Slashdot Mirror

I've got one of those Intellimouse Explorers (the huge silver ones with the superfluous tail light and like three extra buttons; well, what the hell, here's a http://www.microsoft.com/Mouse/explorer.htm link) and sites that won't let you back out are an incredible annoyance. See, two of the buttons on there serve as Forward/Back (respectively) while browsing the web, and after about 20 minutes of using them, I was hooked. You wouldn't believe how simple (and remarkably intuitive) to navigate with your thumb. Now if I could just find a good use for those buttons in Half-Life... I mean, sure, it's easy enough to hold down the back button and select the page before the offending site, but that would require moving my cursor over six or so linear inches of desktop space. Isn't that just a little bit unreasonable? No? Ah well.

As a snapshot of our times, we should include something that communicates our relationship with technology. I would suggest the text of the nuclear weapons FAQ, photographs of mushroom clouds, and the text of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (which the United States has yet to sign). Follow this with photographs of man walking on the moon, an exerpt of the human genome project, and perhaps one of those colorful maps of the World Wide Web.

We have lived for half a century with technology enabling us to wreak complete destruction on ourselves and our environment, yet we have demonstrated a similar capacity to work towards a common good. This has, to a large degree, defined us as a people and how we cope with these technologies will form an important part of our historical legasy. Which facet of the human animal will win out in the end is unclear, and how we will apply this technology to solving our current problems will be for historians of the future to determine.

You bring up a good point. Any reasons other than Indias own sense of nationalism would really be moot in the face of the global political ramifications that this will have. In the US we don't hear much about some portions of the world because they are not 'super powers'. If India can put a wad of gum up to the moon proves to the world that they are indeed a major world power. They have the bomb and neighboring enemies who also have the bomb. They have high tech/space age capabilities. By pulling off a stunt like this they will have proven they understand the value of global media as well. They wouldn't get the same attention to thier newfound worldpower status if they were to participate in the Space Station Freedom project and i don't think they want to wait it out for a Mars mission (with thier current tech they probably could do this but they would have to take the long route i.e. gravitational slingshot). I think this is totally a 'we need some respect' issue for India. Pretty scary stuff...

What the Times did is perfectly legal. Doesn't matter how much the government doesn't like it.

If you think that this is bad, read the thoughts 20 years later of the man who published the design of an H-bomb.

Cheers,
Ben

(1): It has been made public by the Federation of American Scientists, apparently, this is also where the chinese have been getting secrets, in addition to stealing them. <according to zdnet> Argh, we don't need any more nuclear secrets running around...goodness, with Kentucky on our left, and Djibouti on our right, its a wonder we are still a world-player...

-sempiternity

'I believe in diversity, not assimilation...hi, I'm Chris, and I wish I was Canadian"

Not a problem with a good servo system and the appropriate hydraulic and/or electrical equipment. My office mate used to run an Intelsat data/voice link based on the USNS Vanguard. There are Inmarsat systems today that are much smaller and cheaper.

Been done.

http://www.fas.org/irp/facility/war renton_c.htm

Well, except for the barging in part... I for one am not about to go busting inside a secured military facility demanding to know what's going on :)

This Fas.org page on the Warrenton Training Center has an interesting suggestion, one which I've never seen before or even considered when I've briefly read about such shortwave stations in the past:

The numbers *aren't* the message anymore.

In other words, the CIA/NSA/DoD/etc. have abandoned using one-time pad encrypted ciphertext spoken aloud (although less sophisticated operations, like Cuban numbers stations, likely still do), but use the vocal numbers as beacon to tune reception of the actual enciphered data: "white noise" that occurs over an otherwise clean transmission, that's probably a digitally-added signal that carries the actual message.

Can anyone with a shortwave receiver who actually has listened to US (not foreign, as I doubt they bother to do this, although the Taiwanese subterfuge mentioned in the NPR broadcast is amusing) numbers station transmissions verify that the "noise" could constitute another encrypted signal?

And they say the NSA has stopped innovating now that everything's gone fiber optic ;) Either way, it's an interesting theory...

This Fas.org page on the Warrenton Training Center has an interesting suggestion, one which I've never seen before or even considered when I've briefly read about such shortwave stations in the past:

The numbers *aren't* the message anymore.

