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."

Comments

Re:He's a fool.

[mikeee]

1. Get everyone to agree that nuclear weapons are bad.
2. ???
3. Profit!

Re:He's a fool.

[Chris Burke]

2. ???

Never knew those were supposed to be ASCII mushroom clouds!

Who the hell is Merkle?

[SoapBox17]

They don't call it a Diffie-Merkle-Hellman exchange, who the hell is this Merkle guy?