate.” The Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington said it did not use the handheld detectors. And the National Explosive Engineering Sciences Security Center at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, which does testing for the Defense Department, has not found such devices to be effective. Mexican defense officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. E-mail messages and calls to Global Technical and to Segtec, the Mexican-based importer of the GT 200, were not returned. Controversy over the GT 200 has played out in recent months in Thailand, where the army has said it will continue to use them even though testing by government scientists found them far less effective than specially trained dogs. “I respect the scientific tests, but at this stage there is no banning order by the government, so the army will continue to use it,” Gen. Anupong Paochinda, the Thai Army chief, told reporters. Human Rights Watch issued a statement in February calling on the Thai government to stop arresting people based on evidence gathered using the GT 200, which it said “performs worse than a roll of the dice.” Informed that Mexico was using the same unit, the human rights group said Friday: “It’s troubling that Mexico is using this ‘magic wand’ technology given the serious doubts that exist about its reliability. And if people are actually being arrested and charged solely on the basis of its readings, that would be outrageous.” Promotional materials on the Internet describe the GT 200 as a high-tech unit that enables law enforcement agencies to search large areas quickly. Using special cards provided by the manufacturer, the detector can supposedly detect all types of narcotics and explosives by homing in on their molecules from afar. The device is so sensitive, the manufacturer says, that it can detect not just stockpiles of illegal drugs but people who have used cocaine or heroin as far back as two weeks before. After the critical reviews in Thailand, Global Technical released a statement on its Web site defending the detector. “We can say that previous tests carried out by independent bodies, and the experience of the large number of users of this product all over the world, confirms that the GT 200 is effective and because of this, we would ask that you treat with caution any reports to the contrary,” the company said. In Culiacán, a city in Sinaloa State where Mexican drug traffickers have a strong presence, the military showed off the GT 200 in December. Canvassing a residential neighborhood, soldiers walked up and down the street with a GT 200 waiting for the antenna to point toward a suspicious residence. There were no discoveries. But the soldier trained to operate the detector walked by one of the army’s armored vehicles and the antenna swung quickly toward the high-caliber machine gun sticking out the top. He took several steps back and walked by again. The antenna pointed again toward the gun. “See?” he said. But in November, at a checkpoint on the highway leading from Mexico City to Monterrey, the same device pointed at a Volkswagen containing a man, a woman and a child. Soldiers surrounded the vehicle and a search was conducted for illegal drugs. But all they found was a bottle of Tylenol — evidence, the soldier operating the device said, of how sensitive the GT 200 was. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shai Posted March 16, 2010 Share Posted March 16, 2010 As someone who believes in dowsing- I've seen it work, you really had to be there- I can say that it's impossible to get results just from a device without some kind of training. Come to think of it, screening would be much better. In other words, it's not the stick but who's holding it. I don't expect most people to understand that, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twonpoo Posted March 17, 2010 Share Posted March 17, 2010 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twonpoo Posted March 17, 2010 Share Posted March 17, 2010 "follow the dog, he's finding water" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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