In other words, the CIA/NSA/DoD/etc. have abandoned using one-time pad encrypted ciphertext spoken aloud (although less sophisticated operations, like Cuban numbers stations, likely still do), but use the vocal numbers as beacon to tune reception of the actual enciphered data: "white noise" that occurs over an otherwise clean transmission, that's probably a digitally-added signal that carries the actual message.

Can anyone with a shortwave receiver who actually has listened to US (not foreign, as I doubt they bother to do this, although the Taiwanese subterfuge mentioned in the NPR broadcast is amusing) numbers station transmissions verify that the "noise" could constitute another encrypted signal?

And they say the NSA has stopped innovating now that everything's gone fiber optic ;) Either way, it's an interesting theory...

Yep. Some come from here, an Army/CIA/State Dept./whoever else facility in Virginia. They have a website (WTC.GOV), but it's restricted.

The fat man bomb needed compression this precise, but that doesn't mean that every nuke does. There's more than one way to build a nuke (I've only studied the first two, but that's enough to spot the error in your claim), and the trick is not to make the bomb explode, but to keep it from exploding before you want it to.

Plutonium is fairly complex to fully ignite (damn stuff keeps blowing up partway before you can put it all together; you have to make the shift from safe to critical mass by fiddling with the chemical structure), but U235 bombs can be touchy. The little boy bomb could easily have been ignited by an external explosion from the wrong direction.

People talk about "compression" of fissionable material to cause a nuclear blast, but this is only an implementation detail. What really causes the blast is "critical mass", or enough stuff packed close enough together to get a positive feedback chain reaction as fission begets neutron begets fission. For example, just building a 64 kg sphere of U235 in vaccuum or open air would result in a nuclear detonation (if you could build it fast enough, without the parts melting down on you as you brought them near to each other). Lighter nukes are made by reflecting the neutrons that would escape back into the pit.

Scattering the fissionable material of a nuke would still be a pretty nasty mess. "In reality" I think the bomb squad would strongly prefer disarming a nuke without explosives.

Another thing that can happen is for nukes to melt down without actually detonating. This could have happened with little boy bomb, if it was damaged or defective and water got into it. This could easily destroy a rocket and spread nuclear waste over a large area.

Actually, a detonation after launch would be less dangerous than a meltdown or catastrophic rocket failure. The worst thing that could happen in such a moon shot is that all the fissionable material would survive, but be scattered over a wide area.

Go see the nuke faq.

The entire US nuclear arsenal contains a bit over 2000 megatons of energy (1996, source) -- 4.6E9 times less. I couldn't find the entire world arsenal, but it can't be more than 10000 MT. In addition, if the weapon(s) were detonated on the surface, most of the energy would be wasted, because there would be very little mass for the weapons to hurl off the surface. (Conservation of momentum - to push the Moon in some direction you must push something else in the opposite direction.)

In conclusion: Even if we detonated all the nukes of the world up there, the Moon's orbit wouldn't change noticeably.

All GPS satellites have carried an EMP sensor on them that can locate nuclear detonations. More info can be found here

Oops, I didn't specify which images... I'm referring to the Area 51 images posted by The Federation of American Scientists.

Actually, the suites are also required in the SR-71's slower high altitude sibling, the U-2/TR-1 . At 65,000' it fairly close to to being in a vacuum. (btw. the U-2 has an unpressurized cabin).

to get back on topic, I thought I'd scrap together two other sites that try to pear into the deep blackness. First is Mark Wades, Encyclopedia Astronautica . One of the most complete space history sites on the net (except for the .mov files, nothing on deepcold is not on Encyclopedia Astronautica in more detail). The other The Federation of American Scientists is an excellent source on everything black.

On the scale of 1 to 10 Red Herrings, I give those sites an 11, I give deepcold half a herring head.

TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken

Actually, the suites are also required in the SR-71's slower high altitude sibling, the U-2/TR-1 . At 65,000' it fairly close to to being in a vacuum. (btw. the U-2 has an unpressurized cabin).

to get back on topic, I thought I'd scrap together two other sites that try to pear into the deep blackness. First is Mark Wades, Encyclopedia Astronautica . One of the most complete space history sites on the net (except for the .mov files, nothing on deepcold is not on Encyclopedia Astronautica in more detail). The other The Federation of American Scientists is an excellent source on everything black.

