Authenticity of Ahmed's Clock

[dg93]

For those who aren't aware, about a week or so ago a 14 year old kid from a Texas High School was arrested for suspicion of bringing a possible explosive device to school that he claimed was a homemade clock he invented. Charges were later dropped when it was discovered that the device was not a bomb. Long story short, he gained media attention and public sympathy.... He also recived free gifts in the mail by Microsoft and an invite to the whitehouse.

But lately there has been some criticism of Ahmed Mohammad's so called homemade clock by people on the internet. I believe Richard Dawkins was one of the first people to get mainstream publicity (mostly negative publicity) for questioning if Ahmed really built the clock from scratch or if he simply took apart a standard commercial alarm clock and placed the contents into a metal pencil case.

Video explaining why the clock isn't homemade. This guy who has experience in circuitry gives a thorough analysis of why it's nothing more than the components taken out of the frame and placed into the pencil case.

Video demonstrating how easy it is to invent Ahmed's clock. You can literally do it in like 20 seconds.

So yeah, I don't believe this kid's clock is very authentic. Anybody here have any circuitry background? What are your thoughts?

[Jaxxoon R]

Well, it is a homemade in the sense he customized a clock at home. I guess it's sort of where do you draw the line between homemade and from scratch.

[Pure Hellspawn]

The authenticity of the clock in my opinion has absolutely nothing to do with the article. Even if he did rebuild an alarm clock for engineering practice, the story is about how this Muslim kid was arrested because everyone thought it was a bomb and was possibly discriminated against due to his background.


Even if he simply did take apart a standard alarm clock; well, we take apart and "build" our own computers as well. So I don't understand the significance of how the clock was actually made unless he was trying to sell it or use it in a competition which so far appears to have not happened yet.

[dg93]

Jaxxoon R said:

Well, it is a homemade in the sense he customized a clock at home. I guess it's sort of where do you draw the line between homemade and from scratch.

I think people think that he literally built something (meaning soldered components into a circuit board, assembled wires from scratch, etc...) which I don't believe he did at all. Everyone is making it sound like he is brilliant, when in fact just about anybody can do what he did, which is taking the inside components of an existing digital alarm clock and placing them into a metal case.

Pure Hellspawn said:

The authenticity of the clock in my opinion has absolutely nothing to do with the article. Even if he did rebuild an alarm clock for engineering practice, the story is about how this Muslim kid was arrested because everyone thought it was a bomb and was possibly discriminated against due to his background.

That CNN article is not the focus of the thread. It's just to show that he was invited to the Whitehouse.

We live in a world now that has a zero tolerance policy where if you bring something to school that looks suspicious, such as a metal case with wires and a digital interface, you will be reported regardless of race, religion, or ethnicity.

Pure Hellspawn said:

Even if he simply did take apart a standard alarm clock; well, we take apart and "build" our own computers as well. So I don't understand the significance of how the clock was actually made unless he was trying to sell it or use it in a competition which so far appears to have not happened yet.

He's being called brilliant for inventing a clock when in reality he did something that anyone with a low to high IQ can do. It's not an invention when you take apart an existing device and place it into a new frame (in this occurrence, it was a metal pencil case).

[kristus]

What Hellspawn said. Noone claimed the kid was a genius. Or that the clock was anything special in and of itself. So whatever shortcuts this 14 year old kid may have taken in building a clock in his own learning about technology and in building his own stuff is extremely irrelevant and only intended to sidestep the issue of the story.

the_miano said:

We live in a world now that has a zero tolerance policy where if you bring something to school that looks suspicious, such as a metal case with wires and a digital interface, you will be reported regardless of race, religion, or ethnicity.

Wow, that's such xenophobic bullshit that I can't even find words to respond to that in any meaningful way.

[dg93]

kristus said:

Wow, that's such xenophobic bullshit that I can't even find words to respond to that in any meaningful way.

