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Buying Goods To Make Nuclear Weapons On eBay, Alibaba, and Other Platforms
Lasrick (2629253) writes The blossoming of online Internet-trading platforms has at least one downside: insufficient inspectors and product controls when it comes to goods relevant to nuclear proliferation. "On Alibaba (and other platforms), one can purchase many of the specialized items needed for the manufacture of nuclear weapons. A short list of items advertised for sale on the site include metals suitable for centrifuge manufacturing, gauges and pumps for centrifuge cascades for uranium enrichment, metallurgical casting equipment suitable for making nuclear weapon 'pits,' and high-speed cameras suitable for use in nuclear weapon diagnostic tests. A company on an Alibaba-owned Chinese Internet-trading platform even posted an ad for the sale of the rare metal gallium, which the seller trumpeted could be used to stabilize plutonium." Although many companies have strict compliance procedures in place to help avoid proliferation, many do not. There are several procedures these platforms can put into place to minimize risk, and both national (and international) regulators have a role to play, as well as shareholders.
Why no booms?
NOT making nuclear weapons...
the food eaten by the people working on making nuclear bombs is an item that can lead to proliferation. This is just scare-mongering to increase inspection of incoming parcels... so the government can charge import duties and taxes.
Oh, and we're protecting you from people who build nuclear bombs in their garage, yup.
What nonsense.
Mostly random stuff.
Why stop it?
Getting the government involved in regulating the site to preemptively prevent these transactions is stupid. Instead there should be a streamlined process for getting a warrant, and then you go after people who purchase the material. While mailing them a large cache of something that looks like the product but isn't and that has a locator.
If you ban the sale altogether you just push it underground. If you use it to gather data you have actionable intelligence.
Gallium is used a lot in semiconductor manufacture and I'm pretty sure it's not that hard to get.
Hell, a Google search for "pure gallium" has pulled up quite a few prospects.
You'd have a much harder time getting a hold of the plutonium.
Sorry, this is pretty much BS scaremongering.
Buying a piece of metal that could be made into a centrifuge doesn't mean that you will actually succeed to make one. There is a lot of specialized equipment needed for that which is tightly controlled (try to export a high precision CNC machine, for example!).
Most of this gear has lots of legitimate uses as well. Not to mention that if someone really wanted to obtain this sort of gear, I cannot imagine them shopping for it on Alibaba or eBay - they would be spending a ton of money for a product of unknown quality possibly from a mom&pop shop somewhere in China that sells everything from rubber bands, dresses up to car accessories, that is assuming it isn't a scam in the first place. There are better ways of obtaining it - e.g. through shell companies abroad acting as middlemen to avoid embargoes or from friendly nations.
And before someone pulls out the "terrorist building nukes" bogeyman - that requires a lot more than building a few centrifuges from stuff bought on Alibaba. There are plenty of simpler, cheaper and easier accessible methods to wreak havoc than trying to build a nuke that even countries like Iran didn't succeed in so far, despite vastly bigger resources than some lunatics in a cave possess.
Most of this gear has lots of legitimate uses as well. Not to mention that if someone really wanted to obtain this sort of gear, I cannot imagine them shopping for it on Alibaba or eBay.[...]
I'm trying to become a rationalist, so here's (my take on) the fallacy.
Police learn that "all drug labs use chemicals", so they think "all chemicals are intent to make drugs". If they see your home laboratory, you'll be arrested and have all your chemicals confiscated - even if you don't have the complete drug-making kit. I know of one home lab where this is exactly what happened. Frequently, having a scale is considered sufficient evidence of drug dealing.
I've read several news reports of people being arrested for having "bomb making materials" where the kit was incomplete - in one case a box of [glass] canning jars in the back of a vehicle along with a bag of fertilizer. No fuel oil (for ANFO), nothing that could be a fuse, no apparent intent, and no apparent target. A guy's life got completely fucked up for no apparent reason.
Another example: explosives are delivered by rocket, so rockets will be used to deliver explosives. We have to ban model rocketry!
Sexual harassment is done by ribald speech, therefore all ribald speech is sexual harassment. (Even if there's no threat?)
Other examples too numerous to mention.
This is formally the Fallacy of the Reversed Conditional, and it's used in lots and lots of news articles to stoke fear and promote the writer's agenda.
It's a problem in Bayesian probability. Consider whether the following reversals are valid or invalid:
Probability that someone carries a purse, given that they're a woman (high or low), probability that someone is a woman, given that they're carrying a purse (high or low)? Is reversing this conditional valid?
Probability that John is dead, given that he was executed (high or low), probability that John was executed, given that he is dead (high or low)? Is reversing the conditional valid?
Two examples of reversed the conditionals, but only one is valid when reversed.
We need to sort through the bias and clever manipulation of innuendo, and consider the arguments on their merits. Owning any of the cited tech is not evidence of bomb-making, and invasive tracking laws will not help stop nuclear proliferation.
The fallacy is used for a reason: they want to impose invasive tracking for other reasons, using your emotions against you.
Don't be fooled.
Thermometers. They don't make them out of Mercury any more, due to toxicity. Most analog thermometers are now alcohol based, but Gallium is used in quite a few.
I won't even bother listing all the uses for pumps and pressure gauges. This article is clearly trolling.