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That unique 90s time period where any kid could print out bomb making recipes on the school printer from alt.anarchy or whatever, but columbine hadn't occurred

by geor9e 2y ago

That unique 90s time period where any kid could print out bomb making recipes on the school printer from alt.anarchy or whatever, but columbine hadn't occurred yet so we didn't really get in trouble when a teacher found out.

StanislavPetrov 2y ago
In the early 1990s a friend of mine ran a dial-up BBS. It was completely unmoderated (aside from spam), and ended up become a rather active board for (mostly black hat) hackers to post and trade information. My friend wasn't involved in any hacking directly - he simply ran the BBS which also hosted a bunch of doors (games) like TW2002 that were also quite popular. One day, a mutual friend of ours (who was an aspiring black hat hacker) got picked up by the FBI for a variety of phone phreaking offenses. During questioning, they asked him a bunch of questions about the BBS. As soon as he got out on bail, he relayed this information to my friend who ran the BBS. Needless to say, the BBS was shut down and all of the disks/hard drives trashed within an hour. Thankfully there were never any legal implications for my friend with the BBS, but you can be damn sure there were quite a few sleepless nights subsequently as he waited for a knock on the door!
SoftTalker 2y ago
Or the '80s, when you could just order the Anarchist Cookbook from a willing bookstore (some would refuse). At the time I recall that there were definitely kids into this stuff. Not literal anarchy or violence, they just liked making bombs and setting them off out in the woods somewhere. Homemade fireworks really. They got into the chemistry of it, just nerdy stuff. No harm intended.
- ternnoburn 2y ago
  I was also around then, and even then it had a reputation of being trash, not really anarchist, and probably dangerously poorly put together.
- pstuart 2y ago
  I've heard the two gateways into becoming interested in chemistry are getting high and blowing shit up.
  - Auracle 2y ago
    A friend and I want to make a small amount of nitroglycerin in chemistry class in HS. The teacher was all for it, but it got bumped all the way to the superintendent who shot it down. Boo.
    - magic_smoke_ee 2y ago
      Anything fun in life is illegal, immoral, fattening, or dangerous. In high school chemistry, I once superheated magnesium in a covered crucible and then blew on. That was fun.
  - magic_smoke_ee 2y ago
    All chemists are pyros, by definition and by requirement.
- jandrewrogers 2y ago
  To be honest, the Anarchist Cookbook had some really dodgy recipes. It was arguably a collection of future Darwin Awards.
  - bboygravity 2y ago
    The tennisball bomb definitely didn't work as advertised. Just saying * looks around innocently *
    - 0xDEADFED5 2y ago
      so you also made a tennis ball rocket?
  - Spooky23 2y ago
    The bookstore clerk told us that, and suggested that we purchase an army improvised munitions field manual. Lol
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- magic_smoke_ee 2y ago
  In the 90's, Tower Records sold The Anarchist Cookbook no questions asked. Its recipes didn't appear very well researched and some seemed outright lethal or impossible.
  - ganoushoreilly 2y ago
    On the bulletin boards there used to be all these horrible phone phreaking plans that were clearly not functional, like the blotto box that would electrocute someone across the phone lines. We also had all those weekly world news tabloids.. i think some of it just made for weird entertainment.
- ganoushoreilly 2y ago
  In the 90's almost all of us played with fireworks and m80's in the fields. We used to rig up long fuses with our estes rocket kits for remote detonation. Everyone turned out fine. The pre No Child Left Behind / Zero Tolerance era of school, was a great time. I feel bad for kids today.
  - mrguyorama 2y ago
    >Everyone turned out fine. The mother of all survivorship biases. We have ample statistics demonstrating that no, plenty of people died. Christ, can't believe I even have to point this out.
    - SoftTalker 2y ago
      I think most of us, at least most males, can recall things we did as teens that could have killed us if things went wrong. Some people are also more reckless than others, and will find ways to get their thrills no matter what rules you try to lay down. Some people get unlucky, which is sad but always has been and always will be that way.
jcims 2y ago
In the mid 80s my best friend brought in a select fire (aka full auto capable) mauser c96 with the case that doubles as a stock. His grandpa acquired in wwii, the teacher just asked if it was loaded.