"regardless of race, religion, or ethnicity" <---- That's xenophobic bullshit? Care to explain or can you still not find words to respond to that?

You want to try bringing this thing to an airport? I guarantee the TSA would not think twice of the possibility that it looks like a bomb through an x-ray scanner.

[dew]

What exactly is your point here? It's still not a bomb, there was still a massive repressive overreaction by the police even after everything was explained. I smell victim blaming and downplaying of racial profiling.

edit: spelink

[dg93]

dew said:

What exactly is your point here? It's still not a bomb, there was still a massive repressive overreaction by the police even after everything was explained. I smell victim blaming and downplaying racial profiling.

First point: The original point of the thread was to discuss whether or not the clock was really built from scratch by the kid, thus him being called an "inventor" all over the internet. There is evidence based on the videos provided in the original post that what he made was really nothing more than just removing the existing components of a clock and inserting it into a metal pencil case. That doesn't come across as inventing anything. It's not like he customized the device where lets say you open the case and the clock turns on, or the buzzer goes off. If he did that, than I would be pretty impressed and say he deserves to be called an inventor. I also said: "I don't believe this kid's clock is very authentic. Anybody here have any circuitry background? What are your thoughts?" asking if the two sources I provided were enough evidence to prove whether or not Ahmed really invented that clock.

Second point: Since there is evidence which indicates that Ahmed didn't invent the device, I don't get why he's receiving all the free gifts and praise from companies as if he truly did something that no other kid his age can do.

Kristus mentioned that my original post was sidestepping the issue of the story and accused what I said as "xenophobic bullshit" because I mentioned that schools these days have zero tolerance policies "where if you bring something to school that looks suspicious, such as a metal case with wires and a digital interface, you will be reported regardless of race, religion, or ethnicity." The school said that they have a bomb hoax policy and it had absolutely nothing to do with the student's skin color.

[kristus]

the_miano said:

"regardless of race, religion, or ethnicity" <---- That's xenophobic bullshit? Care to explain or can you still not find words to respond to that?

Yeah, that kind of lazy disclaimer is about as convincing as the ever classic "I'm not racist but" preamble.

the_miano said:

You want to try bringing this thing to an airport? I guarantee the TSA would not think twice of the possibility that it looks like a bomb through an x-ray scanner.

Well, they also don't think twice about the possibility that a bottle of shampoo is a bomb either. But I hardly see how that is relevant since I can't imagine why I or anyone would bring a homemade clock into an airport security control. And since no one did in the case being discussed, I don't even understand how you can come to bring up a scenario like that.
What I as someone who is a teacher that works in a school can perfectly see however, is how a young student can get the idea to bring his/hers creation to show their teacher in school. This being regardless of what quality you or anyone else on the internet may consider to be worthy.
But what I can't imagine, is how any teacher worth their salt can misconstrue a situation with one of their students to that degree.

[dg93]

kristus said:

Yeah, that kind of lazy disclaimer is about as convincing as the ever classic "I'm not racist but" preamble.

Oh fuck off with that shit. The school clearly said that they have a bomb hoax policy that is not limited to students with any particular skin color. Typical liberal response. Always assuming something is race related. Even Bill Maher thinks the device looks like a bomb. Anyone with half a brain has the common sense to know not to bring something that even remotely looks like a bomb to school. Oh look, looks like some white kids tried to bring a couple of clock-bombs to school and failed to detonate them. Where do you think schools got their zero-tolerance policy on bomb hoaxes from? So cut the shit with the racism accusations.

And for the record, the original topic of the thread was to discuss on whether or not the kid deserves to be called an inventor, which both you, Pure Hellspawn, and dew are derailing.

