Boston bomb scare

It’s been a couple weeks since the Boston bomb scare. I’m staggered by the fact that nobody seems to be upset with Boston. They did a poor job assessing a threat. The idea that any kind of electronics not branded with the logo of a major consumer electronics company is an I.E.D. is an unworkable policy for assessing threats.

You won’t find the needle in the haystack by making the haystack bigger. They’ve got to eliminate false positives and shrink the haystack. They need a procedure for scoring I.E.D. threats. Does it have some kind of antenna for remote detonation? What is the power source for detonation? Does it have a timer circuit for timed detonation? Are there explosives attached? Was the device concealed? (Presumably you want to hide your bomb so its not discovered prematurely) These details should be simple to assess either up close by someone, or by having a robot/remote controlled camera observe the device.

Heck if you can create a robot that follows sunlight or radio waves, why not make one that follows bomb scents (like bomb sniffing dogs)? They don’t even have to be very sophisticated. You can use Ant Colony Optimization techniques to create swarms to sniff out bombs. I’m getting into science fiction here but I can imagine a day when large cities create swarms to roam the city looking for threats. Each robot would report back periodically through the municipal wifi network.