Re: FCPUNX:Show Me the Warheads!
At 9:03 PM -0700 9/4/97, Mike Duvos wrote:
In an interview to be aired on "60 Minutes" this Sunday, Alexandr Lebed, former Russian National Security Advisor, will reveal that his country has lost track of more than 100 nuclear bombs made to look like suitcases, and has no idea what happened to them.
At 10:13 PM 9/4/97 -0700, Tim May wrote:
Stay away from soft targets (Tel Aviv, Haifa, the ZOG section of Jerusalem, New York, Washington, and so on--Harbors (e.g., Haifa, NYC) are pretty likely targets, due to the extreme ease of delivery). But also be prepared for major disruptions and panic even if you are nowhere near the blast.
Relax: Anyone who can afford nukes, probably won't use them without very good reason. By the way, I have noticed that the Israelis have lately taken a considerably more conciliatory attitude towards non state entitities. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd@echeque.com
At 9:19 AM -0700 9/8/97, James A. Donald wrote:
At 10:13 PM 9/4/97 -0700, Tim May wrote:
Stay away from soft targets (Tel Aviv, Haifa, the ZOG section of Jerusalem, New York, Washington, and so on--Harbors (e.g., Haifa, NYC) are pretty likely targets, due to the extreme ease of delivery). But also be prepared for major disruptions and panic even if you are nowhere near the blast.
Relax: Anyone who can afford nukes, probably won't use them without very good reason.
By the way, I have noticed that the Israelis have lately taken a considerably more conciliatory attitude towards non state entitities.
The targets may not even be political. Imagine the profits to be made by shorting a bunch of high tech, networking stocks and then detonating a package near the major NAPs clustered in Silicon Valley? Not to mention the direct effects and the panic effects on Intel, Sun, Netscape, Apple, Cisco, 3COM, and a hundred other such companies. Conventional explosives could knock out MAE-West or any other single NAP, but even a low-yield nuke would trigger the panic, fallout, and temporary abandonment of facilities. Cisco and Intel would be massively disrupted for at least several months, and might not recover for years.... (Conventional explosives could also cause a billion or more dollars worth of damage to a major wafer fabrication plant, of course, but the manufacturing capacity could be shifted to other plants in a matter of months. Some major short sale opportunities, but not nearly what a nuke could do to a _region_, in terms of direct blast effects, fallout in surrounding city blocks (tens of square city blocks, at the least, esp. give OSHA standards, etc.), and the sheer panic effect.) Similar effects would be felt if a suitcase nuke were detonated in Chicago near the futures/options markets, in Nuke York City in almost any of the locations, in the City of London, and so on. The best target for such a suitcase nuke would require careful planning. (Very speculatively, a terrorist group might actually gain more by hitting a financial or high tech center, and multiplying their assets by factors of hundreds or thousands, thus allowing them to gain more conventional leverage. Of course, their sudden new wealth would make them the suspects in such a bombing.) By carefully using cutouts for the short positions (lawyers in distributed countries, for example), and by buying puts (huge leverage, of course), the risks to an "investment group" could be minimal. LEGAL DISCLAIMER: This is not investement advice. I am not a Certified Nuclear Hedging Advisor, and my knowledge of the effects of nuclear weapons on financial markets is based on speculation. In other words, your megatonnage may vary. There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."
At 12:23 PM 9/8/97 -0700, Eric Blossom wrote:
On of my favorite analyses of a similar scenario is contained in "The Curve of Binding Energy" by John McPhee (available at your local Borders or Barnes and Noble).
Definitely a worthwhile read. Unless I'm mixing it up with another book, it also is a good history of now political entrepreneur John Aristotle Phillips, the kid from Princeton who designed a nuclear bomb for his junior physics project because he needed a good paper to pull his grades up. Some of his work was actual physics; much was social engineering, like asking the guy at duPont what explosives they'd used. The Pakistani government, which at the time was lobbying Congress for assistance with their purely peaceful electric-power nuclear reactors, was also trying to buy a copy of Phillips's bomb design paper...
He basically interviews a high energy physicist and works out the Ted Taylor? A key point was that a high efficiency device is not required. A dirty 1.5 kiloton gadget placed on the 40th floor of the World Trade Center takes out one tower and kills a shit load of folks in the adjacent tower. On the other hand, 0.5 kt of ANFO in the basement wasn't quite enough to take the towers out.
However, we need to get off this "Nuke Washington!" kick, and on to something more realistic like "Wiretap DiFi!"