[Pure Hellspawn]

the_miano said:

First point: The original point of the thread was to discuss whether or not the clock was really built from scratch by the kid, thus him being called an "inventor" all over the internet. There is evidence based on the videos provided in the original post that what he made was really nothing more than just removing the existing components of a clock and inserting it into a metal pencil case. That doesn't come across as inventing anything. It's not like he customized the device where lets say you open the case and the clock turns on, or the buzzer goes off. If he did that, than I would be pretty impressed and say he deserves to be called an inventor. I also said: "I don't believe this kid's clock is very authentic. Anybody here have any circuitry background? What are your thoughts?" asking if the two sources I provided were enough evidence to prove whether or not Ahmed really invented that clock.

Second point: Since there is evidence which indicates that Ahmed didn't invent the device, I don't get why he's receiving all the free gifts and praise from companies as if he truly did something that no other kid his age can do.

Kristus mentioned that my original post was sidestepping the issue of the story and accused what I said as "xenophobic bullshit" because I mentioned that schools these days have zero tolerance policies "where if you bring something to school that looks suspicious, such as a metal case with wires and a digital interface, you will be reported regardless of race, religion, or ethnicity." The school said that they have a bomb hoax policy and it had absolutely nothing to do with the student's skin color.

The original story had absolutely nothing to do with whether the kid made the device, and quite frankly, why do people care if his clock was just reassembled? It had everything to do with the fact that he was arrested for bringing it into school when there was proof it wasn't a bomb.

If people want to call Ahmed a genius, then that's on them. But that has little to do with why he got invited to the White House or got the presents from Microsoft. Whether he made the clock or not is completely irrelevant.

Remember the story about Star Simpson back in 2007? She was an MIT student arrested for a shirt that scared someone at at info kiosk. The story wasn't about her being a genius or an MIT student. It was about the fact she was arrested just like Ahmed.

This story comes at a time where the GOP is having an issue where it's most popular politicians are espousing Islamophobic rhetoric and Anti-Muslim sentiment is relatively high. Here's a question to ask: If Ahmed were a white kid named Ryan Jones, would there have been any differences in this story? I'm not saying that the fact he was muslim caused the arrest, but I am bringing up the fact that it's a possibility or a contributing factor as to why he was arrested.


On another note: His sister ACTUALLY did get suspended for a bomb threat.

the_miano said:

And for the record, the original topic of the thread was to discuss on whether or not the kid deserves to be called an inventor, which both you, Pure Hellspawn, and dew are derailing.

And for the record, the original topic of the Ahmed Mohammed story had to with why he was arrested and not whether he was an inventor. Who freaking cares if he's an inventor? He's not selling anything, he's not making money, he's just a kid going to school. Please tell us what the purpose of debating the authenticity of the clock is. What will happen if it's found to be a mere reassembly? People reassemble crap all the time.

[dg93]

Pure Hellspawn said:

This story comes at a time where the GOP is having an issue where it's most popular politicians are espousing Islamophobic rhetoric and Anti-Muslim sentiment is relatively high. Here's a question to ask: If Ahmed were a white kid named Ryan Jones, would there have been any differences in this story? I'm not saying that the fact he was muslim caused the arrest, but I am bringing up the fact that it's a possibility or a contributing factor as to why he was arrested.


On another note: His sister ACTUALLY did get suspended for a bomb threat.

If Ahmed was a white kid named Ryan Jones, there would be no differences in the story regarding the disciplinary actions taken both by law enforcement and the school. The only difference would be, is there would be any media outrage, nobody crying racism, no special gifts from companies, and no invitation from the whitehouse. Oh look, white kid gets arrested for wearing NRA shirt in school. Looks like he was racially profiled for being a potential typical teenage white school shooter? hmmmmmm.... sounds like his arrest had a lot to do with the schools zero tolerance on guns. Who knows, maybe they thought he would also bring in some homemade clocks bombs too.

Pure Hellspawn said:

And for the record, the original topic of the Ahmed Mohammed story had to with why he was arrested and not whether he was an inventor. Who freaking cares if he's an inventor? He's not selling anything, he's not making money, he's just a kid going to school. Please tell us what the purpose of debating the authenticity of the clock is. What will happen if it's found to be a mere reassembly? People reassemble crap all the time.

