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Comment by franciskim | Hacker News Reader

Look at the number of Wikipedia links, it's not like tlow is the only person on earth that knows about this.

Thank you. I am merely a curious character who happens to read; occasionally on esoteric matters.

I'm glad to discover that I'm not alone in that, "Hmmm, I wonder if my internet history has put me on all of the lists yet?" reading pattern. On Wikipedia especially, the fun is opening an endlessly nesting series of related topics. Sometimes that can get... weird.

Same here, it is unfortunate that we have to be worried about appearing on lists just for having a curious mind.

Researching chemcal weapons on wikipedia wont get you on any list. Asking people where you can buy the needed stuff, THAT is list worthy.

Anything on wikipedia was put there by someone. That someone is far more suspect than the readers. Material that is actually dangerous is quickly edited away. Unless you live somewhere properly dangerous or are already on a list. Such people should probably stay away from the internets all together as almost anything found online can be made to sound evil.

Would googling for sources suffice?

...I kind of hope so.

I used to worry about being "on a list" and then realized I wasn't okay with worrying about while considering myself a free person.

Every time I wonder if I might get in trouble for reading, clicking, or watching something I make sure to do it.

That is a great attitude, and it not only helps you (by being more knowledgeable and less worried about hypotheticals), but also the rest of us by reducing effectiveness on the profiling of those who read certain things - the same way that being a normal person that uses tor reduces the "use tor"="pedophile" fallacy (and substitute tor by end2end encryption, torrents, decentralised communication, or what have you).

So thank you!

Exactly! You can't give in to even the idea of restricting knowledge.

"Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world." - Louis Pasteur

I somewhat lost of my fear of this when in my late teens I became fascinated with these[1] and basically read everything I could find about them, including poking around LANL's website enough to spelunk a PDF of their paper about construction methods

This lead down a rabbit hole of reading about all of the types of military-grade explosives available & their yield and discussing creative scenarios to exploit EMP weapons with friends online.

Not on the no-fly list or any watch-lists (that I know of) yet.

[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosively_pumped_flux_compre...)

I guess there are people who haven't heard of VX nerve agents, but over here, most males have got a basic training in the army (we have conscription here). I was in service 30 years ago and VX was listed as one of the threats where you would use your gas mask, though it is not necessarily nearly enough, obviously. In addition to gas mask, the rain poncho (also known as "magic cloak") is for protecting against radioactive fallout as well as chemical agents (the nickname is to highlight the rather strong optimism in the idea that the rain poncho helps much).

We would train the use of gas masks with CS gas.

This was during our basic infantry training at the beginning of service, and I think it wasn't particularly new back in 1986.

CS gas is still in use for training. We didn't use ponchos, but full body suits and boots. Extremely hot and uncomfortable. I believe the suit was only good for 30 mins in harsh environments as well.

I mean, VX was the subject of The Rock, a 90s-era thriller with Nick Cage and Sean Connery. Maybe people didn't realize it was real, but the knowledge was already out there.

It's worth noting that VX was depicted in the film as a blistering agent as well, presumably for dramatic effect.

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