On the scale of 1 to 10 Red Herrings, I give those sites an 11, I give deepcold half a herring head.

TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken

Everything presented by Karzan is painfully on-target.

The republicans are actually the ones pushing for ABM research and deployment. Clinton is trying to walk the fence on this and finish up his term in office by revising the ABM treaty to allow some kind of ABM implementation (beyond the current allowance which is that the capitol of each country can be defended by ABM's), which I think is to placate the forces in the US that are clamoring for an ABM system.

What is going on here? I think that my country of citizenship (America) is trying to leverage its current economic superiority to cement its influence / control over the rest of the world. Perhaps it's perceived by some that one remaining chink in its armor would be that the country is susceptible to a nuclear strike by a rogue nation with nuclear missle technology (don't forget that Pakistan and India recently joined this elite community). At least that's the public argument these US lobbyists and lawmakers are presenting. I think the real interest is to:

A. Provide pork for these representatives' home states.
B. Enable America to become a real rude sob and not have to worry about retaliation.

Before any more money is spent on this boondogle, I wish voters were made explicitly aware of the hundreds of scientists criticizing ABM systems as being implausible.

Anti-Missile System Won't Work
National Missile Defense: Rushing to Failure

All this stuff about "attack microbots" and "God's eye views" makes for interesting reading on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

But the truth is that the USAF's fleet of B-52H strategic bombers is expected to soldier on until the year 2040. The last of these planes rolled off Boeing's assembly line in the early '60s. Already, they're older than most of the people who fly them, and they're supposed to outlive both the B-1 and B-2 bombers.

I'd take "Air Farce:2025" a bit more seriously if it weren't for those 80 year-old bombers my grandchildren might fly.

Radical New Jersey separatists downed another B-52, the third in four days. JLF spokesmen claimed credit and charged the USAF with illegal use of cluster microbot munitions, outlawed by the Harari Convention of 2016. President Sharpton issued a statement categorically denying the charge. The bomber was downed near Trenton, in the southern no-fly zone...

http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~ pettypi/elevon/baugher_us/b052i.html

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa /bomber/b-52.htm

k.

Do you know the author? I've met the guy a few times. He's been involved with investigating government espionage activities for a long time, and consequently has been raided by the spooks on several occasions. Anyone remember Project Zircon?

He, like many people, is concerned with what governments are getting away with. It's becoming far too much an 'us' and 'them' situation. 'They' are supposed to be working for 'us', not against us. But somewhere it has gone wrong. Many people can't see it getting better, and it seems to be one of those self-promoting systems that can only get worse.

It's not euro-centric so much as someone on the outside looking in. More non-US-centric as it were.

Vik :v)

I committed the error of installing RealPlayer G2 on a W95 box a while back. Now, if I want to hear a .ra file, I am always treated to an "upgrade notification" when the player starts up - and the choices in the dialog box are "learn more" and "remind me later." No "go away and never come back" option to be found - and it still sounds like canine flatulence on a good day.

I would much prefer that efforts be directed toward producing lightweight MPEG codecs to enable streaming. Face it, at low bitrates nothing is going to sound much better than AM radio bounced off the E-layer.

Sheep

I'd be careful using that word in a derogatory sense. If Jesus were alive today, that's what he'd call you.

"The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want." Psalm 23:1

Not trying to start a fight, just pointing out an ironic derogatory remark.

Funny link 1, funny link 2

from funny link 2
"The sheep that are My own hear and are listening to My voice; and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never lose it or perish throughout the ages. And no one is able to snatch them out of My hand. My Father, Who has given them to Me, is greater and mightier than all; and no one is able to snatch [them] out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are One. " John 10 : 25-30

The Sugar Grove Naval Communications Facility near Sugar Grove, West Virginia is an NSA satellite intercept facility. See this web page for the FAS list of the NSA's facilities.

France and Japan were mentioned above as the leading infiltrators against American firms. France's spy agency, the Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure (DGSE) , aims its effort at the same U.S. technology that is of interest to the SVR: computers, aerospace, and production tools and processes. The DGSE's specialty is infiltrating spies into U.S. and foreign offices of high-tech U.S. multi-national corporations. In 1993, a French government document listing as worthwhile targets two dozen U.S. companies - including Boeing, IBM, and Texas Instruments, was leaked to newspapers. The French are aggressive. Former CIA director Richard Helms says, "They [the French] have admitted to me in private that they go through the briefcases of visiting businessmen."

