The Network Security. Org

When agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms arrested convicted felon Michael Crooker on a charge of illegally shipping a firearm across state lines, they searched his apartment in the Feeding Hills neighborhood of Agawam, Mass. and found substances that gave them pause.

They called in military and civilian hazardous material units, and a bomb squad, and police closed off all areas within 1,000 feet. A story spread that investigators found the poison ricin in the apartment; in reality, they found castor beans, which have commercial uses but do contain ricin. They also found lye, which is used in ricin production, and rosary peas, which contain a toxin called abrin. In Crooker´s car they found powerful homemade fireworks, and they conducted a controlled explosion of at least one device.

That was almost two years ago. He´s now locked up at the state correctional facility in Suffield Connecticut, awaiting trial on a single charge of trying to ship an air-gun silencer to a man in Ohio. Hartford Advocate: Your computer is not secure.

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