Taggent Material To Indicate Roadbed Digging / Road Side Bombs
Bret Cahill
beds that can only be disturbed by digging and not by vehicle traffic.
The material must be deposited with a characteristic "thumbprint" that
can be identified with the appropriate sensors but cannot be
duplicated, i.e., it cannot be swept up and spread over a freshly
planted bomb.
This method wouldn't reveal the old bombs but it would make it easy to
spot where a roadbed was recently dug up.
Bret Cahill
dlzc
On Nov 12, 6:28 pm, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@aol.com> wrote:
> The mililary needs some material that can be crop
> dusted onto road beds that can only be disturbed
> by digging and not by vehicle traffic.
or sand storms. or intense sunlight. and is not toxic.
> The material must be deposited with a
> characteristic "thumbprint" that can be identified
> with the appropriate sensors but cannot be
> duplicated,
The end. Anything can be duplicated. And they have money.
> i.e., it cannot be swept up and spread over a freshly
> planted bomb.
>
> This method wouldn't reveal the old bombs but it
> would make it easy to spot where a roadbed was
> recently dug up.
It would also be really easy to disturb it over large areas, so you
*still* had no idea where the bomb is.
David A. Smith
Bret Cahill
> > dusted onto road beds that can only be disturbed
> > by digging and not by vehicle traffic.
> or sand storms. or intense sunlight. and is not toxic.
It doesn't necessarily have to last forever. It could be reapplied
every few months.
> > The material must be deposited with a
> > characteristic "thumbprint" that can be identified
> > with the appropriate sensors but cannot be
> > duplicated,
> The end. Anything can be duplicated.
Not easily if it was encoded and had some kind of decay or other
timer.
> And they have money.
DARPA is going to spend the next 6 months brainstorming a solution.
> > i.e., it cannot be swept up and spread over a freshly
> > planted bomb.
> > This method wouldn't reveal the old bombs but it
> > would make it easy to spot where a roadbed was
> > recently dug up.
> It would also be really easy to disturb it over large areas,
Not if the exact taggent or code was difficult to counterfeit or
obtain.
The designer has complete control of the material and any sensors to
identify the material and how the material would be applied.
It would be hard to manually replicate, say, a wavy shape from the
nozzle of a fast moving drown.
Bret Cahill
jmfbahciv
moving.
/BAH
dlzc
On Nov 12, 10:23 pm, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@aol.com> wrote:
...
> > > i.e., it cannot be swept up and spread over a freshly
> > > planted bomb.
> > > This method wouldn't reveal the old bombs but it
> > > would make it easy to spot where a roadbed was
> > > recently dug up.
>
> > It would also be really easy to disturb it over large
> > areas,
>
> Not if the exact taggent or code was difficult to
> counterfeit or obtain.
No, I mean, after you plant a bomb, you drive up and down that road
for a mile each way, disturbing the surface (say dragging rakes, or
dumping sand). That way "you" have to avoid that 2 mile stretch of
road.
...
> It would be hard to manually replicate, say, a wavy
> shape from the nozzle of a fast moving drown.
You don't have to duplicate it, just wipe the pattern out over large
areas. Then do it randomly too, just for "grins".
James Bond's single-hair-across-the-closet-door trick is only so good.
David A. Smith
Bret Cahill
> > > > planted bomb.
> > > > This method wouldn't reveal the old bombs but it
> > > > would make it easy to spot where a roadbed was
> > > > recently dug up.
> > > It would also be really easy to disturb it over large
> > > areas,
> > Not if the exact taggent or code was difficult to
> > counterfeit or obtain.
> No, I mean, after you plant a bomb, you drive up and down that road
> for a mile each way, disturbing the surface (say dragging rakes, or
> dumping sand). That way "you" have to avoid that 2 mile stretch of
> road.
Two miles cross country doesn't seem like such an inconvenience. In a
pass call out a mine sweeper.
Moreover, the material, preferably bio degradable, could be designed
to seep several inches below the surface of soil or a dirt road.
Then they would need earth moving equipment which sticks out like a
sore thumb on IR. Warn everyone that a clearance is required to bring
a dozer near a road. After a few air strikes on 'dozers they would be
forced to scrape down the roads by hand.
The more time they spend scraping down roads the less time they have
to set road side bombs.
> > It would be hard to manually replicate, say, a wavy
> > shape from the nozzle of a fast moving drown.