Because I think it is ridiculous that he is being praised for halfassingly building a piece shit clock and calling it an invention. Why would anybody want to bring in a device to school that blatantly looks like a bomb? It sounds he built it as a publicity stunt. Nobody would ever bring in a device like that for no reason other than a science fair convention maybe. His sister claiming that she was suspend over a bomb hoax also raises a red flag that the kid might of had an intention to scare people with the device.

But whatever, this thread is derailed.

EDIT: Disregarding whether this kid's ethnicity or religion had invoked a gut-reaction from both parties, what this kid has done is technically illegal by Texas Law:

TEX PE. CODE ANN. § 46.08 : Texas Statutes - Section 46.08: HOAX BOMBS

(a) A person commits an offense if the person knowingly manufactures, sells, purchases, transports, or possesses a hoax bomb with intent to use the hoax bomb to:

(1) make another believe that the hoax bomb is an explosive or incendiary device; or

(2) cause alarm or reaction of any type by an official of a public safety agency or volunteer agency organized to deal with emergencies.

(b) An offense under this section is a Class A misdemeanor.

Added by Acts 1983, 68th Leg., p. 4831, ch. 852, Sec. 3, eff. Sept. 1, 1983. Renumbered from Penal Code Sec. 46.09 by Acts 1993, 73rd Leg., ch. 900, Sec. 1.01, eff. Sept. 1, 1994.

Ahmed's alarm clock device did go off which violated Texas's bomb hoax law.

Once the kid's intent for his homemade clock/hoax bomb was put to rest by authorities, he was promptly released without charge.

[darknation]

Ahmed's Clock is the new Schrodinger's Cat.

[Clonehunter]

This thread is all sorts of funny, at least.

[GreyGhost]

Ahmed's clock is no more an invention than the crystal radios I made when his age or younger.

the_miano said:

Even Bill Maher thinks the device looks like a bomb. Anyone with half a brain has the common sense to know not to bring something that even remotely looks like a bomb to school.

Going by the few photos I've seen, that device should be next to useless as a bomb unless there's a power point nearby to plug it into. While there is provision for battery backup, with a mains-powered clock that's usually intended to keep the clock chip ticking over but not power the display, apart from maybe the flashing colon.

[Tarnsman]

It's possible for all the parties involved to be at fault. It's not like one person being shitty automatically makes other people not be shitty. It's possible for whatever crazy theory you have about Ahmed to be right AND for a small town in fucking Texas to have some at the very least minor problems with "Islamophobia"

I do have a couple of questions though about the story.

1. Why the fuck would the kid think taking the contents out of a clock and sticking them in a box with no other work of his own, warranted showing that to his engineering teacher who did not give him an assignment to do anything of the sort?

2. More importantly why the fuck would he take it out in an unrelated class and plug it in unless he wanted it to be noticed?

3. Even if you freak out at the site of exposed electronics and immediately think "bomb". What fucking bomb has a power cord?

Oh and for the record there is no "I think he didn't build it", someone found the exact model by the circuit board stamp. http://blogs.artvoice.com/techvoice/2015/09/17/reverse-engineering-ahmed-mohameds-clock-and-ourselves/ he didn't build it.

[Quasar]

I don't think he deserves much credit for electronics but he does get an A+ in gaming the corrupt prejudiced system around him to gain renown and expose what a shithole society we've built up over the past few decades.

[Aliotroph?]

It's clear he didn't invent the clock. Just looking at the PCBs it's a case mod of a clock that's older than me (manually laid-out PCBs are rare these days).

Why'd he get presents from MS and invites from NASA scientists and the POTUS? Because encouraging kids to tinker with things - any things is a good idea. Also, he was treated like shit over basically nothing and the POTUS should feel bad about that.

