The Hacker's Encyclopedia 1998

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P/HUN Issue #4, Volume 2: Phile 5 of 11 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Introduction to Home Explosive Manufacture Written by: Franz Liszt I do not assume any responsibility in how this information is used; legally or illegally and I do not recommend that one manufacture explosives without a B.A.T.F. licence. Do not worry about possessing this information because the F.O.I.A. allows you to have any information such as this, so as long as it is not classified data. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- INTRODUCTION I know of all of you phreaks, hackers, etc. out there are interested in any kind of information that the public usually does not publicize. This is why I have wrote this phile - to inform you. I also feel that I should volunteer this information to PHUN because I have obtained much useful information from that publication and others. I think that anyone with good knowledge should teach it to their phriends because we are becoming a dumb race due to the enlightened attitude of the population from influences such as yuppies, geeks, skateboard freaks, subliminal brainwashing, bloated bureaucrats, and lazy legislatures. We must try to become free THINKING people so our brains do not atrophy. Don't let any of the above influences brainwash you into a quivering pathetic mass of gelatin like so many people are now. Use any information from philes you read to benefit you and rid of the bastards out to get you!!! At any rate, lets get on with it...The field of explosives is a very interesting one to study. It can be fun, and it can be dangerous at the same time. One must exercise great caution when assembling any type of explosive device since most are sensitive to jarring, rough handling, friction, static, and other influences. THIS INCLUDES MIXING ANY CHEMICALS OR EXPLOSIVES TOGETHER. DO NOT EVER MIX ANY EXPLOSIVE FORMULA TOGETHER WITH ANOTHER UNLESS YOU WANT YOUR BODY EVAPORATED OR AT THE LEAST, LIMBS REMOVED OR EYES BLINDED. If you are uncertain of an explosive formula you have found in an anarchist book or on some BBS, don't make it. As a matter of fact, don't trust to many philes you see and only believe the reputable books such as "The Poor Man's James Bond I & II", the "CIA Black Books", and army field manuals. I also ran across some new books called "Kitchen Improvised Explosives", which can be had from a radical book company called LOOMPANICS UNLIMITED P.O. Box 1197, Port Townsend, WA 98368. They are also a very good source for information but the procedures outlined require more lab apparatus. It is also a good idea to take some chemistry classes. Take advantage of chemistry in high school if you are still there. You can learn a lot if you pay attention and read ahead of your teacher. Try to get on his good side so he will let you perform "extracurricular activities" in the school lab. You can learn a lot by doing experiments and you can also have access to chemicals and expensive lab ware which I find is necessary to safely make many explosive compounds. If you are out of school, and you want to get serious about explosives, take a chemistry class or two at your local college. Call your local Technical school if you have one and ask them if they are offering any miners blasting seminars in the future (yes these do exist). If not, call your local bureau of mines and inquire. Some "social engineering" may be necessary when talking to them though. One should at least go to the local library and look for explosive books and check the encyclopedias for "scratch the surface" information. If you know a little about chemistry, get the book "The Chemistry of Powder and Explosives" by Tenny L. Davis. You can obtain journal footnotes from such books and do further research in "Chemical Abstracts" and "The Journal of the American Chemical Society" along with many others; all obtainable from a halfway decent college library in the reference section. __________________________________________ EXPLOSIVE TYPES Basically, there are two types - low and high. The low explosives are chemical compounds such as black powder, flash powder, match head powder, etc. These compounds do not necessarily explode but have more of a burning characteristic. They will propagate into an explosion when confined in a solid container such as a "pipe-bomb" so the gases they produce can expand forcefully instead of burning away in the open air. Black powder for instance detonates at about 300 meters per second, which roughly means if you make a "train" or line of it 300 meters long, and detonate it with a blasting cap at one end of the train, the chain reaction and decomposition of the whole train will take one second. And black powder releases about 12000 PSI when confined in nominal 2" water pipe with a wall thickness of 1/8" and detonated with a No. 8 blasting cap (this is a standard size blasting cap that coal miners and the military uses). Notice I said that it must be detonated. You cannot just stick a wick in the pipe and light it because more that likely it will only burn and make a big fire. I will talk more about detonation later. 