No, I'd think the guys into sex slavery and organ theft are probably more "evil". This guy is more like an opportunistic sociopath. That seems more like the norm with this war...

and probably the guys selling the bombs his device doesn't detect are more evil, too. although it might be more difficult to blame it on one person in that case.

A lot of those bombs are hacked together by the user himself.

That kind of opportunistic behaviour reminds me of Milo Minderbinder. I wonder if they've found any Egyptian cotton in those "detectors"...

Sorry, to disappoint but this is standard within the military-industrial complex. If you have dealt much with DoD and their contractors, you would notice a lot of waste and a lot of scamming going on.

There was a story a while ago about some contractor in Afghanistan charging the military $100 for a 15 pound load of laundry. That happens because the guys at the Pentagon are the same guys running the defense contracting companies.

while it doesnt take anything away from how terrible selling these things was, since this story came around I have been incredibly confused at how someone spent £60million and wasnt absolutely certain they worked.

Occam's razor says that this is essentially embezzling reconstruction funds. You pay me a buck of Uncle Sam's money for your dowsing rod, I make sure 10 cents finds it way into your Swiss bank account, everyone is happy.

I propose a test for this guy.

Let's plant some live mines in a large field, and simply ask him to cross it a few times, using his little tech wonder detector.

I'll bet all my possessions that he will promptly refuse, on some 'atmospheric impossibility' or some other shit.

I was thinking more of a Schrodinger's cat like scenario. Lock him in a room with 10 bombs. Give him his device and tell him that 9 are filled with c4 and one with spaghetti noodles, well cooked. He will be released when he chooses the fake and presses the detonate button. (In reality, all will be filled with tasty pasta.)

How long will it take him to emerge?

How can we have a problem with this guy but are happy for "psychics" to play havoc with people's emotions in exchange for cash? It's the same thing.

The response has interesting echos to the US government's response to being hacked. It's the hackers fault! Not the fault of our security!

The fact remains as a purchaser you should be cautious about what you choose to buy. To blow millions on this guys stuff is utterly hilarious to buy it without expert approval is just dumb.

Makes me wonder if the military ever blew millions of dollars on x-ray specs or Charles Atlas's book but kept hush about it.

Who here is happy about "psychics" taking people's money? Certainly not me.

Much discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1070732

"The government has just banned the export of these devices to some countries on the grounds that they could put the lives of UK forces at risk, but they are still able to export to other countries."

Because "lives of UK forces" are at risk and only they needed to be protected by evil entrepreneur of UK. Evil what???

National security usurps the companies right to otherwise sell stuff that doesn't provably work. If only we could get UK forces to use homeopathy.

In other news the director of the company has been arrested for fraud so they are doing something.

How is this "Hacker News"? News of fraudsters doesn't help techies or founders do anything. Flagged.

"Stop government intervention in our lives! Let the invisible hand take care of this one!"

I suspect if there was no government intervention, "invisible hands" would take care of this guy soon enough.

Man, how on earth would you explain this[1] to your boss?

[1]http://www.ubergizmo.com/tags/ade-651

I don't think it would be too hard to explain that a pathetic little blog post somewhere on the Web falsely claims that you purchased 1,500 of these things.

that is is tremendous opportunity to solve this particular problem. Whoever does will make a lot of money, just that this goofball shouldn't hsve.

This just says that the guy who made those useless bomb sniffing toilet rod things made lots of cash.