Russia and Japan are not exactly our strongest diplomatic allies. However, France and the United States are military and political allies. Should allies be spying on each other? According to Pierre Marion, director of French intelligence from 1981 to 1982, "Even during the Cold War, getting intelligence in economic, technological, and industrial matters from a country with which you are allied . . . is not incompatible with the fact of being allied." In the post-Cold War era, Marion says, "The competition in terms of technology and commerce and industry is stronger than it was during the Cold War. There should be more emphasis put on that, and on industrial espionage." The French government admits that it directly passes stolen secrets to French-owned corporations. Intelligence on the private sector for the private sector; France, a Western nation with a democratic system of government, has a view of economic intelligence that is the polar opposite of the American stance.

There are pictures on the Federation of American Scientists of the North Korean missile test site at No-dong. These show what IKONOS system is capable of and also seem to show that North Korean capability in this area is quite limited despite media hysteria. Something the US administration has presumably known all along.

The radomes look exactly like the pictures show, and they're huge. You can see them from very far distances.

The radomes and office buildings were closed off from the rest of the base (with the school, AAFES market, Officers' Club, housing, etc.) but I remember seeing them every day.

It's been ten years since I was last there and I remember so many things about Menwith Hill...it was a great place to live.

The NSA also has some facilities in Texas and other locations. See this for a list of NSA facilities. Just because you haven't heard of it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

France has been doing this for a long time through the DGSE.

The discussion of the "symmetry problem"---i.e. how to guarantee uniform compression of the fusion fuel---is a common meme in popular discussion of fusion.

What's interesting is that much of this confusion has to be intentional misinformation.

Why? Because it was the solution to the symmetry problem which was the key to the H-bomb. The complete discussion of the concept remained officially classified for decades after the H-bomb was invented. In contrast, the basic physics and outline of the engineering behind the A-bomb was made public in the 1940's already.

Some details had leaked out in one way or another by various 'exposes' but nothing really got it right. I believe it was finally declassified in about 1994 or so---I remember the article in the New York Times. By that point, intertial confinement fusion civilian researchers had already figured it out.

The trick is 'radiation driven implosion'.

The soft x-rays from a fission explosion are diverted down to a hollow tube (hohlraum {hollow room} in the German used by the early researchers). There is in fact a barrier, usually
of tungsten or some other heavy material directly in between the fission primary and the fusion secondary. This is to prevent the explosion of the fission material itself (the stuff) from getting to the fusion part and ruining it. You just want the photons, and if you block the shrapnel, the photons get there first.

The primary is basically many spherical layers---the secondary is a long cylinder with a few coincentric layers, with a gap near the outermost layer for the photons to flow into.

This form a 'photon gas'---but this fluid equilibrates at the speed of light and not the speed of sound, like normal fluids. Which means that the density and energy of the photons gets very uniform quickly. Although you don't normally feel it in every day life, photons carry momentum and can exert a pressure.

The A-bomb uses chemical explosives to precisely compress the fission fuel, but that isn't powerful and even and fast enough to work with fusion. The description in the article, putting the fusion fuel in the center of the bomb, is mostly incorrect. There is a little bit of fusion fuel in the middle of the a-bomb section but it does not make the really big BANG of the true H-bomb, it is just a booster to make more neutrons to make more fission from a given amount of plutonium or uranium.

Back to the photon fluid. This photon gas has enough energy to very very evenly and violently compress the fusion fuel. This is basically a 3-layered hot dog. The outermost layer is a heavy 'tamper' of lead or U-238 or something else. The middle layer is the fusion fuel. Then, there is a rod in the center with fission fuel like U-235 or Pu-239. The photon gas ablates the material on the tamper---the pressure from the photons and momentum from the ablation compress the fusion tube very severely. At the same time, it is magically arranged for just enough neutrons from the primary fission explosion to start a chain reaction in the fission stuff inside the fusion fuel, known as the 'spark plug'. Thus the fusion fuel is compressed from the outside by the photon gas and ablation and squeezed from the inside from the second fission explosion. This is how much work you need to do to get fusion. The fission material, normally very light, is compressed to a density near that of a white-dwarf star, where it reaches quantum mechanical Fermi degeneracy. That is really really really compressed. Not quite a neutron star (that is even more dense, being a giant atomic nucleus) but still thousands of times more dense than any conventional material.

