Slashdot Mirror
Soaring, Cryptography, and Nuclear Weapons
Martin Hellman sends in a pointer to his essay that uses analogies from cryptography and the sport of soaring in an attempt to draw people in to thinking about the risks of nuclear weapons. Quoting: "... I did a preliminary risk analysis which indicates that relying on nuclear weapons for our security is thousands of times more dangerous than having a nuclear power plant built next to your home." Hellman is best known as co-inventor (with Diffie and Merkle) of public key cryptography, and has worked for over twenty-five years to reduce the threat posed by nuclear weapons. He is also a glider pilot with over 2,600 logged hours. Hellman adds, "Readers needing a break can go to some photos of the Sierra Nevada mountains taken from my glider."
And for our next analysis, we will have Zbignew Brzenski give his opinion on quantum cryptography versus Enigma machines.
Why is it when a genius in field X has some free time, they think they can do immediately have deep insights in field Q?
----
As an obvious counterexample, a nuclear plant, to avoid disaster, needs continuous monitoring and maintenance by dozens of fallible humans, plus the critical reactor vessel gets steadily weaker due to neutron bombardment. It's not a question of "if", but of "when" something gives.
OTOH nuclear weapons, by comparison, are intrinsically inert. Only by a special sequence of ministrations can they be activated.
Personally I'd rather live next to something in category 2 than category 1.
Unless the leadership of said country actively funds suicide bombers and has expressly declared 'Death to Israel'.
Anyone who thinks Iran WON'T use a nuke when it gets one has their head in the sand.
Yup, that's the problem with the brits.
They also discovered the better chunk of computational theory but hey, instead of making it a decent science and fostering that kind of development, they chose to kill the father of computing (after him playing an uttermost important part in winning the second world war for Occident), Alan Turing... because he was gay.
Then there is the other side of the repressive balance: without the brit culture being the ultra-tight metaphorical asshole its always been, would we have had the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Sex Pistols, Monty Python, Sacha Baron Cohen???
We will never know: i, for one, both thank and despise each trait separately.
NO SIG
etc.
that's the constitution of iran
it describes a theocracy
now, all other countries with a nuclear weapon are not theocracies. of course, religion holds a vast sway in many countries with a nuclear weapon, but they are still republics. the usa, for example, is currently run by a devout southern baptist. but his power is curtailed by the rules of his country's constitution, which is not overtly based on religion. if you wanted to say, erroneoussly, that the usa was generally equivalent to iran in terms of religious influence, you would have to give me something like: the pope has to approve of all presidential candidates in the us ballot, or they are denied the right to run for office (this is how it works in iran)
it does not work this way in pakistan. it does not work this way in israel. it doesn't work this way in any other nuclear armed country. if gw bush woke up tomorrow, and said god told him to nuke iran, he couldn't do that, as he does not hold the ultimate power to do that
but in iran, the ultimate decision to use nukes rests with grumpy old men who claim a monopoly on their ability to interpret the will of god. these same grumpy old men are the ultimate power in iran, they trump ahmadinejad
you don't see a problem there? you don't see something intrinsically different there than any other country? iran, having nukes, is genuinely different than every othe rcountry that has the bomb
pro-usa, or anti-usa, the facts about iran, because it is a theocracy, should scare you about iran having nukes, and give you special pause, unlike when you consider any other country with a nuke
we are talking about a theocracy, with nuclear weapons. no matter WHAT your ideological attitude, towards any country in the world: doesn't this fact give you pause, and doesn't it worry you uniquely?
so yes, i say, not as a pro-american, or an anti-american, but simply as a human being wary of the influence of fundamentalist religion in this world, that iran having the nuclear weapon is something especially worrisome, and stands out as especially dangerous, than all countries with nukes. simply because they are a theocracy
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Don't confuse them with facts, Mr. Slippery. It's much more use to them if they can keep spreading their nuclear platitudes and assurances that the chances of a TMI, Chernobyl, Enrico Fermi, Windscale, Browns Ferry, or other accident are nonexistent - which as you so nicely point out is proven wrong by the fact that we have had these various accidents.
They also like to say that these various reactor designs are "bad" and that we would never build one like that now. Problem with that logic is at the time each was designed, it was thought to be "good" with adequate protections that made them "safe".
Funny how it's only after a major accident that a good design becomes a bad design.