Nuclear Warhead Blueprints On Smugglers' Computers

imrehg links to a story at the Guardian which begins "Blueprints for a sophisticated and compact nuclear warhead have been found in the computers of the world's most notorious nuclear-smuggling racket, according to a leading US researcher. The digital designs, found in heavily encrypted computer files in Switzerland, are believed to be in the possession of the US authorities and of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in Vienna, but investigators fear they could have been extensively copied and sold to 'rogue' states via the nuclear black market." Reader this great guy links to the New York Times article on the discovery, and asks "Given that Khan's revelations were made in early 2004, does that mean it took the IAEA 1-2 years to brute-force the encryption?"

Comments

Re:Garage Nukes

[QuantumG]

I pointed out that "mini-nukes" do exist. They can be even used as 'backpack bombs'. Small nuclear munitions can be used to level cities. No they can't. That's the point. If you can't understand that a 1kt weapon isn't sufficient to level a city then how can I go about convincing you that you hold an irrational belief? Do I have to give you a "10 million pages of congress" style analogy?

It's a kt.. you can pick up the ingredients to make a 1kt bomb from home depot. You won't need a team of nuclear scientists to do it, either.

If you want to level a city, you need at least 10s of kilotons and you need to detonate it at an altitude of about 2,000ft. And even then, you'd only be punching a hole in Manhattan, you'd need a 100kt bomb to level it.

A guy with a backpack bomb on, would likely only be able to carry about a 0.1kt bomb and detonating it at ground level would cause less damage than the Oklahoma City bombing.. and for that kind of bang there's cheaper ways to spend your bucks.

The whole "OMG Backpack Nuke!" hysteria is just a reflection of how poorly the average person understands anything with the word "nuclear" in it and immediately fears it.

You should know better.