2,4,6-Trinitrotoluene (TNT) detonates at about 7400 meters per second when cast loaded into a container. TNT is a high explosive and its subsequential confinement in a container is not as important as with low explosives. High explosives are chemical compounds that will explode regardless of containment. You could lay a big pile of TNT on the ground, lay a blasting cap on top of it, light the wick, and the whole mess will still explode. High explosives undergo a chemical reaction of decomposition in less that a millionth of a second. All of the energy is released instantaneously. Low explosives, such as black powder have more of a burning characteristic. High explosives not only detonate much quicker, but also release more energy. TNT releases about 4.24 million PSI and the military explosive C-4 releases about 5.7 million PSI and detonates at 8100 meters per second! _____________________________________________ DETONATION Most high explosives are not capable of detonating without being set off or initiated with another explosion. This is done with the help of those neat little goodies called blasting caps. They contain medium to high explosives also, but their chemical composition(s) are unstable and will detonate when fire or spark is introduced to them. You may ask then why not just use blasting cap explosive instead of regular high explosives. Well, blasting cap materials are VERY sensitive to shock, friction, etc. and are also not as efficient as regular high explosives. Anyway, the blasting cap is usually placed in the high explosive in a well dug in the high explosive. An example would be like this in a pipe bomb: _______ Blasting cap / !-- * --! ! * ! ! * ! ! !_____ Pipe bomb ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !-------! (please excuse the ASCII drawing) When the cap is detonated, the explosive wave it generates is directed downward and detonates the high explosive in a "chain reaction". This is why the bottom of the explosive container should be placed on the target. The peak of the propagated explosive wave will be at the bottom of the explosive charge... At any rate, I do not suggest that one attempts to manufacture blasting caps without knowledge in explosive handling safety and also the proper laboratory procedures when making the blasting cap explosive itself. I have made over 300 blasting caps without an accident. I also take very careful precautions before assembling the caps and I have a properly equipped laboratory to synthesize the explosive material. I always work in a controlled environment with accurate measuring equipment for any explosive experiment I partake in. It is necessary to work under a lab fume hood to vent any toxic gases produced during experiments. It is also a good idea to ground yourself and your work area so static electricity doesn't wreak havoc and blow your chemical up in your face. IT IS GOSPEL TO FOLLOW DIRECTIONS WHEN DOING ANY EXPERIMENT. ESPECIALLY WITH EXPLOSIVES. Outline your explosive production procedure before proceeding with any experiment. Refer to literature at your local library concerning blasting cap mfg. before you attempt to make them. The book I mentioned "The Chemistry of Powder and Explosives" covers the subject very well. There are also some good books available from Paladin Press on explosive manufacture and the blasting cap manufacture. It is possible to create blasting caps in a "kitchen" type environment, but I do not recommend it because of the dangers involved when making the explosive components. Many of the starting materials are corrosive and toxic. Blasting cap explosives are also VERY sensitive. More so than nitroglycerine in some cases. For instance, Lead azide, the most popular blasting cap explosive today, when synthesized improperly, can grow into crystals in the starting agent solution and spontaneously explode just because of improper stirring and/or cooling. Very easy mistake to do. Mercury fulminate, one of the cheapest and easiest to synthesize, produces toxic gases when synthesizing. When the finished product is dry, it is sensitive to a 2cm drop of a 5 lb. weight. THAT IS SENSITIVE! ALTERNATIVE: After all of this negative talk of blasting caps leaves much to be desired. But there is an alternative to using blasting caps if one has access to firecrackers such as M-80's, M-100's, M-200's, cherry bombs, Maroons, etc. These little bombs themselves are sufficient enough to detonate many high explosives. All of the "nitro" compounds will detonate with one of these firecrackers. Their use would be the same as the blasting cap - inserted in a little "well" made in the explosive charge, sealing off, and their fuse ignited accordingly. ____________________________________________ MAIN EXPLOSIVE CHARGE This is the big working explosive. The one that does the big damage. It should be handled with the same precautions as blasting caps, but in many cases, can be as safe as handling fertilizer. Some examples of common high explosives are ditching dynamite, gelatin dynamite, ANFO (ammonium nitrate fertilizer/fuel oil), TNT, PETN, RDX, military plastics, and even smokeless powder. These explosives are easily made in some cases, and dangerous at the same time. Since it is beyond the scope of this article, I must refer everybody to your local library, the books I have mentioned, or most of the "unusual" book publishers. Just do research in all possible material before grabbing a book and running out, buying the chemicals, and throwing stuff together. Get yourself a few of the "black-books", the "Poor Man's James Bond volumes", etc. and compare them with each other. Don't trust any unheard of publishers or books. It goes the same for the main charge; if one doesn't have access to the necessary chemicals, one can improvise. For instance the smokeless powders available from gunsmith's and reloading shops contain high- explosives such as nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine. They are called double based propellants. An example is made by Hercules Powder co. called "Bullseye" pistol propellant. It contains: 48% Nitroglycerine 50% Nitrocellulose 2% Flash suppressants, stabilizers, etc. It will detonate at about 7200 meters/sec. when firmly packed in 2 inch wide, schedule 40 hardened steel pipe. It detonates with 2,000,000 PSI also. This should suffice for many operations. I myself placed 1 1/2 pounds of the powder in a three pound coffee can and detonated it with an M-80 firecracker and it left a ditch in hard packed clay-soil about 2 feet deep and 3 feet wide! It was simply placed on the ground with the bottom of the can down. The blast was plainly heard indoors 1 mile away! Please if you attempt such a blast, make sure you give yourself ample time to get at least 300 yards away