> You don't have to duplicate it, just wipe the pattern out over large
> areas.
"Large areas" = large amounts of time.
A little effort on our part results in a big waste of time on their
part.
> Then do it randomly too, just for "grins".
That works both ways.
If special sensors are required to detect it, we could send drones
dropping sand or spraying water to tie up their time.
With very little effort we could force them to sweep the entire
country.
Or give up on roadside bombs.
> James Bond's single-hair-across-the-closet-door trick is only so good.
There are a lot of effects in forensic science that are more
interesting than anything in any movie.
Some physicists claim it is impossible to destroy information.
Supposedly ants find their way back by following some chemical they
deposit on their trails. One picogram will do thousands of miles.
A lock in amplifier can glean a signal out of noise 6 orders of
magnitude higher amplitude.
Like ants or lock-in signal processing, the designer has complete
control over all the "evidence" and is better situated than any crime
investigator.
Any relatively cheap material that can be altered to show up on a
sensor can be used.
Like I said, DARPA will be brainstorming this for the next 6 months.
This is just a start.
Bret Cahill
alie...@gmail.com
> The mililary needs some material that can be crop dusted onto road
> beds that can only be disturbed by digging and not by vehicle traffic.
Ordinary traffic performs a certain amount of "gardening" on a dirt
road, meaning some of the taggant _will_ be mixed into the roadbed
material. How deeply depends on the exact nature of the material (sand/
clay/organic dirt, salts, concrete, asphalt, etc.) the kind and degree
of traffic, the weather _and_ climate, and so on.
Worst case you get washboarding which requires periodic repair,
meaning deeper penetration by the taggant. It will however be more
evenly distributed than the sort of localized dugskullery you're
talking about.
Hence the sort of disturbance due to traffic will be easily
differentiable from that due to digging.
> The material must be deposited with a characteristic "thumbprint" that
> can be identified with the appropriate sensors but cannot be
> duplicated, i.e., it cannot be swept up and spread over a freshly
> planted bomb.
>
> This method wouldn't reveal the old bombs but it would make it easy to
> spot where a roadbed was recently dug up.
Just off the top of my head, how about microscopic polymer chips
like those used in dynamite. Rather than the complex layering used to
indicate batch numbers etc. it would be infused infused with an
additive which, when exposed to UV, fluoresces in the IR, not the
visible. If laid down by ground vehicle or say Predator or other drone
during low traffic periods it would have a fairly even characteristic
distribution, and any disturbance will be immediately visible by
inspection by personnel wearing IR goggles during the day, and at
night with IR goggles and the assistance of a UV lamp. Inspection
could also be done by suitably-equipped drones of course.
Attempts to "sweep up" and use the dust to cover new bombs will not
replicate the dust distribution as laid down originally.
Mark L. Fergerson
Bret Cahill
If the area just above the bomb was differentiable from the rest of
the swept / scraped area the off road detours could be greatly
shortened or eliminated altogether.
The military has unmanned mine sweeping vehicles but they may be in
short supply.
The material could be distributed after a road was cleared of mines,
thereby reducing unnecessary use of the mine sweepers.
Bret Cahill
Uncle Al
>
> On Nov 12, 5:28 pm, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@aol.com> wrote:
> > The mililary needs some material that can be crop dusted onto road
> > beds that can only be disturbed by digging and not by vehicle traffic.
Emplace dense minefields under the road and to both sides. Allied
vehicles dynamically inert the mines with a short-range rolling
encrypted digital signal. Everybody else enjoys virgins FOB allah
("Santized For Your Protection")
--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz4.htm
alien8er
That's the idea; the dusting process will produce a specific even
pattern, and digging will create an obvious "bulls-eye" disturbance in
that pattern.
If that isn't specific enough, how about this: there are several
different types of explosive detectors that rely on chemical reactions
with stuff that evaporates off the explosive. Infusing the dust with
such reactants tailored to alter their IR reflectance or do a
fluorescence trick as I suggested above would provide such
differentiation, as long as the reaction was specific to explosives
and not likely to give false-positives due to say fuel spills.
The evaporants will take a little while to diffuse through the sandy
soil, so it would even reveal bombs buried before the dusting, though
testing should obviously be done to determine the half-life of
usefully detectable concentrations of the evaporants and like that.
> The military has unmanned mine sweeping vehicles but they may be in
> short supply.
Hence my suggestion of IR goggles; pretty much every squad has them.
