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Berlin police find radioactive iodine on playing cards
- tartuffe78 9y agoI guess this way the con men knew when the cards were hot!
- csours 9y agoFortunately I125 is not likely to cause severe thyroid damage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodine-125 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodine-125
- llsf 9y agoI got some injected several time when I was a kid (for angiography). As a kid, the fun part was peeing fluorescent liquid (little I knew...).
- DennisP 9y agoI used to have a friend with a masters in biochemistry. Once he tested a glowstick and determined that the components were completely nontoxic. (He couldn't vouch for all glowsticks, don't try this at home.) He put each liquid component in a test tube and went out for beers. He poured one tube in a buddy's beer when he wasn't looking, and another in his next beer. Then he went in the restroom and unscrewed the lightbulb.
- dzdt 9y agoExposing your friends to risk of rare or unknown side-effects for humor value alone. Awesome! /s
- jackhack 9y agoI'm more concerned that they were drinking such *&%$ beer that a glowstick didn't foul the taste.
- philipkglass 9y agoI think that your friend was pulling your leg. The oxalate esters and hydrogen peroxide in a glow stick shouldn't be ingested, though the actual dye that gets excited to fluorescence would be relatively harmless. I also wouldn't expect the concentrations of active materials to remain high enough in urine for the glow reaction to be noticeable, even if all the chemicals were excreted unchanged.
- refurb 9y agoPlus hydrogen peroxide is not that stable in acidic condition (i.e. your stomach) and your body is fully of peroxidases that catalytically breakdown peroxides quite quickly.
- DennisP 9y agoHe was referring to the military version, would that be the same? It would not be surprising if he was pulling my leg, we were a group of practical jokers. And this story made me swear off ever doing anything to him; in retrospect maybe that was the intent.
- philipkglass 9y agoYes, military glow sticks use the same basic chemistry: hydrogen peroxide, diphenyl oxalate or analogs, various excitable dyes that actually produce the different colors.
- thret 9y agoYep, glow sticks are glow sticks. Ours come in fancy camo packaging though so you know they're suitable for lighting the portaloo.
- mrguyorama 9y agoCheck out NileRed's video [0] for some great info. He is a young chemist who produces chemistry videos on youtube and goes into detail of things while still being understandable for someone who did well in high school chemistry [0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_CYwd6cHUA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_CYwd6cHUA
- seasonalgrit 9y agoPutting an unknown substance into another person's beverage at a bar is a good way to get yourself arrested.
- gadders 9y agoI always thought a cool substance to invent would be something that makes methane visible i.e. non-colourless. Sneak it into people's food and see who is trying to break wind discreetly until a large green cloud appears behind them.
- btreesOfSpring 9y agoThe restaurant in question is in the Marzhan district of Berlin[0]. [0] https://www.morgenpost.de/berlin/polizeibericht/article212675467/Betrueger-setzten-radioaktive-Spielkarten-ein.html https://www.morgenpost.de/berlin/polizeibericht/article21267... (Article in German)
- jxramos 9y ago"41-year-old restaurant owner. On November 16, her restaurant was searched in the Marzahn street." I'm curious about the identity of the woman and what sort of cuisine we're talking about. Very mysterious.
- pgeorgi 9y ago> identity of the woman Suspects are rarely named in Germany. Privacy and all that.
- majewsky 9y agoBut they'll frequently describe the race ("Arab", "Mediterranean", etc.) when talking about non-Germans.
- pgeorgi 9y agoDepending on who you ask, they don't do it frequently enough. It also differs a lot by police district, circumstances, and news outlet while the no-naming rule is held up relatively consistently.
- jxramos 9y agointeresting question in general about what identifying information is usually shared: apparently age, sex, and occupation are fair game. Race is maybe, name definitely out. Previous criminal arrests are worth noting too.
- jxramos 9y ago
- jxramos 9y agoPretty soon we'll have a mobile card printer generate new decks right on the spot.
- derekp7 9y agoAnd 30 seconds later, we will have remote hacks for the card printers.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 9y agoAnd a year later, news that Uber knew about the hack but buried it.
- cyberferret 9y agoOr e-paper cards that can change face via remote app. A bit like the deck used on an early James Bond film if I recall correctly, allowing 007 to win at the table.
- rboyd 9y agoI'm having a hard time imagining how this hustle works. With the luminous ink or daub the idea is to see the markings from a distance. Here you would think you'd need to be fairly close with a geiger counter to detect the marking. So maybe it was a self-deal game or the dealer was colluding with the cheat? In that case maybe it's more like peeking with a shiner.
- anfractuosity 9y agoI wonder if you could build something to detect gamma rays which it sounds like the iodine emits, into a watch, possibly making use of a PIN photodiode.
- monochromatic 9y agoStill... you really need a directional detector to make use of this.
- QAPereo 9y agoTriangulate between two detectors?
- komali2 9y ago"Eh, Slim Johnson, whys you always flapping yer arms around whens we playin poker?" "Shoulder exercises, Bill. Shoulder exercises."
- QAPereo 9y agoLol oh god, Gary Larson would be proud. Still humor aside I think that you could deploy a partner to be the second point. Still, added complexity and new (albeit less awkward) questions.
- dsfyu404ed 9y agoThe dealer just needs one that looks like a watch so he can tell when a particular card is coming up.
