You have to understand that in the early 90s, a guy made a lot of money selling cops an empty plastic box with an antenna that he claimed could detect drugs or missing people by inserting the right "frequency chip." - ThreadSky

cjciaramella.bsky.social • 309 days ago

You have to understand that in the early 90s, a guy made a lot of money selling cops an empty plastic box with an antenna that he claimed could detect drugs or missing people by inserting the right "frequency chip."

Reposted from Timothy Burke

She shows him that it's the same chain police sell to students and he says "nope. not the same. This is an industrial chain"

Comments

telemark.bsky.social•309 days ago

Omnibus podcast covered this. Amazing, but absolutely predictable.

rocksizedrock.bsky.social•308 days ago

Holy shit wtf are bike thieves using that chain is thicc

galdireonai.bsky.social•308 days ago

Angle grinders are pretty popular these days.

rocksizedrock.bsky.social•308 days ago

So if I move to NYC and buy an electric bike, I have to use that monstrosity to lock it down to keep it from being stolen?

galdireonai.bsky.social•308 days ago

From what I've read, never have a.) the most expensive bike and/or b.) the weakest chain within line of sight and you'll be reasonably safe. But yeah, this is the recommended hardware.

kmrst.bsky.social•308 days ago

Hey hey hey, let's not get ahead of ourselves. He also sold it to the military.

halfcockedlaw.bsky.social•309 days ago

The commissioner has no chip

kabloink.bsky.social•309 days ago

That yellow part is the locking mechanism. That isn't included with the "industrial chains" from the hardware store.

thesane.bsky.social•308 days ago

Somewhere, someone is training a generative AI (badly), for this exact situation.

zakjarvis.bsky.social•308 days ago

The sheer amount of forensic science whose science is basically some guy who read three books going "I bet it works like this!"

carrielaben.com•308 days ago

Basically an unbroken line from "if she has a weird mole she's a witch" to blood spatter analysis and profiling.

zakjarvis.bsky.social•308 days ago

Leave it to cops to turn DNA sequencing into a vibe check.

kellylink.bsky.social•308 days ago

this is SO TRUE

amfisher.bsky.social•309 days ago

The Quadro Tracker, a.k.a dowsing rod. An idiotic idea that keeps coming around in various forms and getting people killed.

mx0x20wednesday.bsky.social•309 days ago

i love that they did it again during the gwot until people got bombed by bombs their dowsing rod didn't detect 🥴

jeff-notheotherone.bsky.social•308 days ago

Guy tried to sell these as bomb detectors to the Iraqis and somehow survived…?

aiabx.bsky.social•308 days ago

I'm reminded of the scene in The Wire where the cops fabricate a "lie detector" out of a photocopier with pages printed 'truth' and 'lie' already loaded up.

sailbarque.bsky.social•309 days ago

He later attacked newsman Dan Rather.

aegtx.bsky.social•308 days ago

see also Shotspotter

sababausa.bsky.social•308 days ago

Reminds me also in the Jacob Wetterling case, the cops wasted a ton of time and resources consulting hypnotists, psychic mediums, witching rods, dream interpretation, including digging up an Iowa field 200 miles from the crime scene based on a tip from a psychic

https://www.twincities.com/2018/09/21/jacob-wetterling-kidnapping-investigation-documents-stearns-county-minnesota-danny-heinrich/

islandofreil.bsky.social•89 days ago

This is why I can't with woo.

http://whatstheharm.net/

hungrywolf.bsky.social•308 days ago

It's staggering that anyone involved in any of that is still free.
Every police department that fell for it should have been disbanded, and all pensions forfeited.
Everyone reckless enough to buy or sell such obvious nonsense should have died in prison.

aliashandler.bsky.social•309 days ago

Say what? This sounds wild

devonp.bsky.social•309 days ago

This thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadro_Tracker

captainruck.bsky.social•309 days ago

Lmao it really took two years before anyone was like "this sounds like bullshit" and bothered to check, then immediately discovered there wasn't anything inside

devonp.bsky.social•308 days ago

The whole story is completely wild. Demonstrates the absolute gullibility of the cops who got taken in.

galdireonai.bsky.social•308 days ago

It often wasn't gullibility.

See, as long as they pretended it worked, the device gave them all the probable cause they ever wanted...

nih-llamas.bsky.social•309 days ago

Here's a cop, in court, showing how he walks around with dowsing rods (16:30).
https://www.techdirt.com/2022/03/30/cops-are-being-trained-to-use-literal-witchcraft-to-find-dead-bodies/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKhRlWlZSQE

jesspish.bsky.social•309 days ago

I should not be laughing because people suffer over this shit, but I did snort.

nih-llamas.bsky.social•309 days ago

Yeah, we're living in a twisted world where the cast of Police Squad has walked off the set to murder real people.

jesspish.bsky.social•309 days ago

It’s like when people joke about small town sheriffs, and I’m like, yes but they kill, harass and injure people. Funny and ridiculous but also horrifically sad.

cjciaramella.bsky.social•309 days ago

https://reason.com/1996/11/01/box-of-dreams/

chromeguardsman.bsky.social•308 days ago

iirc he sold the same boxes to the US Army for detecting IED's and hidden tunnels. and that was *after* he'd been found out as a fraud.

galdireonai.bsky.social•308 days ago

It was also sold to iraqi security forces, again in full knowledge of its fraudulent nature. The people in charge were in on it, they got a nice cut. The grunts on the ground were told that this thing would keep them safe from IEDs. Guess what...

cmraman.geek.org•308 days ago

It also featured heavily in a Tom Clancy book, as I recall.

bug-deal.bsky.social•309 days ago

hey it wasn't always empty. sometimes it had ants.

cosmicapybara.bsky.social•308 days ago

What are the ants for?

codebracker.bsky.social•308 days ago

They kinda look like electronic components if you squint, but are much cheaper

cosmicapybara.bsky.social•308 days ago

Ah. I thought perhaps this was an honest attempt at magic practice. If he was filling boxes with ants and trying to teach ant ghosts to find people and drugs via pictures, it would at least make some sense. As it is, it sounds like someone wanted a probable cause generator.

codebracker.bsky.social•308 days ago

From what I heard he just hot glued ants to a circuit board

bug-deal.bsky.social•308 days ago

that explains why cops bought em en masse but it sounds like a bunch of school boards did too?? maybe i'd rather not know

codebracker.bsky.social•308 days ago

There's a reason why intelligence and wisdom are separate stats

bug-deal.bsky.social•308 days ago

we may never know

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