Ruggedized UV floodlamps not so much, but such things exist on the
civilian market and should be relatively easy to procure and
distribute.
> The material could be distributed after a road was cleared of mines,
> thereby reducing unnecessary use of the mine sweepers.
If such techniques were used full time on _every_ road the
availability of sweepers would matter less.
Mark L. Fergerson
Bret Cahill
> > > beds that can only be disturbed by digging and not by vehicle traffic.
>
> [snip]
>
> Emplace dense minefields under the road and to both sides.
Scattered about. It would be impossible to mine all the roads.
> Allied
> vehicles dynamically inert the mines with a short-range rolling
> encrypted digital signal.
It wouldn't be too bad an idea if civilians didn't get blown up.
Bret Cahill
Benj
> You don't have to duplicate it, just wipe the pattern out over large
> areas. Then do it randomly too, just for "grins".
>
> James Bond's single-hair-across-the-closet-door trick is only so good.
>
> David A. Smith
Hey, since these guys often plant bombs several times in the same
stretch of road, I can't believe that satellites or drones can't spot
a couple of guys digging a huge hole in the roadbed. I mean if they
used the same priority that they used to develop software for
recognizing a single person at a football game, to recognize bomb
planters digging a hole, maybe there'd be some progress.
Uncle Al
idiot
US telemetry cannot locate hundreds of square miles of brightly
colored Afghani poppy fields even while soldiers are slogging through
them. How would us telemetry detect and locate a bomb and its
excavation the size of a washer-dryer?
Here a hint, git - championship wrestling is choreographed.
Bret Cahill
> > areas. Then do it randomly too, just for "grins".
>
> > James Bond's single-hair-across-the-closet-door trick is only so good.
>
> > David A. Smith
>
> Hey, since these guys often plant bombs several times in the same
> stretch of road, I can't believe that satellites or drones can't spot
> a couple of guys digging a huge hole in the roadbed.
It doesn't take all night to plant a few bombs.
The right material, however, might be highly visible at night with the
right sensors.
> I mean if they
> used the same priority that they used to develop software for
> recognizing a single person at a football game, to recognize bomb
> planters digging a hole, maybe there'd be some progress.
DoD will be brainstorming -- I almost wrote "barnstorming" --
solutions for 6 months.
They ought to offer $20,000 for the best general idea.
Nowadays everyone has to be oriented toward saving lives, having a low
carbon footprint, etc.
Bret Cahill
dlzc
On Nov 16, 12:51 pm, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@aol.com> wrote:
...
> Nowadays everyone has to be oriented toward
> saving lives,
Bring the troops home. Or build roads, as they so desperately need.
It is a lot harder to mine blacktop or concrete... The Afganhis have
had plenty of occupiers, but not too many that show them
"civilization", as role models.
> having a low carbon footprint,
"Saving lives" and "low carbon footprint" are mutually exclusive.
> etc.
David A. Smith
Bret Cahill
> > saving lives,
> Bring the troops home. Or build roads, as they so desperately need.
> It is a lot harder to mine blacktop or concrete... The Afganhis have
> had plenty of occupiers, but not too many that show them
> "civilization", as role models.
Supposedly when Brits invaded in the 19th Century an English officer
bragged to the local khan, we took the country without firing a single
shot.
The khan was quiet for a moment then answered, you got in here, now
how are you going to get out?
A painting of an English soldier draped over a horse leaving -- the
worst defeat ever for the English -- is in a museum somewhere.
> > having a low carbon footprint,
>
> "Saving lives" and "low carbon footprint" are mutually exclusive.
Most economists agree that reducing CO2 would be better for the
economy.
Bret Cahill
PinstripeSniper
>DoD will be brainstorming -- I almost wrote "barnstorming" --
>solutions for 6 months.
>They ought to offer $20,000 for the best general idea.
When you first mentioned DARPA, I thought they were having yet another
challenge with a monetary prize like the famous autonomous vehicle
one. This thread has been an interesting portrayal of contrasts,
some very experienced, intelligent posters outlining why it can't work
and some very experienced, intelligent posters looking inside the ox.
<wink>
PsS
A fictional account of how to drastically reform the financial world...
More at http://PinstripeSniper.blogspot.com and if that gets banned, check
www.PinstripeSniper.com
jmfbahciv
However, your enemy has no goal to save lives.
>having a low
> carbon footprint, etc.
Which is the current PC fad.