At 6:14 PM -0700 9/9/97, Declan McCullagh wrote:
On Mon, 8 Sep 1997, Bill Stewart wrote:
However, we need to get off this "Nuke Washington!" kick, and on to something more realistic like "Wiretap DiFi!"
I'd like to ask that if anyone is planning to Nuke Washington, they politely let me know so I can go on an extended business trip to the Montana mountains. I mean, it's just common courtesy!
I can't promise anything, but I plan to be advancing the cause of crypto anarchy on the Stanford campus on Friday, September 19th. After that I may be off the list for a while, as I'm heading north. --Tim May There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."
On Mon, 8 Sep 1997, Bill Stewart wrote:
However, we need to get off this "Nuke Washington!" kick, and on to something more realistic like "Wiretap DiFi!"
I'd like to ask that if anyone is planning to Nuke Washington, they politely let me know so I can go on an extended business trip to the Montana mountains. I mean, it's just common courtesy! -Declan
(Conventional explosives could also cause a billion or more dollars worth of damage to a major wafer fabrication plant, of course, but the manufacturing capacity could be shifted to other plants in a matter of months. Some major short sale opportunities, but not nearly what a nuke could do to a _region_, in terms of direct blast effects, fallout in surrounding city blocks (tens of square city blocks, at the least, esp. give OSHA standards, etc.), and the sheer panic effect.)
On of my favorite analyses of a similar scenario is contained in "The Curve of Binding Energy" by John McPhee (available at your local Borders or Barnes and Noble). He basically interviews a high energy physicist and works out the back of the envelope calculations on yields, where to get the plutonium, where and how to place the device, etc. A key point was that a high efficiency device is not required. A dirty 1.5 kiloton gadget placed on the 40th floor of the World Trade Center takes out one tower and kills a shit load of folks in the adjacent tower. Includes other rules of thumb such as "one kiloton of explosives vaporizes one kiloton of matter". YMMV, don't try this at home kids, etc, etc.
--- On Sep 08, Eric Blossom apparently wrote ----------------------------------
(Conventional explosives could also cause a billion or more dollars worth of damage to a major wafer fabrication plant, of course, but the manufacturing capacity could be shifted to other plants in a matter of months. Some major short sale opportunities, but not nearly what a nuke could do to a _region_, in terms of direct blast effects, fallout in surrounding city blocks (tens of square city blocks, at the least, esp. give OSHA standards, etc.), and the sheer panic effect.)
On of my favorite analyses of a similar scenario is contained in "The Curve of Binding Energy" by John McPhee (available at your local Borders or Barnes and Noble). He basically interviews a high energy physicist and works out the back of the envelope calculations on yields, where to get the plutonium, where and how to place the device, etc. A key point was that a high efficiency device is not required. A dirty 1.5 kiloton gadget placed on the 40th floor of the World Trade Center takes out one tower and kills a shit load of folks in the adjacent tower. Includes other rules of thumb such as "one kiloton of explosives vaporizes one kiloton of matter". YMMV, don't try this at home kids, etc, etc.
Destruction by a nuclear blast is most likely not even the issue here. Using a relatively small amount of plutonium (ie. not even enough to produce a critical mass) and enough explosives to blast this into the atmosphere you can kill a (very) large number of people over a relatively small amount of time due to plutonium toxication. These devices are the real "dirty gadgets", not really expensive and therefor perfectly suitable for terrorist organisations. But what a dreadfull way to die... --- and thus sprach: Eric Blossom <eb@comsec.com> ----------------------------- Ciao, Unicorn. -- ======= _ __,;;;/ TimeWaster on http://www.IAEhv.nl/users/hvdl ============== ,;( )_, )~\| A Truly Wise Man Never Plays PGP: 64 07 5D 4C 3F 81 22 73 ;; // `--; Leapfrog with a Unicorn... 52 9D 87 08 51 AA 35 F0 ==='= ;\ = | ==== Youth is not a time in life, it's a State of Mind! ========
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In <19970909130000.60003@sequent.com>, on 09/09/97 at 01:00 PM, Unicorn <hvdl@sequent.com> said:
Destruction by a nuclear blast is most likely not even the issue here. Using a relatively small amount of plutonium (ie. not even enough to produce a critical mass) and enough explosives to blast this into the atmosphere you can kill a (very) large number of people over a relatively small amount of time due to plutonium toxication. These devices are the real "dirty gadgets", not really expensive and therefor perfectly suitable for terrorist organisations.