I don't know if that school would have had a white kid arrested for the same thing. I don't even care. This has done an excellent job of highlighting how stupid that kind of zero-tolerance policy is. He wasn't acting like he intended to scare people or prank anybody, so why were cops called? How stupid are the teachers and administrators at this school? At the very least they're the ones who should be disciplined.

There is no sane justification for calling the cops because some idiot can't recognize the guts of an alarm clock in 2015. This goes back to people calling him an inventor. Why do they do that? Nobody can even tell how much of that clock he built himself! It's embarrassing to live in a society that relies so much on technology where almost nobody has any idea how it works.

[Doomkid]

Aliotroph? said:

It's embarrassing to live in a society that relies so much on technology where almost nobody has any idea how it works.

I absolutely agree. This is well represented by how functionality of a device has little to do with the revenue it generates, as long as it's "oooh shiny". The popularity of iPhones proves this, they were fucking beta stages products until about a year ago.

Generally speaking I'd be really embarrassed to be human if another intelligent species contacted or mingled with us in some fashion. "I swear, not all of us are like this!"

[Arctangent]

Doomkid said:

Generally speaking I'd be really embarrassed to be human if another intelligent species contacted or mingled with us in some fashion. "I swear, not all of us are like this!"

And then the alien looks at you funny, then goes back to gawking at the shiny, stimulating object.

[Doomkid]

-----

Wait a sec... Miano got banned from EE for posting this? Is this the way to deal with opposing opinions / anyone who's on the right rather than the left, just silence them? I'm definitely more left than right but let's get real for a sec - It's kinda absurd that he was banned for this thread. You'd really be stretching to find anything genuinely offensive about it.

Can't help but notice Kontra Kommando and Technician are also banned... If Doomworld isn't the place for political discussion, that's fine, but why ban people who have done very little (no) harm? Why not just hell the thread without putting down otherwise valuable members of the community?

As a friend of Miano's I ask on his behalf that this ban please not be permanent. I'm sure he will refrain from engaging in further political discussion, but there are many other not-so-serious threads he'd like to continue to be a part of.

I'm asking this publicly only because I think it's kind of unfair that we just ban the right wing from being allowed to talk.. Aren't we just reinforcing negative stereotypes about ourselves by doing that? I'd understand if these guys were just shit posters, but they aren't.. Miano actually contributes a lot to the Deathmatch community and we enjoy engaging in discussion about random things here on DW all the time.

Please consider my request.

[Gez]

the_miano said:

So yeah, I don't believe this kid's clock is very authentic. Anybody here have any circuitry background? What are your thoughts?

I don't care. He's a kid. So what if his clock was created by disassembling a clock he bought, then rebuilding it in a different way? That shows he had the skill to rebuild it. It worked, did it not?

[Quast]

dew said:

What exactly is your point here? It's still not a bomb

Well, yeah but it has scary and confusing looking wires running from a thing to a thing and a comically over sized alpha numeric display which all movie bombs have. Like in that one movie where the guy had to defuse the bomb and was like "which wire do I cut?" All while the easy to read display counted down numbers. Did you see that movie? It was frightening.

But that isn't even the issue at all, the real issue is that I know for 100% fact that this kid did not invent clocks or circuit boards or wires or heavy-duty carrying cases. In fact, he did not invent a great many things so this point really needs to be hammered home.

[Caffeine Freak]

Doomkid said:

Wait a sec... Miano got banned from EE for posting this? Is this the way to deal with opposing opinions / anyone who's on the right rather than the left, just silence them? I'm definitely more left than right but let's get real for a sec - It's kinda absurd that he was banned for this thread. You'd really be stretching to find anything genuinely offensive about it.

Can't help but notice Kontra Kommando and Technician are also banned... If Doomworld isn't the place for political discussion, that's fine, but why ban people who have done very little (no) harm? Why not just hell the thread without putting down otherwise valuable members of the community?