and don't detonate it near any buildings within 50-75 yards because the air-blast will possibly crack their windows. I usually use a lit cigarette placed on the fuse of the cap or firecracker. This will give you about 10 min. delay depending on the temperature and wind conditions. Packing the cigarette will give a longer delay. Another good explosive, if you prefer a liquid explosive is a mixture of Nitromethane and amine based compounds such as aniline, ethylenediamine, and for anyone that can't obtain the above chemicals, regular household ammonia will work as long as it is the clear non-detergent brand. The Nitromethane can be had from any "speed-shop" or race car parts supplier. It usually runs about $20 to $30 bucks a gallon. Simply mix the two liquids: 96% nitromethane and 4% ammonia (by weight). This explosive has the disadvantage of being somewhat insensitive. You need at least a No. 8 blasting cap to detonate it. It only need be confined in any kind of capped bottle and the blasting cap inserted in the neck. The blasting cap should be dipped in wax before immersion in the liquid explosive. Some Nitromethane manufactures add a indicator dye that turns purple when the liquid becomes dangerously explosive. So, when you mix your ammonia with the Nitromethane and the solution turns purple, you know that you have done well! ________________________________________ OBTAINING CHEMICALS AND LAB WARE Getting your chemicals and lab ware can present a problem in some cases. In order to order laboratory chemicals, one must be a company, or try to prove that you are a company. Most suppliers don't like to sell to individuals in fear of clandestine drug and explosive manufacture. Those same companies also can be fooled easily with homemade letterhead also. For those of you with laser printers, the sky is the limit. If you don't have a laser printer, you should visit your local print shop. First, simply call the chemical companies and request for a catalog. You must get on the phone and say something on the order of: "Hello...this is C.B.G. Water Treatment Corp., may I speak to sales please? I would like to order your most recent catalog..." When you get catalogs from different companies, compare their prices and shipping charges. Make sure you don't order a set of chemicals where it is obvious you are making something you don't want them to know you are making. A suspicious order would be Nitric & Sulfuric acid and glycerine. This would be obvious that you are going to produce nitro- glycerine. Spread out your orders and orders between companies. Also be careful of watched chemicals. The drug enforcement agency watches certain orders for certain chemicals. They usually say something on the order of under the listing of the chemical entry in the catalog "only sold to established institutions." It just so happens that certain explosive synthesis requires the chemicals as some illicit drug production. Go to your local library in the reference section. Get the THOMAS REGISTER It is a set of books that list addresses of industrial suppliers. Look under chemicals for addresses. I do know of one company called Emerald City Chemical in Washington. They only require that you be at least 18 years of age. No letterhead necessary. I suggest staying away from Fisher Scientific, Seargent Welch, Sigma & Aldrich Chemical companies because they are either expensive, only sell to schools, or watch for illegal or suspicious chemical orders. I noticed that a lot of you phreaks out there live in New York; so stay away from City Chemical Co. I was informed that they closely watch their customers also. Don't make some letterhead for Jo Blow's Sewing Machine Repair and order complicated chemicals like 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, bis-2- ethylhexy-diadipate, 3,4-diaminofurazain, or pharmecitucal type chemicals or any kind of chemical that looks like a foreign language. It looks VERY suspicious and your address will be forwarded to your local FBI or DEA office pronto. Nowadays you really got to watch what you order thanks to our bleeding heart liberals worrying about kids blowing their hands off trying to make firecrackers, or folks making controlled drugs in their basements. ________________________________________ CONCLUSION I hope this information is of some use to you. Just remember that it is a federal offense to manufacture and transport explosives or explosive devices without a B.A.T.F. licence. Also keep in mind that if you do decide to make yourself some bombs, just remember NOT TO TELL ANYONE! If you tell someone, that is just the added risk of getting caught because your "buddie" was a stool pigeon. BELIEVE ME - chances are if you tell someone, others will find out from gossip and you will be the alias "mad bomber" of your town. If someone happens to see any lab equipment or if your neighbors smell any strange chemical smells around your home, they might even think you are making drugs, so be careful. If you tell your friends of your activities, don't be surprised if you see a gunmetal grey Dodge Diplomat with a dozen antennas protruding from it sitting across the street with a guy in it watching your house with a spotting scope... DO NOT SELL explosives to ANYONE without a licence. If they get caught, the feds will plea-bargan with them and find out where they got the bombs and of course your buddie will tell them so he gets a reduced sentence. They WILL get a search warrant with no problem and proceed to ransack your premises. I know of a person that was in a similar situation. He didn't have any explosives in his house, but they seized his chemicals because of the complaint filed. Subsequently, the feds kept up pretty good surveillance on him for quite a while. Use this information with caution and don't blow yourself up! -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Feb. 20, 1989 Brought to you by Franz Liszt, and The Manipulators... =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=