Then, Boom.

The symmetrical lasers in the Livermore fusion experiments do NOT directly shine on the fusion pellet. That would not make sufficiently even compression. They shine on an outer metallic sphere which ionizes and releases X-rays, and these X-rays equilibrate inside the metallic shell (even though it's now totally vaporized it's still heavy compared to photons) and this compresses the fusion fuel.

This is why the intertially confined fusion program is always more classified than the magnetic fusion, because it is in large measure H-bomb technology. The "national ignition facility" being built for the DOE in the United States is yet another really big ICF project. Unfortuantely for political reasons it is being designed entirely from the point of view of military bomb research and not for any energy research. I think that's a shocking waste but there's a gazillion dollars to test the most obscure things about nukes when we already have thousands of bombs that work way way too well for our planet's and species' good.

The lasers are very power inefficient, but better for getting clean data for bomb research. Ion beams, and probably this Sandia machine are much more power efficient and the likely technology for a power plant, but less is known about them because it doesn't fit in the military application as well.

In any case, it is almost certain that this Sandia machine described in the article uses "indirect drive" {as the x-ray compression method is known} instead of "direct drive" and that is how they plan to work on the symmetry problem. So they probably do have an idea what to do about it, contrary to what the article says. It is still a very challenging problem, but not hope is lost.


The best information on the web about Big Bombs is Carey Sublette's archive. Just about everybody who Really Knows what's going on {and I'm not one of them} has said that the technical details are accurate. In fact, some of the information about the W88 warhead that the Chinese supposedly stole can be found on this website, and the Chinese showed this in their defense.


High energy weapons archive

I am a physicist, but not a nuclear physicist or involved in fusion research in any way whatsoever.

Check out an overview of the treaty at European Parliament. Informed (if somewhat alarmist) commentary can also be found at the Federation of American Scientists.
Basically, the treaty limits the signatories and their sucessors (the former SSRs) to a pair of anti-missile defense batteries apiece. When the US signed we were already planning to decomission Talos anyway, and funding had dried up for further ABM systems, so the US Gummint figured they'd gotten something for nothing. Later, Ronald "Ronnie Raygun" Reagan decided to play fast and loose with the terms of the treaty in order to develop the so-called "Star Wars" programs. The strapped chicken fiasco discredited Reagan's plans, but the KEW systems are still eminently viable and would probably be in production today if Bush hadn't reneged on paying the companies who sank millions into developing the old "flying crowbars" concept.
Hey, you asked. Kind of a sore spot with me since I was peripherally involved in KEW 2.x.
--Charlie

You are probably thinking of the Air Force Maui Optical Station on Haleakala. They have lasers for a number of missions, see http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/track/amos .htm. The presence of lasers does not mean they have anti-missile capabilities. It would be a useless location for that type of facility.

The Federation of American Scientists - http://www.fas.org - has a "peace and security" section that many people posting here might find interesting. It has extensive info about the military, disarmament, biological weapons, etc. Although it's an advocacy site (it was started by the manhattan project scientists who opposed dropping the bomb), the information seems very trustworthy.

"Through research, advocacy, and public education, the Project on Government Secrecy works to challenge excessive government secrecy and to promote public oversight. The Project supports journalists and fosters enhanced public awareness of secrecy issues through publication of the Secrecy Government Bulletin."

"Through research, advocacy, and public education, the Project on Government Secrecy works to challenge excessive government secrecy and to promote public oversight. The Project supports journalists and fosters enhanced public awareness of secrecy issues through publication of the Secrecy Government Bulletin."

Found a blurb on fas.org about the operation...

Project Jennifer / Hughes Glomar Explorer

Found a blurb on fas.org about the operation...

Project Jennifer / Hughes Glomar Explorer

In an attempt to slow down the declassification effort a new provision requires that all documents be reexamined to find whether nuclear weapons data has been inadvertently released into the public domain in the last few years.

A really brilliant move.

