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Element 14 Holding Orders Based On US Government Watch List
- TallGuyShort 13y ago>>> (International customers have to fill out silly forms with US distributors and manufacturers saying we won’t use the parts in nuclear weapons – seriously) True. One of my first jobs was at a US electronics manufacturer / parts distributor. I remember we had to fill out paperwork for every export and all of our products (mainly smoke detectors) had to be classified as something to the effect of "parts that could be used to build a nuclear weapon". Ridiculous.
- mrbill 13y agoA lot of smoke detectors use the radioactive isotope americium-241 in an ionization process to detect smoke. Get enough smoke detectors, and you can have a good amount of radioactive material. Read up on David Hahn, who hit the news in '94 for trying to build a breeder reactor in his back yard using sources scavenged from among other things, smoke detectors.
- TallGuyShort 13y agoWhoa - I actually had no idea. I always assumed it was general electronics because I was instructed to do that for every transaction - even when I was just reselling a bunch of resistors.
- mrbill 13y agoYep. A quick summary: http://www.damninteresting.com/smoke-detectors-and-a-radioactive-boyscout/ http://www.damninteresting.com/smoke-detectors-and-a-radioac...
- cbaleanu 13y agoRadioactive smoke detectors mandatory in houses. Hmm, what's wrong with this picture?
- mindslight 13y agoThe irrational fear that's thrown around whenever the word 'radiation' is used?
- nraynaud 13y agoare you talking about the classification of smoke detectors as weapon material?
- jordanthoms 13y agoSo much this. It's as bad as when someone is trying to demonize some chemical in food, and lists all the other things it's used in, as if that has any relevance to it's safety...
- _delirium 13y agoIt's a pretty small amount of radioactive material, about 1 μCi (roughly equal to 2000 bananas). And in normal usage, you probably shouldn't be removing the insides of the smoke detector and eating it or anything, unlike the tasty bananas. Nonetheless, they're being phased out in a lot of places, mostly due to disposal worries. While one smoke detector is fairly harmless, tens of thousands being dumped in landfills is more of a concern, and properly recycling them is expensive. Optical smoke detectors based on LEDs are now fairly affordable, don't have the disposal issues, and may also perform better.
- capnrefsmmat 13y agoAnd the alpha radiation emitted is barely able to penetrate a sheet of paper, let alone the detector housing and ten feet of air to your body.
- jamesaguilar 13y agoBut then it gets into the water supply and is bombaring your cells from nanometers away . . .
- anigbrowl 13y agoThank you. It's depressing how quick people can be to dismiss something as stupid without considering how those rules came about in the first place.
- nraynaud 13y agoAnd so what? some guy stabs someone with a screwdriver and the US regulate the export of them between Commonwealth countries, still without regulating the AK-47 in its own country? There is more regulation on CNC machining center than on firearms. It's stupid. The US doesn't refrain from sending hellfires missiles on weddings, which kills more surely than the once in a lifetime freak who assemble some mildly radioactive stuff in his backyard. If it's for the radiations, I see people playing with X-ray on youtube everywhere, there is 0% chance of chain reaction, nobody cares about chemical contamination in the US, so I don't know why they would freak about a mildly radioactive contamination in a foreign country either. What I begin to see, is an entire world under occupation.
- wbl 13y agoThat's because an AK-47 is an AK-47: it's not a game-changer. But a CNC machining system that lets you build silent ship propellers can dramatically change the threats the world faces.
- nraynaud 13y agoAll the advances in CNC machining systems are published on the internet. And there is some degree of self replicating capability in them (basically you can machine the parts yourself, and fine-tune the design by hand to get a machine of better capability than the previous one).
- marshray 13y ago> But a CNC machining system that lets you build silent ship propellers can dramatically change the threats the world faces. Bullshit. (and yes I know about the Toshiba incident)
- jamesaguilar 13y agoApparently the risk is that someone would use it to create a dirty bomb. It's not dangerous unless ingested or inhaled, and it's not apparently easy to use as any kind of nuclear fuel. I guess this is kinda reasonable.
- lgeek 13y agoA smoke detector contains about 0.25 μg of americium [0], which is painted on the inside of a chamber. In small quantities, it seems americium dioxide can only be dangerous if inhaled [0]. According to David Hahn's Wikipedia page[1], his reactor used thorium, purified from thorium ash used in lantern mantles, and not americium. What's more, smoke detectors go straight to landfills in many places. I think it's unresonable to consider them a realistic threat. [0] http://media.cns-snc.ca/pdf_doc/ecc/smoke_am241.pdf http://media.cns-snc.ca/pdf_doc/ecc/smoke_am241.pdf [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn#Creation_of_the_reactor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn#Creation_of_the_reac...