This is pretty funny, honestly. Not just the prospect of someone getting banned (even temporarily) for a thread like this, but also the fact that the cheeky edit some mod made to the EE forum description ('Welcome to Ultra Progressive World, enjoy your stay'), sure seems like someone giving a giant middle finger.

[Foofoo]

christ, if the kid *did* build a bomb thats more of actual technical mastery than simply moving clock pieces around.

[Caffeine Freak]

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/359140.php

I think this adds a very interesting angle to the story.

Short-hand version (even though this is a very short column): article speculates a possible motive for the kid bringing a hoax bomb to school would have been to 'stand up' for his sister (who, as Pure Hellspawn and the_miano noted, was suspended for making a fake bomb threat.)

Copied quote from source the column cites:

After the MSNBC segment, Eyman and I sit down in the hallway where she says the same thing happened to her as Ahmed.
"I got suspended from school for three days from this stupid same district, from this girl saying I wanted to blow up the school, something I had nothing to do with."

...

"I got suspended and I didn’t do anything about it and so when I heard about Ahmed, I was so mad because it happened to me and I didn’t get to stand up, so I'm making sure he's standing up because it's not right. So I'm not jealous, I'm kinda like--it's like he’s standing for me."

Skip to about 1:00 in the video for when Mark Cuban starts talking about his phone conversation with Ahmed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGit-XltUB4


Obviously, this isn't something that just ANY kid would do for his/her sibling, (I personally wouldn't have pulled a stunt like this for my sibling) so this is far from being conclusive evidence that the kid did this intentionally. Nevertheless, I think this is compelling enough to merit further examination.

[Gez]

Man this is just pathetic.

We get the "well, he's not really that smart" as if that had anything to do with the issue, and we also get the "well, he made a fake bomb just to expose how racist we are, so really it's his fault that we are racist" argument which makes so little sense I don't even understand how this could be an argument in the first place. Yeah, this young dork deliberately engineered to be cuffed by police and suspended for three days, he's a real mastermind.

[Phml]

Kids of all backgrounds get cuffed by US police for no real reason. Only one of them gets invited to the White House as a result. Those are the facts.

I will never understand the logistics of feigned outrage over character assassination while behaving despicably yourself. There is a strong case to be made being arrested by police or even the media noise surrounding this is more stressful for a 14 years old than any advantage he gets out of the reparations. Instead, you choose to lie by omission and purposefully misrepresent the situation.

Who is going to believe a point about morals from a morally bankrupt man?

[GreyGhost]

Gez said:

I don't care. He's a kid. So what if his clock was created by disassembling a clock he bought, then rebuilding it in a different way? That shows he had the skill to rebuild it. It worked, did it not?

The transformer's unsecured, which is a potential electrical safety issue and slamming the lid shut on that AC mains lead could have dire consequences. As rebuilds go I'd call it unfinished and unsafe.

[Caffeine Freak]

Gez said:

and we also get the "well, he made a fake bomb just to expose how racist we are, so really it's his fault that we are racist" argument which makes so little sense I don't even understand how this could be an argument in the first place.

Wasn't really the argument, but okay.

http://www.latinpost.com/articles/81030/20150922/ahmed-mohamed-clock-allegedly-a-purposeful-hoax-potential-fraud-case-says-judge-napolitano.htm

Napolitano also says that if the parents were involved in a hoax, it becomes a fraud case because thousands of dollars have been donated to their son through a legal fund, as well as a college scholarship fund.

His parents are withdrawing him from the school and planning to homeschool him, so if it was something they put him up to, it'd be an easy way to generate some sympathetic publicity (which it certainly has, hoax or not), whilst sparing him from social repercussions at the school itself. After all, his father is a politician who ran for president of Sudan back in 2010.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/father-muslim-kid-arrested-clock-standout-citizen-article-1.2363466

As I said, none of this is definitive evidence of a purposeful hoax, but all of it coupled with the fact that his clock could've been constructed by just about anyone, certainly is enough to make it smell fishy at this point.