If you say anything against it you can be immediately accused of letting terrorists get information which will help them build nuclear weapons.

"Ok, just prove there ISN'T nuclear weapon information in one of these half-billion pages"



----

In the article, Jane's discounts the benefits of state sponsorship to cyberterrorism, since tools are commonly available. This is misguided.

Most of the recorded cyberterrorist attacks have been either defacement of a website, or crashing a system on the internet. I would call this the "car bomb" level of cyberterrorism. It causes a little mayhem, gets a little publicity, but doesn't make a big wave in the scheme of things.

A cyberterrorist can do a lot more with a full scale infiltration of a key system. Assuming social engineering doesn't work to get sufficient access, crypto might be required to ensure access. That requires a lot of CPU time, something a terrorist organization won't have without help from the big boys.

Lastly, if the goal of a cyberterrorist is to disrupt electronic systems, there's nothing that does it better than an EMP. "EMP Guns", that is a portable device that can produce a localized or directed EMP without human or property damage, are a persistant urban legend that clearly has some kernel in fact. With over the counter hardware, you can build a HERF gun able to produce a trivial EMP. Is it that far fetched to think that the big governments have the technology to do better than that, considering they've been researching EMP for the past three decades? One could possibly find its way into the hands of terrorists. The midwest millitias seem to be very proficient at obtaining US military hardware.

Regardless, it's not an urban myth that an airburst nuclear weapon can produce a substantial EMP with little human or property damage. In fact, here's some congressional testimony detailing this. The biggest problem facing a terrorist who wants a nuclear weapon isn't figuring out how to build it, it's obtaining the fissionable material. Here again, government sponsorship of a terrorist organization could become key. China has shown itself very willing to supply governments that might sponsor terrorists with nuclear materials.

A terrorist with a nuclear weapon might well decide that a country-wide EMP would be a better use of it than blowing up a piece of a city. It would be easy to implement too, just place the weapon on an airplane and time it properly.

In all, cyberterrorism is in its infancy, and in order to determine an appropriate response to or defence against it, you need to look at what's possible, and not what happened so far.

It's also worth noting that the FBI's requests for additional computer tapping rights and restrictions on encryption "to protect against terrorism" would not do anything against such a terrorist. Any computer savvy terrorist will use strong encryption (easily available on foreign websites), and communicate on a server that is in a country where the US would have enforcement problems. The FBI's requests do not defend against either of these.

----

I believe some communications systems run around that neighborhood too.

The fun really starts when you get into electronic counter measures. One neat piece of offensive hardware is the HARM (Highspeed Anti-Radiation Missile). It's mission is to find a target (either handed off by an external system or via its own threat table), home in on that threat signal, and blow it up.

The nasty thing is that if left to its own devices, the HARM doesn't always pick good targets. There's been reports of near-misses when a HARM targeted friendly comms gear. Oops.

OK. So your new AirPort probably won't attract HARMs anytime soon. But it is interesting to see the civilian world once again encrouch on territory that used to be the sole concern of the military.

How crazy was Project Chariot? Consider the fact that Bikini Atoll is now one of the best sites for skin diving and sport fishing on the planet. (Read that as "lots of shipwrecks in pristine condition" and a nearly-undisturbed environment for the past 40 years.) The most serious radiological contaminant on Bikini is Cs-137, and the main reason it's a problem is because the local vegetation picks it up in place of potassium. It's a land problem, not a sea problem. Since a putative Alaskan harbor isn't a likely site for crop-growing, and since it would have been excavated with high-yielding thermonuclear devices designed to maximize explosive yield and minimize heavy radionuclide production, the residual radiation levels around the site would have dropped to habitable levels relatively quickly. (Of course, whether it would have cooled off in time to be economically viable compared to conventional construction, or even whether or not a harbor would have benefited the Alaskan economy is a question for economists, not physicists :)

IMHO the best use for nuclear explosions would have been Project Orion; a nuclear pulse engine. Another cool project killed by the ignorance of the public when it comes to things nuclear.

Teller has every right to be bitter. It appears from the article that many people are unable to separate the man from the device he helped build. In an age in which the public is so frightened of the word "nuclear" that they argue to ban space probes like Cassini due to their RTGs, and in which people prefer the cyanide in apricot pits to chemotherapy "because it's the natural way to fight caner", it's not surprising that Teller's vision of the application of technology to build a better world is viewed as hubris, and his contributions are held in low esteem.