But what a dreadfull way to die...
The US military during WWII had plans of doing just that in Europe to poison the crops and aid in the defeat of Germany. Luck for Europe this was never followed through. - -- - --------------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0 Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail. OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html - --------------------------------------------------------------- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3a Charset: cp850 Comment: Registered_User_E-Secure_v1.1b1_ES000000 iQCVAwUBNBbiTo9Co1n+aLhhAQFxIgQAux4d/Gk5EDl+g/H7SwqrnCh1QlhqkSk5 JIOo1325LCNUyGVJLISd5Y/1rixAXjgWjeiwKk/vDQZQ5k6Je3ofgOgBqz7DWOuy 1M+DUo0B9vIYmlXk5plOLAvn6uycBNLRXf+LaV8H/+H6uLzIskXDSTUrg1+OE6gP WQXNJRcjZJo= =X8Wk -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
"William H. Geiger III" <whgiii@amaranth.com> writes:
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In <19970909130000.60003@sequent.com>, on 09/09/97 at 01:00 PM, Unicorn <hvdl@sequent.com> said:
Destruction by a nuclear blast is most likely not even the issue here. Using a relatively small amount of plutonium (ie. not even enough to produce a critical mass) and enough explosives to blast this into the atmosphere you can kill a (very) large number of people over a relatively small amount of time due to plutonium toxication. These devices are the real "dirty gadgets", not really expensive and therefor perfectly suitable for terrorist organisations.
But what a dreadfull way to die...
The US military during WWII had plans of doing just that in Europe to poison the crops and aid in the defeat of Germany.
Luck for Europe this was never followed through.
Actually, the Germans were aware of the plans and indicated that they'd kill the about 500K U.S. and British POWs if this happened. (They treated the latter much better than they treated Polish and Russian POWs, who were often summarily gassed.) For the same reason the Germans and the Allies didn't use poison gas in Europe during WW2, although both sides used it liberally in WW1, and the Japanese used it a lot against the Chinese. Game theory and stuff. :-) --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In <7k3Tce1w165w@bwalk.dm.com>, on 09/10/97 at 04:54 PM, dlv@bwalk.dm.com (Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM) said:
"William H. Geiger III" <whgiii@amaranth.com> writes:
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In <19970909130000.60003@sequent.com>, on 09/09/97 at 01:00 PM, Unicorn <hvdl@sequent.com> said:
Destruction by a nuclear blast is most likely not even the issue here. Using a relatively small amount of plutonium (ie. not even enough to produce a critical mass) and enough explosives to blast this into the atmosphere you can kill a (very) large number of people over a relatively small amount of time due to plutonium toxication. These devices are the real "dirty gadgets", not really expensive and therefor perfectly suitable for terrorist organisations.
But what a dreadfull way to die...
The US military during WWII had plans of doing just that in Europe to poison the crops and aid in the defeat of Germany.
Luck for Europe this was never followed through.
Actually, the Germans were aware of the plans and indicated that they'd kill the about 500K U.S. and British POWs if this happened. (They treated the latter much better than they treated Polish and Russian POWs, who were often summarily gassed.) For the same reason the Germans and the Allies didn't use poison gas in Europe during WW2, although both sides used it liberally in WW1, and the Japanese used it a lot against the Chinese. Game theory and stuff. :-)
Well part of the problem with using chemical agents is they are not very efficient. This is a lesson that was learned in WWI and most likely was the largest factor in them not being used durring WWII (durring WWI one was just as likely to be hit by one's own gas as the enemy was). It is even questionable as a terror weapon against civilian targets due to the quantities that would be needed to attack a large city like London. - -- - --------------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0 Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail. OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html - --------------------------------------------------------------- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3a Charset: cp850 Comment: Registered_User_E-Secure_v1.1b1_ES000000 iQCVAwUBNBdYgI9Co1n+aLhhAQFXmAP9FIzNc52j7GNvypM8xCJh46+oB49en0oP yxc5eP3TKhF2txGjhq0FXmLzFvb78ObbZOnPRSI+sIy97dTcTyYHGni27ONy/aZc 2/ijx06c92bb/KOLJkl7doLD3kTi/quB7djQvceR6BJjr7bvY7onPmYOJ02FRqRC biHUV7bQ9I4= =3HkY -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
participants (8)
-
Bill Stewart -
Declan McCullagh -
dlv＠bwalk.dm.com -
Eric Blossom -
James A. Donald -
Tim May -
Unicorn -
William H. Geiger III