- leoc 13y agoDell once made me promise this before it would sell me a laptop bag.
- Fuxy 13y agoNot really that ridiculous some guy in the us actually tried doing it in his garage and got the entire house and area around it declared a radiation hazard. He apparently died later of radiation poisoning later on because he didn't use any protective gear. Americans tend to ban/regulate everything that ever gets misused. Soon enough they will be regulating pens since someone stabbed another person with a pen. Just like in the prisons only with slightly more liberties for now.
- mindslight 13y agoOf course they do, it's yet another chance to punish their customers. I ordered from Newark/Element14 once, doing battle with and finally prevailing over their extremely clunky online system. It took several days for my $100 order to even ship, and it eventually showed up in two gigantic boxes (a few 4ft pieces of heat shrink tubing had obviously required their own 4ft long box). The packing materials and shipping must have totaled at least $100, to say nothing of the obviously manual labor. I've no idea how they stay in business.
- davepage 13y agoTotally agree. Their packing process appears to be designed for $10k orders, so when the optimism fails, the box leaves nearly empty. Perhaps they're trying to send a subtle message: 'don't waste this box, buy more stuff.' One time I ordered from them some XAM3359ZCZs (a Texas Instruments ARM CPU which is about half a cell phone or double an Rπ) -- out of stock in US, but available from UK. I was in a hurry, so I spring for the extra shipping. Weeks later, no parts and no word. Called, them and 'oops' it is stuck in UK and I need to make a customs declaration to re-import to the US this US part from the UK. Very annoying on several levels.
- badsock 13y agoI ordered from them exactly once, and it took so long that I eventually got in touch to see what was going on: they had forgotten about my order. Soon after, I received 4 rush packages from them (all from the same address), with only a couple of components in each. All told I received about half my order - I just gave up on them.
- kasbah 13y agoIn the UK Farnell/Element14 are the best choice for components. My items always arrive next-day when ordered before 5pm and delivery is free (you have to spend at least £20 to pay by card). The site is a lot more usable than RS-Online so I will often order from them though I have an RS trade-counter nearby. Mouser's and Digikey's sites are just as good (this is from a user perspective, from a designer's perspective they are pretty awful) but orders will ship from the US and take longer.
- happyscrappy 13y agoI find it quite humorous that the governments that actually signed these deals are given a free pass, brilliant.
- reversi_online 13y agoThe U.S. waving around the biggest stick in human history has nothing at all to do with that, I'm sure.
- jonesetc 13y agoI never would have imagined that an Australian ordering from a UK company would have to feel my pain, but welcome to the club. My father has the exact same name as the blogger, which also makes up 2/3 of my own name. We've had similar orders from out of the country held up for weeks, been extremely slowed when trying to fly. It's not a very fun game.
- danpat 13y agoExport restrictions have been in place for a very long time. Another relatively well-known distributor that got bitten is McMaster-Carr, a mechanical parts supplier (with a very nice web design - http://mcmaster.com/ http://mcmaster.com/). After shipping something to a location they shouldn't have, they were penalized in 2003 and they no longer ship outside the US. Which is a damn shame, because they have a great catalogue of stuff that's very easy to navigate.
- rayshan 13y agoWow, you weren't kidding about the web design, even though it's extremely utilitarian, it's very fast and usability is great.
- erichocean 13y agoSpeed is a product feature. I wish more people realized that.
- Already__Taken 13y agoit breaks ctrl + click :(
- marshray 13y agoYeah, I avoided buying anything from them for the last 7 years because their site was so Javascript heavy.
- driverdan 13y agoThey aren't exporting anything to this guy. He's an Australian picking up his order in person in Australia. US laws don't apply.
- girvo 13y agoExcept for the fact that our illustrious government here in Australia seems intent on becoming Little America. I'd assume that's why this dumb law is applied.
- cheeseprocedure 13y agoI had no idea grep was so effective in fighting terror.
- ChuckMcM 13y agoYou have that backwards, it instills terror, how many engineers are out there saying "Oh crap, my name just won the latest watchlist round of regex golf!"
- fredgrott 13y agoan obvious hacker question What happens when you change your name to a dead terrorists name? Is there no in government somewhat curious about all the holes in their watch list implementation..
- njharman 13y agoRead up on Security Theater to find answer to question.