Back to nukes. Anyone interested in the history of atomic weaponry should consider a visit to the National Atomic Museum in New Mexico. The timing is great - the first weekend of October also marks the date on which White Sands Missile Range opens up the Trinity Site to the general public, allowing tours of the site of the first fission explosion.

Finally - whatever your opinions on the horror of the bomb's use - the physics behind it was still beautiful. Anyone wanting more detailed information on the design is highly encouraged to read Carey Sublette's Nuclear Weapons FAQ - a 14-part document also available at the FAS High Energy Weapons archive.

How crazy was Project Chariot? Consider the fact that Bikini Atoll is now one of the best sites for skin diving and sport fishing on the planet. (Read that as "lots of shipwrecks in pristine condition" and a nearly-undisturbed environment for the past 40 years.) The most serious radiological contaminant on Bikini is Cs-137, and the main reason it's a problem is because the local vegetation picks it up in place of potassium. It's a land problem, not a sea problem. Since a putative Alaskan harbor isn't a likely site for crop-growing, and since it would have been excavated with high-yielding thermonuclear devices designed to maximize explosive yield and minimize heavy radionuclide production, the residual radiation levels around the site would have dropped to habitable levels relatively quickly. (Of course, whether it would have cooled off in time to be economically viable compared to conventional construction, or even whether or not a harbor would have benefited the Alaskan economy is a question for economists, not physicists :)

IMHO the best use for nuclear explosions would have been Project Orion; a nuclear pulse engine. Another cool project killed by the ignorance of the public when it comes to things nuclear.

Teller has every right to be bitter. It appears from the article that many people are unable to separate the man from the device he helped build. In an age in which the public is so frightened of the word "nuclear" that they argue to ban space probes like Cassini due to their RTGs, and in which people prefer the cyanide in apricot pits to chemotherapy "because it's the natural way to fight caner", it's not surprising that Teller's vision of the application of technology to build a better world is viewed as hubris, and his contributions are held in low esteem.

Back to nukes. Anyone interested in the history of atomic weaponry should consider a visit to the National Atomic Museum in New Mexico. The timing is great - the first weekend of October also marks the date on which White Sands Missile Range opens up the Trinity Site to the general public, allowing tours of the site of the first fission explosion.

Finally - whatever your opinions on the horror of the bomb's use - the physics behind it was still beautiful. Anyone wanting more detailed information on the design is highly encouraged to read Carey Sublette's Nuclear Weapons FAQ - a 14-part document also available at the FAS High Energy Weapons archive.

http://www.fas.org/irp/intelwww.html

Intelligence on the Web This metapage is the most comprehensive guide to intelligence-related resources on the Web.

Including:

Metapages
Major Resources
General Resources
History
Cultural Resources
Other Resource Directories at this Site
Economic Intelligence and Open Source Collection
Human Intelligence and Covert Operations -- CIA Imagery Intelligence and Mapping -- NRO, CIO, DMA & NIMA
Information Warfare
Signals Intelligence and Communications Security -- NSA
Other Resources, by Agency

Metapages
AJAX - U.S. & International Government and Military Agency Access
A jump page without native value-added content. Crime Net Connection
A nicely done metapage with brief reviews of a variety of resources.
Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence
The Korea WebWeekly hosts a very good jump page.
Intelligence Resources
A metapage from Infomanage, which also includes some native content, such as a US intelligence budget breakdown.
Links Related to Terrorism, Intelligence, and Crime
Presented by Weekly Terrorism Profile by Victor Biro "These are some of the sites that I have found interesting and useful. If you think that your link, or someone else's link should be included, drop me a line. I hope to be expanding this list on a regular basis, so check it frequently."
Netsurfer Focus on Cryptography and Privacy Lots and lotsa links!!
Open Source Links
Maintained by the Open Source Professional List. Other intelligence and security related sites on the web
Some links done by the Security and Intelligence Studies Group of the UK Political Studies Association.
Pat's Crypto Sources
A unique list of links to cryptographic information.
Virtual World of Spies and Intelligence
This site's lists relate to Spies, Information Warfare, Government Secrecy, Covert Activities, Political Investigations, Terrorists Profiles, UFO's, Intelligence Reports, Privacy on the Internet, Citizen Militias, the Most Wanted and Rewards. On the lighter side, Home Pages are listed for TV and Movie techno-thrillers. [a major resource indeed]

and more...

