Mailbombs against nanotech-researchers

[cosmicalstorm]

Guess it was only a matter of time.

Anti-tech group claims Mexico bombs, praises Unabomber

MEXICO CITY — A radical group that opposes nanotechnology has has claimed responsibility for at least two bombing attacks on researchers in Mexico and it praises the “Unabomber,” whose mail-bombs killed three people and injured 23 in the United States.

A manifesto posted Tuesday on a radical website mentions at least five other Mexican researchers whose work it opposes, and lauded Theodore Kaczynski, who is serving a life sentence for bombs that targeted university professors and airline executives.

It was issued in the name of a group whose title could be translated as “Individuals Tending Toward the Savage.”

Mexico State prosecutors’ spokesman Sonia Davila said authorities are investigating the authenticity of the manifesto, but said its description of how the dynamite-stuffed pipe-bomb was constructed matched evidence found at the scene of a small explosion Monday at Monterrey Technological Institute’s campus in the State of Mexico, on the outskirts of the capital. Officials had not revealed details of the device that injured two professors.

The attacks caused some universities to take extra security precautions Wednesday. Officials at the campus hit by Monday’s bombing said that metal detectors would be used at access points, vehicles entering the campus would be inspected, dogs would be used to detect suspicious artifacts, visitors would have to have an escort while on campus and student or faculty IDs would be required to enter the campus.

A police bomb squad removed a suspicious package left Tuesday at a Mexico City research institute, but an institute spokeswoman later told local media the package simply contained books.

Nanomaterials are made of extremely tiny particles, some thousands of times finer than a human hair, which have come increasingly into use in recent years, often in products such as skin care and cosmetics. Consumer advocates and others have raised questions about potential risks from these materials.

The manifesto expressed fears that that nanoparticles could reproduce uncontrollably and form a “gray goo” that would snuff out life on Earth.

“When these modified viruses affect the way we live through a nano-bacteriological war, unleashed by some laboratory error or by the explosion of nano-pollution that affects the air, food, water, transport, in short the entire world, then all of those who defend nanotechnology and don’t think it is a threat will realize that it was a grave error to let it grow out of control,” according to statement.

The manifesto said Monday’s bomb was directed at professor Armando Herrera Corral, who is listed on the university’s web site as a specialist in information technology. But the group also expressed satisfaction that professor Alejandro Aceves Lopez, an expert in robotics technology, was also injured in the Monday blast. Prosecutors say Herrera Corral brought the package to his colleague’s cubicle to show it to him, when it exploded.

The university said both professors are recovering from their injuries.

The statement also claimed responsibility for attacks at another university in April and May against professor Oscar Camacho, listed by Mexico’s National Polytechnical Institute as a specialist in micro-electro-mechanical systems.

The statement said a maintenance worker’s “police impulses” to inspect the package triggered the bomb sent in May, causing minor injuries to the worker, not Camacho.

The federal Attorney General’s Office described the attackers as an anarchist group and recommended universities step up security measures.

Jorge Lofredo, an Argentine expert on regional armed movements, noted that the group appears to be relatively new. He said that most anarchist groups avoid violent acts, and noted that previous Mexico City blasts blamed on anarchists were small and sought to avoid causing injuries.

Several Mexico City bank offices have been hit in recent years by small bombs made from hand-held butane gas canisters that have blown out windows without causing injuries. Messages left at the scene of some of those blasts have referred to small leftist or animal rights groups.

Mexico City chief prosecutor Miguel Mancera has described the blasts as the work of “some youth protest group.” While the new manifesto was posted on a site that published radical animal-rights tracts, there was no immediate indication of other links to animal rights in the university blasts.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/ame ... story.html

[Broomstick]

I miss the days when the Luddites were content to throw their shoes into the weaving looms.

I mean, geez, it's not like Mexico doesn't have problems already, they don't need a new version of the Unabomber on top of all that.

[Skgoa]

While I agree with you, Broomie, I think the original Saboteurs had a rational economic reason for what they did.

[Zixinus]

This isn't Luddism, or at least not the kind that it was meant to be. Luddism, at least as far as I understand it in its original context in England, had a reason behind it: tremendous deal of hand-workers finding out that they will become obsolete and very jobless. Luddism does things out of concern for people.

This is simply terrorism from very, very stupid people. Seriously, they are afraid of grey goo. Not the nanotechnology-in-cosmetics being a health hazard, just grey goo (according to the quote anyway).

[KhorneFlakes]

Oh look, more idiots who can't read properly! Nanotechnology does not imply world-eating wanktech robots.

I hope that they don't actually manage to convince people to share (or, rather be indoctinated by) their worldview.

There's enough of that crap already.

[Broomstick]

While I agree with you, Broomie, I think the original Saboteurs had a rational economic reason for what they did.

Well, yes - their fears had some basis in fact, and they hurt machines, not human beings. As I said, I miss those days...

[K. A. Pital]

This is definetely neo-Luddism. Not the old kind of Luddism, but a new kind, rooted in hatred of scientific progress and paleoconservatism.

[Starglider]

This is definetely neo-Luddism. Not the old kind of Luddism, but a new kind, rooted in hatred of scientific progress and paleoconservatism.

Maybe, but could just be the usual story of hate-filled sociopaths latching onto an ideology that lets them think of themselves as heroes rather than murderers. This is fairly specific self-serving fearmongering, similar to anti-nuclear extremists, it isn't as broad as the build-nothing-anywhere environuts never mind the real anti-civilisation anarchists.

That said there are multiple very real extinction-level risks with nanotechnology, but I cannot think of any case in the whole of human history where violent extremists prevented or even significantly slowed the development of new technology. There have been cases of popular mass movements slowing deployment of technology via popular protests, e.g. the abovementioned anti-nuclear movement, but even there they haven't really impacted the underlying science (e.g. attempts to stop the LHC going online were a miserable failure).

[K. A. Pital]

Nuclear weapons and advanced bioweapons also posed an extinction (or at least civilizational collapse) risk - via nuclear war or pandemia. I don't think nanotech makes it sufficiently greater.

[Starglider]

Nuclear weapons and advanced bioweapons also posed an extinction (or at least civilizational collapse) risk - via nuclear war or pandemia. I don't think nanotech makes it sufficiently greater.

Nuclear weapons in the quanitites we currently have available (or are likely to build) do not pose an existential threat to the human species. Bioweapons do, although it is very difficult to ensure both 100% effectiveness and 100% transmission to all humans on earth; effective use of non-human carriers would probably be needed. Self-replicating nanotechnology has greater extinction potential because it can (in theory) both outcompete natural microorgranisms (in enough niches to allow truly global spread and indefinite persistence without human carriers) and be a highly effective pathogen (enough that the immunity rate is literally zero). While relatively few people want to make a doomsday device, the ability to program such artificial pathogens to attack specific racial groups and/or geographic areas makes them quite attractive as a strategic weapon, and of course one can go from the later to the former with either enough human error or theft and tampering. Less genocidal military and even commercial applications will still have the potential to do massive environmental damage.

Self replication (of non-trivial structures and outside of laboratory conditions) is a fair way off from practical realisation though, and of course the this kind of risk can only be controlled by treaties, regulation, certification (of labs and researchers), inspection and peer review. Random idiots blowing things up never helps.

[Starglider]

Self replication (of non-trivial structures and outside of laboratory conditions) is a fair way off from practical realisation though

That said, with the number of ludicrously sensationalist articles like this around, I'm not surprised someone could conclude otherwise.