- mnordhoff 13y agoObvious USG answer: The same thing as happens if you have a living terrorist's name. The no-fly list includes dead terrorists in case terrorist identity thieves impersonate them; the Treasury OFAC SDN list (more relevant here, though I do not see David Jones on it) includes dead people because their money does not automatically disappear from their bank accounts and their Amazon Free Super Saver Shipping packages do not immediately disappear from the shipping company's horse-drawn wagons.
- greenlakejake 13y agoThis is actually great news. It has been impossible to find out whether you are on the US watch list. Now you have to do is get an Australian with your name to order something from Element 14 and now you know.
- MacsHeadroom 13y agoThe whole list is freely available right here http://www.treasury.gov/ofac/downloads/sdnlist.txt http://www.treasury.gov/ofac/downloads/sdnlist.txt
- talaketu 13y agoThere is no "JONES" on that list.
- MacsHeadroom 13y agoAlso available on 20 other easily parsable formats here: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/SDN-List/Pages/default.aspx http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/SDN-List/P... You can even register for email updates.
- leoc 13y agoNext Airbnb right there.
- gcb0 13y agothis is like release checklists made by people with OCD. 200x ridiculous, frivolous steps. After some time, you ignore even the important ones and shit happen. This is the same. A system so bad that triggers so many false positives, that when John Terrorist orders 2Lb of uranium from them, the sales guy will be so used to just move the name on the order form that it will not even register in his mind. This only proves it has nothing to do with preventing crime, but just proving internationally that you have bullying powers. That, or incompetence is off the charts.
- cmicali 13y agoGlad to see the EEVBlog here.. I have been learning a LOT from his videos. If you are at all interested in electronics I would highly recommend checking it out.
- nl 13y agoI laughed at this: The “fix” is to move your name to the 2nd line so it doesn’t get flagged
- joe_the_user 13y agoDamn, I'll have to eat my words... In an earlier hn post, I actually suggested that if you use a name that's common enough, like David Fricken Jones, the US would never have the guts to flag it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7240983 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7240983 But here we are. David Jones... Not a lot of people affected by that, huh.
- xzel 13y agoBetween all the squabbling in this thread, your post shines through like a ray of sunlight. You don't see this type of thing often on the internet without it being faked. Life is good sometimes.
- VolatileVoid 13y agoAlthough one wonders how intelligent the name comparison "algorithm" (ha) is. I bet if you DID type in "David Fricken Jones" (sic) you'd be fine.
- TuxLyn 13y agoWhat happens if some one has name like John Doe ? This is the stupiest implementation of system ever. It needs an award. Seriously, very funny article.
- handelaar 13y agoThe most impressive thing about this is that someone managed to successfully complete an order at Element14, where registration before ordering is compulsory (and can take up to a dozen attempts because the site throws random 500 errors almost everywhere), and where Visa cards are required to have start dates even though most of them don't, and where they don't answer your email telling them about the errors.
- lgeek 13y ago> registration before ordering is compulsory It's mostly a B2B company, I think it's natural their website won't be optimised for other types of users. You can still add items to the basket and see total charges without being logged in. > where Visa cards are required to have start dates even though most of them don't Are you sure? I guess it could be different on your local version of the website, but it's not the case on the UK one: http://i.imgur.com/fcPF3Qv.png http://i.imgur.com/fcPF3Qv.png
- handelaar 13y agoVery sure, since I had to report this on Thursday last. Was just about to lob in a Raspberry Pi and show you, but the World's Lousiest Ecommerce Site bounced me out completely, sent me to cpcireland.farnell.com, logged me out and now wants me to reregister there solely to show you a GIF. Sorry, but not worth it. You're just going to have to believe me.
- Fuxy 13y agoI can confirm that Element 14 in the UK sucks. I somehow managed to order a RPi from them a year ago without trouble but after taking more then 2 and a half weeks to even bother to ship it i just cancelled the damn thing and bought it off Amazon. Luckily now i know of a lot more small and helpful websites that would ship stuff in a decent time frame. Can't avoid using them for more specialized part unfortunately. Don't expect much from them though.
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- superuser2 13y agoI hate to say it, but from an engineering/UX perspective, a secure and reliable federal identity API would make a lot of sense. As long as they're going to have a blacklist like this, they may as well do it correctly. Names do not individually identify people and it's ridiculous that security-sensitive processes still use names as primary identifiers in this era. You're also not actually losing any anonymity - an online order is already linked to a physical address and a credit card (which is in turn linked to a real identity). A central ID API only gets Big Brother-ish if its use is mandated for previously pseudonymous interactions (say, HN or Reddit comments).