Regardless, I wholeheartedly agree that the best way to deal with the Chinese is politically and diplomatically. I don't think anyone really wants another costly and dangerous cold war -- and from what I hear, the Communist party in China may be on its last leg, anyway.

The trend in the world's civilizations is towards democracy, and the Chinese have one of the oldest civilizations in the world. The world would be a much better place with a powerful, democratic China.

Kythe
(Remove "x"'s from

Here are some links on the ethics issues of the Challenger Disaster: Challenger Disaster Ethics and the FAS Space Policy Project.

Yes, this is a great position; some sort of government watchdog group would probably be the best place to start... if you're in the US, you could always try here

Be prepared for an uphill battle - most people in power are pro-corporate welfare (which this would be considered..) think of your congressman, his first line of defense would probably be "but we NEED to spend money on this, because it keeps all those citizens employed."

This would probably work better in other countries, where that particular defense wouldn't work... (for you Canadians reading, try The Canadian Taxpayer Federation

• Covert Action Quarterly - has exerpts of Nicky Hagar who has written a book ( secret power) on his investigations into echelon and more importantly the echelon dictionary that is used to scan/parse messages.
  
  
• Federation of American Scientists website. outlines what echelon is, and gives exerpt (chp2)of secret power
  
  
• ( original information source - aus tv,ch9,sunday programme.)

• what if the information being scanned (phone, fax, email conversation) is being lexically scanned for keywords (eg: bomb, kill, etc..) but taken out of context (blah blah..i'll kill some time, drove in my bomb of a car on the way to the...blah blah ...watched a crappy american film the other night....) then secretly filed away recording the phone number, email information, time date, and any other gathered information - just because it might be useful for something in the future and NOT because you may have done something wrong or broken any particular law.
  
  
• what if these facilities are fully automated and unmanned.
  
  
• what if these facilities are on foreign soil and all the information gathered is sent directly to the NSA (we have nothing to do with intelligence).
  
  
• what if that information gathering tool is used in wide band mode (oh sorry we didn't mean to pick up your public company trade information sent by phone calls, emails etc.) then parsed for any hint of prices, countries, (read commercial gain) then used in any way seen fit?
  
  
• the most scary consequence could be, the filing of something you have said (which could be captured, filtered and written to some database) then used against you in a completly different social/political consequence...say yr2021's version the house of un-american (web) activities....i smell digital mccarthyism!

• Covert Action Quarterly - has exerpts of Nicky Hagar who has written a book ( secret power) on his investigations into echelon and more importantly the echelon dictionary that is used to scan/parse messages.
  
  
• Federation of American Scientists website. outlines what echelon is, and gives exerpt (chp2)of secret power
  
  
• ( original information source - aus tv,ch9,sunday programme.)

• what if the information being scanned (phone, fax, email conversation) is being lexically scanned for keywords (eg: bomb, kill, etc..) but taken out of context (blah blah..i'll kill some time, drove in my bomb of a car on the way to the...blah blah ...watched a crappy american film the other night....) then secretly filed away recording the phone number, email information, time date, and any other gathered information - just because it might be useful for something in the future and NOT because you may have done something wrong or broken any particular law.
  
  
• what if these facilities are fully automated and unmanned.
  
  
• what if these facilities are on foreign soil and all the information gathered is sent directly to the NSA (we have nothing to do with intelligence).
  
  
• what if that information gathering tool is used in wide band mode (oh sorry we didn't mean to pick up your public company trade information sent by phone calls, emails etc.) then parsed for any hint of prices, countries, (read commercial gain) then used in any way seen fit?
  
  
• the most scary consequence could be, the filing of something you have said (which could be captured, filtered and written to some database) then used against you in a completly different social/political consequence...say yr2021's version the house of un-american (web) activities....i smell digital mccarthyism!

This isn't that far away from me. Perhaps it's time for a field trip...

Here is a link I found on the Rainbow books.

http://www.fas.org/irp/nsa/rainbow.htm