/BAH
jmfbahciv
> Dear Bret Cahill:
>
> On Nov 16, 12:51 pm, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@aol.com> wrote:
> ...
>> Nowadays everyone has to be oriented toward
>> saving lives,
>
> Bring the troops home. Or build roads, as they so desperately need.
> It is a lot harder to mine blacktop or concrete... The Afganhis have
> had plenty of occupiers, but not too many that show them
> "civilization", as role models.
Sigh! They don't need role models. A lot of them already know
how to get work done. The middle class, who had fled, were
returning to work and live in their home country.
>
>> having a low carbon footprint,
>
> "Saving lives" and "low carbon footprint" are mutually exclusive.
Be kind to the thinking challenged; they've been listening to too
many Democrats who are suffer from cognitive dissonance....all
the time.
/BAH
dlzc
On Nov 16, 7:15 pm, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@aol.com> wrote:
> > > Nowadays everyone has to be oriented toward
> > > saving lives,
>
> > Bring the troops home. Or build roads, as they so
> > desperately need. It is a lot harder to mine blacktop
> > or concrete... The Afganhis have had plenty of
> > occupiers, but not too many that show them
> > "civilization", as role models.
>
> Supposedly when Brits invaded in the 19th Century
> an English officer bragged to the local khan, we took
> the country without firing a single shot.
>
> The khan was quiet for a moment then answered,
> you got in here, now how are you going to get out?
>
> A painting of an English soldier draped over a horse
> leaving -- the worst defeat ever for the English -- is
> in a museum somewhere.
And the US learned at their knee, both in how to stick their nose in
others' business, and how to diddle rather than turn the opponent into
glass. But I suppose if Russia would / could not do it, then we
should also show "restraint".
We tried to leave the rest of the world alone. We'd send cash and
food to whom we thought was "right". And their opponents decided we
should be more involved. Now we can't seem to stop...
> > > having a low carbon footprint,
>
> > "Saving lives" and "low carbon footprint" are
> > mutually exclusive.
>
> Most economists agree that reducing CO2 would
> be better for the economy.
If you think that low-paid / slave labor, fewer / no machine tools,
and power from draft animals is "better", I suppose so. All really
green, with zero carbon footprint. There are steps in between, but
metals and solar panels are large investments of fossil fuels.
David A. Smith
Bret Cahill
That's the reason for the taggant. To prevent the enemy from reaching
his goals.
Bret Cahill
Bret Cahill
> > be better for the economy.
> If you think that low-paid / slave labor, fewer / no machine tools,
> and power from draft animals is "better", I suppose so. All really
> green, with zero carbon footprint.
Just going back in time is guaranteed not to work.
> There are steps in between, but
> metals and solar panels are large investments of fossil fuels.
In the short term peak oil will be a bigger factor. Buffet bet the
ranch on BNSF because he is certain the price of oil will soar.
Buffet is planning on hauling a lot of coal.
Bret Cahill
Bret Cahill
> >solutions for 6 months.
> >They ought to offer $20,000 for the best general idea.
>
> When you first mentioned DARPA, I thought they were having yet another
> challenge with a monetary prize like the famous autonomous vehicle
> one.
They may be doing that here. If not then write your congressman and
senators and tell them to offer something.
I'm not a materials scientist or chemist so my only role here is as a
muse.
Maybe when DARPA starts offering something to muses I'll get
something . . .
> This thread has been an interesting portrayal of contrasts,
> some very experienced, intelligent posters outlining why it can't work
> and some very experienced, intelligent posters looking inside the ox.
One thing is 100% certain: If you don't try, it ain't gonna happen.
Bret Cahill
Bret Cahill
glass, maybe a special shattered tempered glass. Polarized Mylar
flakes would be another cheap material.
One type would for visible light so the locals can safely use the
roads with cheap polarized glasses.
Another type would only polarize light that is outside of the UV -
visible - IR spectrum and require a special sensor to see the material
on a laptop. The sensor would have to be reset every week or so at
the base or it would stop being functional.
But even if they got the sensor they would need the material as well
as a way to spread it in a similar matter.
Bret Cahill
Bret Cahill
A method to identify the location of roadbed excavations and other
activity especially the planting of bombs comprising the following
steps:
(a) distributing an identifiable material in a uniform fashion on and
near a road bed;
(b) using a sensor to identify disruptions of said material;
Bret Cahill
> > Bret Cahill- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -