Are terrorists sneaking bombs in Toothpaste containers?

Liquids were banned on flights to certain countries simply because it was a good way to disguise a binary liquid bomb in theory. The problem with all of this in practice is that the binary liquid bomb they are afraid of isn't really a legitimate threat.

It's been hard for me to find out exactly what they were afraid of because many media outlets are practicing "voluntary censorship" of the household substances that can supposedly be mixed on a plane to take it down. But some mention hydrogen peroxide while omitting the others so it's clear they are afraid of a triacetone triperoxide bomb.

Thing is, that's daft. It just sounds cool but the challenges of pulling it off are bigger than just going for a conventional explosive and the destructive power is limited. It gets the security nerds all riled up because they imagine that terrorists can get past them with substances that are individually not detected as a threat and then mix it to cause damage. It freaks them out because the only clever thing, even in theory, about it all is how it gets past security and that it would be next to impossible for it to work in the way that the terrorists expect is lost on them.

So they are terrified that this hydrogen peroxide, acetone, and sulfuric acid mix can get past them individually in common household items since each are common in products widely available. Hydrogen peroxide is used in hair dye, acetone in things like paint thinner, and sulfuric acid is used in drain cleaners like Draino and their fear is that each can get past undetected (and can be brought by separate passengers) and then mixed in flight to cause devastation.

The problem is that even under the best of conditions, they would be highly unlikely to cause damage beyond perhaps burning something or killing a person or two. And even to achieve this they have to do things that are fairly suspicious with temperature control, and precise measurements. They would also have to perform a lot of dangerous chemistry to get it to this point and the whole thing needs perfect conditions to do much damage at all and is the chemical instability itself and the airplane conditions make this an absurd scenario to be worried about so specifically.

So maybe they should just look out for the guy in the plane with a substantial amount of liquid packed in an ice bucket checking its temperature while stirring in another liquid drop by drop. Because that guy might be able to kill one or two people if his binary bomb achieves perfection. Then again the team of people that brought it in separately could probably strangle someone with a shoestring for the same effort and with about the same chances of success.

Being more focused on liquids and other attack vectors is a good thing, the liquid ban is a bit silly because what they are afraid of won't work and they are targeting a method to get a theoretical bomb past them (a binary bomb brought onto the plane by separate passengers) and not an actual proven danger.

Are terrorists sneaking bombs in Toothpaste containers?