The Anarchist Cookbook

[Martin Hash]

When I was in High School, there was this weird kid, Ben Bush, who had a raging beard at 16. The principal called him to his office and told him the beard was inappropriate but Ben just stared back at him for a long time then stood up and left. Even though we were young and Ben was very strange, bullies never tried to harass him, ever. Ben wore a green arctic jacket with fur hood, fatigue pants, and black combat boots to school every day, winter or summer. He never took the jacket off, and he never dressed down for gym class, and the coaches never said anything. The other students, especially the girls, never said a word to Ben; they just pretended he wasn’t there. Ben did talk though; he had a deep man’s voice, and a vicious sense of humor, laughing freely, some might say inappropriately, whenever it suited him. When he laughed in class, things would go silent for a few seconds then start back up. I really liked Ben; I was probably his best friend, though I hardly knew him. He invited me over to his house once; it looked like an old stone church with stained-glass windows and cavernous interior. Ben’s dad was no longer around but his mother and sister reminded me of the Addams Family. Ben and I also did a project together in advanced math; a solar reflector that would light things on fire from a distance; it was Ben’s idea. It got the highest grade in the class but left our teacher somewhat dumbstruck. Ben wouldn’t sign anybody’s yearbook, though I’m not sure if anyone asked him, but he signed mine, even though there was never a photo taken of him. By the time we were Seniors, he was in the wind.

Ben Bush.jpg

Ben left a lasting impression on me, especially his fascination with destruction. He turned me onto a deep underground book, one you could only get mimeographed copies of, called “The Anarchist Cookbook.” Ben had a copy, and he would bring the loose pages to show me in school. It told how to make poison gas and bombs out of common available items, basically WMD with household detergent. He would lovingly run his finger over the crude drawings and look up at me smiling.

Molotov Cocktail s.jpg

It’s remarkable that I’ve never met anyone else who knew about “The Anarchist Cookbook” over the next 4 decades. Recently, I was explaining to someone how even the most obscure and difficult to find books are now easily available online, and it popped into my mind out of nowhere, and I Googled it. As background, I got my Computer Science PhD from one of the top-ranked computer security universities in the world. My computers have been anti-virused before there was commercial software, and I've got a sniffer on my own server watching for attacks. BOOM, I got hit by a virus when I Googled “The Anarchist Cookbook.”
“I wonder who that was?” I said, facetiously, knowing it was probably Homeland Security.
Worm after worm attempted to infect my computer, the red warning banner kept going off.
“Oh, now the attack is continuous,” I said, “I'm going to have to go offline and get medieval on their ass.”
When I came back up, I had the sniffer blocking anything from anyplace I didn't know, and was able to operate until the attack ended later in the day. Unfortunately, now I suspect my IP is in an NSA database somewhere that can trace back to me. So what? I don’t know whatever happened to Ben, and I know this is uncharitable, but whenever I see a picture of The Unibomber, I think of him.

[C-Mag]

I remember first hearing of the book in the 80s. It was mostly associated with Eco-Terrorists in my area. I was quite curious about the book. I've seen it, but never had a copy. When I was a kid we had dynamite to blow beaver damns...………. what did I need with homemade explosives.

I'm quite certain discussion of the book automatically gets you red flagged by the NSA.

[SuburbanFarmer]

I remember first hearing of the book in the 80s. It was mostly associated with Eco-Terrorists in my area. I was quite curious about the book. I've seen it, but never had a copy. When I was a kid we had dynamite to blow beaver damns...………. what did I need with homemade explosives.

I'm quite certain discussion of the book automatically gets you red flagged by the NSA.

I’m pretty sure that logging into this forum lands you on a number of watchlists

[DBTrek]

My parents had a copy while I was growing up. They told me not to build anything in it because it would blow my face off.
So I didn’t.
I leafed through it once and quickly discovered that it was completely devoid of any information of use or interest to an eleven year old.

[Fife]

I had a buddy in high school who had a copy, as well as another one printed on pulp that looked like it was run off in somebody's basement: The Poor Man's James Bond. Any of you all heard of that one?

[C-Mag]

I remember first hearing of the book in the 80s. It was mostly associated with Eco-Terrorists in my area. I was quite curious about the book. I've seen it, but never had a copy. When I was a kid we had dynamite to blow beaver damns...………. what did I need with homemade explosives.

I'm quite certain discussion of the book automatically gets you red flagged by the NSA.

I’m pretty sure that logging into this forum lands you on a number of watchlists

Political Dissidents, every last one of us.

[C-Mag]

I had a buddy in high school who had a copy, as well as another one printed on pulp that looked like it was run off in somebody's basement: The Poor Man's James Bond. Any of you all heard of that one?

vaguely, that was a lot more trip wires and shit like that wasn't it ?

I have copies of military training materials in this arena. Being a military engineer you get all this stuff. Some of the most interesting were the small publications on IEDs and VbIEDS used in Iraq. The WWII stuff is most interesting for its ways to attack infrastructure.

[Montegriffo]

I remember first hearing of the book in the 80s. It was mostly associated with Eco-Terrorists in my area. I was quite curious about the book. I've seen it, but never had a copy. When I was a kid we had dynamite to blow beaver damns...………. what did I need with homemade explosives.

I'm quite certain discussion of the book automatically gets you red flagged by the NSA.

I’m pretty sure that logging into this forum lands you on a number of watchlists

Political Dissidents, every last one of us.

Speak for yourself CM.
I'm just here to compile evidence for the deep state.

[Ph64]

I had a buddy in high school who had a copy, as well as another one printed on pulp that looked like it was run off in somebody's basement: The Poor Man's James Bond. Any of you all heard of that one?

vaguely, that was a lot more trip wires and shit like that wasn't it ?

I have copies of military training materials in this arena. Being a military engineer you get all this stuff. Some of the most interesting were the small publications on IEDs and VbIEDS used in Iraq. The WWII stuff is most interesting for its ways to attack infrastructure.

I don't remember which one a friend of mine picked up back in HS days, might be been The Poor Man's Names Bond, but it was a long time ago... I just remember reading about making thermite, and the guy was saying how his "favorite" method was to pack it into an aluminum pipe, load it into a crossbow bolt, and light it and shoot it out of a car window through the house window... And if someone tried to toss water (or some liquid) on the flaming projectile it would explode around the room. His "favorite" way.

Seemed "cool" and get absolutely psycho crazy at the same time.

I think I have pdf copies of the anarchist cookbook series around somewhere, or zip, I think there was 4 of them iirc.

[TheReal_ND]

It was literally one of the first things I ever downloaded from the internet. Back in the AOL days it was commonly regarded as "super cool shit you can get from the internet" which admittedly was true. It just wasn't that cool. It's actually fairly tame and filled with nonsense that doesn't even apply anymore. Yeah sure kid, build a pipe bomb out of the red dye on playing cards. There is a decent recipe for crude napalm that can still be used in molotovs however. I remember the details about styrofoam mixed with gasoline but the modern day molotov chuckers have better recipes now based loosely off this combination. It's harder to find anything actually dangerous on the internet than ever before, this is probably true.