Handyman Building Cruise Missile In His Garage

from the buy-everything-you-need-on-eBay dept

Tue, Jun 3rd 2003 2:19am — Mike Masnick

A self-described "handyman" in New Zealand claims that he is building a fully functional cruise missile in his garage and is posting the instructions on how for any other DIY-types who wish to be visited by local authorities for building their own weapons of mass destruction. He claims he bought all the parts online for less than $5,000. Of course, he says the reason he is doing this is to bring attention to just how easy it is. The article has the standard quotes from law enforcement saying they're "looking into this" and from the overly worried types who complain that this may inadvertently help terrorists. Also, the guy claims that he'll only release some of the details to those willing to pay him a fee - so you could easily argue that this might just be a big scam by this guy to get some cash out of people.

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7 Comments

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ausmouse, 3 Jun 2003 @ 3:03am

Handyman Building Cruise Missile In His Garage - b
actually the guy is a website builder & has a very good daily blog like site with news links. he has also spent several years & most of his savings building a pulse jet engine (to the point of selling his own house). he has been very open in regards to his engine and has been looking for investors/vc's to commercialise it. the newspaper article & your own writeup leans towards a beatup. cruise missile ? weapons of mass destruction ?? obligatory law enforcement quote 'may help terrorists'. give me a break. the guy is an inventor. he put a pulse jet engine on his go kart ! i think the real reason to include 'cruise missile' on his webpage is to get some publicity.

nb - found any of those wmd in iraq yet ? ;-)
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ausmouse, 3 Jun 2003 @ 3:06am

beatup #2
as to a scam, perhaps techdirt would like to give away its corp intel ? - no, ok, perhaps you need to eat too... :)
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Mike (profile), 3 Jun 2003 @ 8:43am

Re: Handyman Building Cruise Missile In His Garage
the newspaper article & your own writeup leans towards a beatup. cruise missile ? weapons of mass destruction ?? obligatory law enforcement quote 'may help terrorists'. give me a break. the guy is an inventor. he put a pulse jet engine on his go kart ! i think the real reason to include 'cruise missile' on his webpage is to get some publicity.

My own writeup was (a) based on the article and (b) very much tongue in cheek. Where the hell are those sarcasm HTML tags? Besides, if you read it again, I wasn't exactly being kind to the folks who were worried about the "helping terrorist" stuff.

But, thanks for the additional info on this guy. That's good to know.

as to a scam, perhaps techdirt would like to give away its corp intel ? - no, ok, perhaps you need to eat too... :)

Heh. There's a difference. We don't make a big claim about some secret information and then say... "ooh, but I'll charge you to get it." All I was saying was that when someone gets a lot of hype for a particular piece of info, but then says "I'll only tell you enough details to prove its real if you pay me..." alarm bells ring. It would be similar if I said "ooh, I've got top secret info on such-and-such a company, but I won't prove it until you pay me."

However, you suggest that the guy is very open with information, so that's good to know.
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Jeremiah, 3 Jun 2003 @ 2:15pm

No Subject Given
I find particular irony in the story seeing as how many of the U.S. military's aerial ordinance (most prominently, the Sidewinder missile) were developed in garages too.
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r.baker, 29 May 2006 @ 5:26pm

side columb
Hey you people, how about getting rid of the side
colomb (right hand side ) so that I can read the articles.
otherwise what the use of showing them.?????.
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Shawn, 9 Feb 2009 @ 5:25am

Missile
Hi! I like this report. It shows that if there is a will then there is a way. homes for sale Shawn
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Mike, 13 Aug 2009 @ 3:35pm

Is it to make a pont or for profit.
To me it appears that this handyman as he so calls himself is trying to make a profit right out of his garage. Is he really trying to bring light at how easy it is to build a missle? Hope he doesnt blow-up the block!
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