Wednesday, April 17, 2013

FBI Has Recipe for Ricin on Website

FBI Has Recipe for Ricin on Website

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/fbi-has-encrypted-recipe-for-deadly-poison-ricin-on-website-a-894981-druck.html

 

By Rainer Leurs

 

The US Capitol was put on high alert after a letter to a senator was found

to contain the deadly poison ricin. Days later a German cryptology

enthusiast discovered something surprising: The FBI has lightly encrypted

instructions on how to make ricin on its website.

 

Star, arrow, rune, figure eight -- at first glance, it looks like nothing

more than a series of hieroglyphics strung together on the website of the

FBI, the federal investigating authority of the United States. But it's an

easy-to-follow recipe for the deadly poison ricin, handwritten in a code

that even laymen can decipher.

 

The text was published in March 2011 on the pages of the Cryptanalysis and

Racketeering Records Unit (CRRU). There it served as an example of the work

of the bureau's decoding experts. Curiously enough, no secret is made of the

document's contents. The photo is captioned: "Enciphered instructions for

making ricin poison found in the notebook of a lone bomber in Virginia."

 

"I of course assumed that the note was either not decipherable or didn't

contain the real recipe," says author and cryptology expert Klaus Schmeh. He

came across the surprising material and posted the code on his blog. "To my

surprise, two readers cracked the code and determined that it was a complete

recipe," he says.

 

Easy Enough for Laymen to Crack

 

The instructions do indeed describe how to produce the highly deadly

substance with little more than a few household appliances. "It's a very

crude method for the enrichment of proteins, generally speaking," explains

Wolfgang Kreis, professor for pharmaceutical biology at the University of

Erlangen. "It should work."

 

Ricin is contained in the seeds of the castor oil plant, and is considered

one of the most poisonous protein substances that appears in nature. In its

isolated form, it takes just one milligram to kill an adult person. The FBI

document wouldn't result in the deadliest form of ricin, but the end product

would still be extremely poisonous, according to a German chemical company.

 

What's even more surprising is that the encoded instructions on the FBI site

are not particularly hard to crack. "That's doable for the interested

layman," says Johannes Blömer, chairman of the codes and cryptography

working group at the University of Paderborn. "If the FBI doesn't want it to

be decoded, they shouldn't have put it up on their website. The algorithm

isn't that clever."

 

One of the readers of Klaus Schmeh's blog didn't need more than an hour to

finish decoding the text. He says he'd rather not give his name. "I think

it's definitely noteworthy that the FBI would publish this note, knowing

full well what it's about," he says.

 

No one from the FBI was immediately available for comment.

 

On Tuesday a letter sent to US Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi and

intercepted by authorities at a center handling the post for the Capitol in

Washington DC tested positive for ricin, sparking fears in Washington after

two bombs at the Boston Marathon killed three people. The FBI and the US

Capitol Police are investigating, and neither has drawn a connection between

the two incidents.

 

URL:

 

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/fbi-has-encrypted-recipe-for-deadl

y-poison-ricin-on-website-a-894981.html

 

Related SPIEGEL ONLINE links:

 

    Photo Gallery: FBI Has Encrypted Ricin Recipe on Website

    http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-95689.html

    World from Berlin: US Reaction to Boston Shows 'New Maturity'

(04/17/2013)

    http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,894852,00.html

    Photo Gallery: Boston Mourns Marathon Bombing Victims

    http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-95662.html

    Show of Solidarity: Europe Shocked by Boston Bombings (04/16/2013)

    http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,894612,00.html

 

 

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