by geor9e 2y ago

StanislavPetrov 2y ago

In the early 1990s a friend of mine ran a dial-up BBS. It was completely unmoderated (aside from spam), and ended up become a rather active board for (mostly black hat) hackers to post and trade information. My friend wasn't involved in any hacking directly - he simply ran the BBS which also hosted a bunch of doors (games) like TW2002 that were also quite popular. One day, a mutual friend of ours (who was an aspiring black hat hacker) got picked up by the FBI for a variety of phone phreaking offenses. During questioning, they asked him a bunch of questions about the BBS. As soon as he got out on bail, he relayed this information to my friend who ran the BBS. Needless to say, the BBS was shut down and all of the disks/hard drives trashed within an hour. Thankfully there were never any legal implications for my friend with the BBS, but you can be damn sure there were quite a few sleepless nights subsequently as he waited for a knock on the door!

SoftTalker 2y ago

Or the '80s, when you could just order the Anarchist Cookbook from a willing bookstore (some would refuse). At the time I recall that there were definitely kids into this stuff. Not literal anarchy or violence, they just liked making bombs and setting them off out in the woods somewhere. Homemade fireworks really. They got into the chemistry of it, just nerdy stuff. No harm intended.

ternnoburn 2y ago
I was also around then, and even then it had a reputation of being trash, not really anarchist, and probably dangerously poorly put together.
pstuart 2y ago
I've heard the two gateways into becoming interested in chemistry are getting high and blowing shit up.
- Auracle 2y ago
  A friend and I want to make a small amount of nitroglycerin in chemistry class in HS. The teacher was all for it, but it got bumped all the way to the superintendent who shot it down. Boo.
  - magic_smoke_ee 2y ago
    Anything fun in life is illegal, immoral, fattening, or dangerous. In high school chemistry, I once superheated magnesium in a covered crucible and then blew on. That was fun.
- magic_smoke_ee 2y ago
  All chemists are pyros, by definition and by requirement.
jandrewrogers 2y ago
To be honest, the Anarchist Cookbook had some really dodgy recipes. It was arguably a collection of future Darwin Awards.
- bboygravity 2y ago
  The tennisball bomb definitely didn't work as advertised. Just saying * looks around innocently *
  - 0xDEADFED5 2y ago
    so you also made a tennis ball rocket?
- Spooky23 2y ago
  The bookstore clerk told us that, and suggested that we purchase an army improvised munitions field manual. Lol
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
magic_smoke_ee 2y ago
In the 90's, Tower Records sold The Anarchist Cookbook no questions asked. Its recipes didn't appear very well researched and some seemed outright lethal or impossible.
- ganoushoreilly 2y ago
  On the bulletin boards there used to be all these horrible phone phreaking plans that were clearly not functional, like the blotto box that would electrocute someone across the phone lines. We also had all those weekly world news tabloids.. i think some of it just made for weird entertainment.
ganoushoreilly 2y ago
In the 90's almost all of us played with fireworks and m80's in the fields. We used to rig up long fuses with our estes rocket kits for remote detonation. Everyone turned out fine. The pre No Child Left Behind / Zero Tolerance era of school, was a great time. I feel bad for kids today.
- mrguyorama 2y ago
  >Everyone turned out fine. The mother of all survivorship biases. We have ample statistics demonstrating that no, plenty of people died. Christ, can't believe I even have to point this out.
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    I think most of us, at least most males, can recall things we did as teens that could have killed us if things went wrong. Some people are also more reckless than others, and will find ways to get their thrills no matter what rules you try to lay down. Some people get unlucky, which is sad but always has been and always will be that way.

jcims 2y ago

In the mid 80s my best friend brought in a select fire (aka full auto capable) mauser c96 with the case that doubles as a stock. His grandpa acquired in wwii, the teacher just asked if it was loaded.