- zerostar07 9y agogood police work
- michaelt 9y agoYou can also get cheating devices [1] where the edges of all the cards are printed with IR barcodes, then a special camera (concealed in a modified phone or car key fob) can tell you upcoming cards by looking at the edge of the deck. Of course, you need to convince people to play with your deck of cards first, so you can't just walk into a casino with these things. [1] https://www.elie.net/blog/security/fuller-house-exposing-high-end-poker-cheating-devices https://www.elie.net/blog/security/fuller-house-exposing-hig...
- kiddico 9y agoWow what a crazy device! That link led me to Elie Bursztein's youtube channel where he posts all of his defcon talks (or at least a lot of them). They're all really good!
- shagie 9y agoThe corresponding HN thread on it from October of last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12769819 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12769819
- posterboy 9y agoif the detector uses a laser scanner, the emissions should be easily detectable.
- gadders 9y agoThat is pretty cool. I wonder how this technology could be adopted by magicians? They could do some amazing card tricks with this I would imagine.
- lordnacho 9y agoWhat's the legit use of infrared contact lenses? I gather Johnson and Johnson makes them.
- _rpd 9y agoFirefighting, search and rescue, power line maintenance, home inspection and of course, military/law enforcement night operations.
- obilgic 9y agoWait, so you can gamble at a restaurant?
- bluetwo 9y agoBetween closing and opening, yes.
- Gargoyle 9y agoThis is the plot device for an actual novel about a detective hired to solve a casino scam. Don't want to completely spoil it, but it's the main plotline.
- avh02 9y agoPersonally not interested in the novel, but the name of it would be appreciated by somebody who is
- ghrifter 9y agoI wonder if the cards found were inspired by the novel
- Gargoyle 9y agoThe author said most of the scams in his book come from real life, so it's possible someone did it in the past. James Swain is the author, the series is his "Tony Valentine" books. Not fantastic writing, but packed full of scams and cons if you enjoy that kind of thing.
- escherplex 9y agoA more low-tech version of a casino scam was the subject of a 1966 Warren Beatty film called Kaleidoscope. Here the main character broke into a Swiss card manufacturer and marked the plates for the playing card decks used in all the casinos, with marks only visible via 'special' glasses. The technique being discovered, Beatty's character is coerced into participating in a Scotland Yard sting operation targeting an international smuggler with an addiction to gambling. Tedious movie.
- source99 9y agoPretty interesting that the government is checking garbage trucks for radioactivity and also able to trace t back to a specific business.
- madez 9y agoIn Germany, garbage is considered a serious issue. There are various levels and ways of mandatory recycling that need to be implemented by everyone, including private households. For example, depending on the city, paper, "Gelber Sack", organic material, and everything else besides special disposables like for example batteries must be seperated, and compliance may be checked, and fines may be handed out in case of violation. Some people moving to Germany are surprised about how serious it is. This explains why the garbage was checked, and why it was possible to track down the source.
- milkytron 9y agoUnited Nations document on German waste management. http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/dsd_aofw_ni/ni_pdfs/NationalReports/germany/waste.pdf http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/dsd_aofw_ni/ni_pdfs/NationalReport...
- bamboozled 9y agoIt's actually refreshing to know this is happening somewhere, thanks for sharing.
- nvdk 9y agoThis is pretty standard in Western Europe, it's about the same in Belgium, the Netherlands and France at least
- piva00 9y agoThe same here in Sweden too.
- yAnonymous 9y ago
- aaron695 9y agoNot to many people seem to be picking up what to me seems to be the bigger story, your garbage is now being tracked. Many places are now photographing your garbage as it's loaded onto trucks. ie. https://www.news-mail.com.au/news/waste-truck-watching-you-garbage-council-removal/577961/ https://www.news-mail.com.au/news/waste-truck-watching-you-g...
- gozur88 9y agoThis sort of thing is why I would never play cards for nontrivial money outside a regulated club. It's a lot less likely to happen when the owner stands to lose a license worth millions.
- germanier 9y agoDoes anyone know which (probably Vietnamese) game that was? Apparently it is played with round cut-outs of playing cards. Here is a photo: https://www.facebook.com/PolizeiBerlin/photos/a.253825908134854.1073741828.167233600127419/785902204927219/?type=3&theater https://www.facebook.com/PolizeiBerlin/photos/a.253825908134...
- andrewksl 9y agoLooks like what casinos do when they throw cards away so they can't be scavenged and used for play.
- twelvedogs 9y agoi would guess it makes the deck unique so cards can't be added on the fly
- germanier 9y agoThe game is likely Xoc Dia, a common gambling game played with four tokens hidden under a bowl.
- lunchladydoris 9y agoIn the linked articles is this awesome piece: "'Laser scam' gamblers to keep £1m" [0]. [0] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4069629.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4069629.stm
- fastball 9y agoI mean, yeah, the only real rules of Roulette are "call it before the ball goes round three times". Still, probably good they did it at the Ritz in London, rather than back home in Serbia, I have a feeling the outcome could've been very different.
- posterboy 9y agoThe older generation of vietnamese immigrants came due to the german democratic republic siding with communist vietnam because of the vietnam war. The traditional social order is patriarchal, so I would be surprised if the woman in question wasn't a strawpuppet to some extent.