30 Jun
2004
30 Jun
'04
4:59 a.m.
At 02:13 PM 6/30/04 +0000, you wrote:
On Wed, 2004-06-30 at 13:53, Joe R. wrote:
Holy Cow! I didn't realize that this had hit the news. A friend of mine
sold some GPS gear to someone in NZ and has been vistied by the FBI about
it several times since then. They told him that the buyer was building a
cruise missile so it has to be the same guy. FWIW the GPS stuff that my
friend sold was nothing special. It was made for tracking delivery trucks
and such.
I picked up
some interesting looks parts out of a scrap pile a few weeks ago and
starting searching the net for information about them. The first thing that
I found was that they are on the restricted export list and are classified
as munitions (there goes E-bay)! They're actually quartz rate sensors
(QRS11) made by Systron Donner.
(<http://www.systron.com/pro_rate%20sensors.asp> for those that are
interested.) Basicly a solid state gyro-scope. The ironic thing is that the
Japanese are now building almost identical devices into some of their cars
to control skids.
Heh, that makes me think of:
http://www.interestingprojects.com/cruisemissile
and one of the news stories covering the shutdown of the project at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3302763.stm
With a bit of ingenuity I suppose it's surprising what can be done
whilst still technically operating within the law.
You'd be surprised how easy it to to run afoul of the law too! Especially
since 9/11. And with the "Patriot Act" you don't even have to break a law,
just do something that some bureaucrat doesn't like and you can be locked
up indefinitely without charges, a hearing or even access to a lawyer.
Count me as an EX-fireworks maker!
Joe
cheers
Jules