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Comment by UnoriginalGuy | Hacker News Reader

North Korea, Al Qaeda, racists, or something else?

I honestly think anyone could claim responsibility but given the high explosives and the seemingly professional nature of the attack I'm guessing either NK, AQ, or a false-flag to start a war on the Korean peninsula.

edit: Nice downvotes? We cannot speculate who?

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It is waaaaay too early to be speculating who's behind it. Nobody knows any details, early reports from the scene of a terrible event like this are frequently confused and contradictory. Speculation at this moment is just firing shots in the dark.

I suppose you're right. Just strange, things have been so quiet for so long. The US is leaving Afghanistan, Iraq - apart from some sectarian violence has been quiet, and now this?

My mind just goes back to NK. With the heightened tensions and such... Seems too convenient.

It's not productive to speculate as to who is responsible. It could be anyone, or it could be a complete accident (gas leak?). Pointing blame before even the most basic facts are known is really, really poor.

A double gas leak? Without subsequent fire? Just boom and it is gone? I don't think so. This was a bombing.

Nobody is pointing "blame." But we can discuss who the likely suspects would be.

There exist other material that go boom beyond gas. Just to take a random pick, maybe a truck with industrial chemicals was parked near. The majority of goes boom but a chunk get thrown away and just later goes boom too. Double explosion, but no detonated explosives.

Not saying its likely, but we really should start listing on what police say first before jumping directly to bombs.

The police think it is explosives. Or at least that is exclusively what is being discussed via scanners.

At this point things seem to be pointing towards bombs. Police have reportedly recovered 2 or 3 undetonated devices (and set off a controlled explosion for one of them [1]). No news of who or why though.

[1] https://mobile.twitter.com/BostonDotCom/status/3238868777467...

Perhaps they will soon conveniently find a passport

Random person with mental problems? Like all of the other shootings, stabbings, etc that have occurred in the last 10 years.

But it is so professional. Two explosions, within seconds of each other. And these were decently powerful too considering they had to be small enough to hide in the crowds.

You might be right, but something about this just makes me thing /organised./

Presumably if it was some organized group we'll find out when they take credit for it. At this point we don't even know for sure if there were bombs involved -- we know there were explosions, but an explosion can happen for reasons other than a bomb going off.

Again, all speculating does at this point is ramp up fear and anxiety, which doesn't help anybody.

The precision doesn't rule out a lone perpetrator. Just because someone is "crazy" in the sense that they'd do something like this, it doesn't mean they lack the ability to make intricate plans.

Agreed. Crazy is just a dismissive term. Perfectly sane people can do things like murder other people - we have tons of them walking around today but we call them Veterans. Crazy, in this sense, should probably be replaced by societally dysfunctional.

Casualty count seems low for something "professional" I would have thought - though certainly I'm no expert.

What sort of casualty counts did IRA bombings have in London?

Quite a few had bigger casualty lists, and many were more specifically aimed at political targets rather than large numbers of public, but fair point that a bunch were very similar or worse-done.

Two points I would make about the comparison though, firstly the IRA campaign was very much one of fear more than one of death - deaths were an added bonus. Of course maybe that's the case in Boston as well, but it's too early to know right now. Secondly, the word used was "professional" - were the IRA professional? I guess in the context of terrorist attacks, that's probably not really a relevant term.

Actually, the IRA typically issued warnings beforehand -- soon enough to evacuate, but too late to find the bomb. I've heard it described as a calculation to minimize civilian deaths that might stiffen British resolve.

The best description I have seen is here: http://exiledonline.com/wn-38-ira-vs-al-qaeda-i-was-wrong/

The IRA had structure, with ranks. They had a political wing. They had funding and training and available weapons. They had PR and issued coded warnings and press releases.

Compare that to the London Nail Bomber (who killed three, and maimed many more) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Copeland) who operated alone and got no funding from others.

Not sure how it seems professional. Compare it to the London bus bombings or Madrid, and it seems much more haphazard. For one thing, had it happened about two hours before, there was a much larger national / international audience when the winners were finishing.

No they tend to use guns or knifes (or in one case, bow and arrow) because they want to be up and close with the victims.

Bombs fit either muslims or crazy homegrown terroists, but those tend to put their bombs in cars, (and you can't park a car there) so my guess is muslims.

There have only been 3 major terror bombings in US history where cars have been used. One was the original WTC bombing. The other two were OK City and Bath School, back in 1927. There were a couple minor car bombs.

Most other domestic US bombers of all stripes used pipe bombs or suitcase bombs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States

Speculation is pointless when you don't have any element to work with.

North Korea hasn't ever done anything like this so it's truly out of line to begin speculating that it's a "false-flag to start a war on the Korean peninsula" - way to blame the victim

I listed a lot of possibilities. You ignored almost all of them.

Are you just trying to start an argument?

North Korea does lot of evil and insane stuff and I'm quite a fan of conspiracy theories, but this just make no sense.

What is a terrorist attack? Cynically speaking a huge PR coup. A terrorist attack without a confession and a statement makes only sense if it is clear who was it and why they did it. Since the last thing is not given I'm expecting something like this anytime soon. Before there a narrative has formed. But what should NK "promote"?

But for NK this makes no sense. It would be suicide of the hole state. A false flag makes little sense since this is just too absurd to believe.

Your comment is showing up in a very faint grey on my screen, whereas everyone else's is black. Why is that?

Downvotes turn comments grey. More downvotes turn comments lighter and lighter and lighter.

The comment you replied to has been heavily downvoted.

EDIT: The karma thresh hold for downvotes is currently 500. Or maybe 750?

You learn something new every day. I didn't even know there was a downvote threshold!

His comment has been downvoted a lot.

How would a pipe bomb at the Boston Marathon conceivably start a war with North Korea? Wtf.

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