Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Element 14 Holding Orders Based On US Government Watch List

eevblog.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 79 posts

Re: Element 14 Holding Orders Based On US Government Watch List

#21

Post by badsock »

mindslight wrote: post #3

Of 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 mu…

I 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.

Re: Element 14 Holding Orders Based On US Government Watch List

#24

Post by davepage »

danpat wrote: post #9

Export 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/ ). 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…

OP is an Australian national buying parts locally in Sydney, Australia and getting a watch list flag purportedly from the US.

Seems to me the chicken has already flown the coop, and this sort of thing is purely belligerent and abusive behavior on the part of the US government (their specialty, e.g. FATCA).

Re: Element 14 Holding Orders Based On US Government Watch List

#25

Post by nraynaud »

anigbrowl wrote: post #14
mrbill wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 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.

Thank 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.

And 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.

Re: Element 14 Holding Orders Based On US Government Watch List

#27

Post by eaurouge »

danpat wrote: post #9

Export 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/ ). 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…

The interesting thing about McMaster's design is that they haven't changed much in the past decade that I've been buying from them. It's always looked like that!

Re: Element 14 Holding Orders Based On US Government Watch List

#28

Post by njharman »

fredgrott wrote: post #22

an 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..

Read up on Security Theater to find answer to question.

Re: Element 14 Holding Orders Based On US Government Watch List

#29

Post by [deleted] »

anigbrowl wrote: post #14
mrbill wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 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.

Thank 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.

[deleted]

Re: Element 14 Holding Orders Based On US Government Watch List

#30

Post by jamesaguilar »

mrbill wrote: post #5
TallGuyShort wrote: post #2

>>> (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 b…

A 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.

Apparently 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.
Post reply on HN