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Buying Goods To Make Nuclear Weapons On eBay, Alibaba, and Other Platforms

Posted by timothy on from the we-gotcher-centrifuges-we-gotcher-krytrons dept.

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.

38 of 260 comments (clear)

  1. If so damn many people are making nukes by pooh666 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why no booms?

    1. Re:If so damn many people are making nukes by peragrin · · Score: 5, Informative

      That and they keep the really useful stuff for booms tightly regulated.

      You might be able to build a dirty bomb in your basement. However even building a gun type fission bomb is really really tricking. you need highly accurate tools in a specialized radiological enclosure to start with. You can't just spin a hunk of Uranium on a CNC lathe and get the shape you want. you would kill everyone working on the project long before they finished it.

      As for Chemical weapons they regulate large quantity purchases. you can buy smaller amounts and fly under the radar but then you have to store until you have a large enough supply. again requiring strict controls.

      Even large scale diesel bombs like timothy Macve(?) used are harder to pull off now.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    2. Re:If so damn many people are making nukes by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Informative

      Oh yeah, the "dual use" bull. Do you have any faint idea how complicated it has become to get some chemicals? Because someone somehow found some way to use it either to make stuff you can smoke or stuff that makes other stuff go up in smoke. In the meantime we're sitting here with more and more useless stuff for PCB etching. Oh, and we're not talking about such elusive stuff like LAH (which is surprisingly easy to get compared to its "usefulness"), just try to get some HCl or H2O2 in Europe today.

      Dual use my ass. Name any chemical and I'll find a way to make a bomb out of that crap. By that logic, you can't sell anything anymore. But I guess it only applies when Mr. Ordinary wants to buy some chemicals to avoid paying some corporation thrice the price because they slap a brand label on some chem mix. Then it's suddenly ok.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    3. Re:If so damn many people are making nukes by nitehawk214 · · Score: 2

      No boom today, boom tomorrow, there's always boom tomorrow.

      BOOM!

      --
      I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
    4. Re:If so damn many people are making nukes by ganjadude · · Score: 2, Interesting

      the fact that I need to show an ID to buy nyquil because some people try to use it to make meth (which you cant do with nyquil anyway) is a fucking joke. stop with the bullshit cold.

      --
      have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
    5. Re:If so damn many people are making nukes by ganjadude · · Score: 2

      fair enough, I should have been more specific. Anything with pseudoephrine has been nehind the counter for yeards. Im talking about a lot of stores now have a blanket policy on any cold medicine regardless of ingredients

      but I stand my my point regardless if you can make meth with it. How about instead of regulating things that could potentially be used to make bad things, we simply go after people who actually DO bad things. Stop inconveniencing the majority because of a very VERY small minority

      --
      have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
    6. Re:If so damn many people are making nukes by ganjadude · · Score: 3, Interesting

      exactly. Does anyone remember kids chemistry kits growing up? I had some AWESOME kits, I could melt coins in acid that came in mine, yes, acid was sold in chem kits that were marketed to 8 up and this was in the late 80s early 90s. i can only imagine how awesome chem kits were in the 60s

      --
      have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
    7. Re:If so damn many people are making nukes by Creepy · · Score: 5, Informative

      Um, uranium isn't all that radioactive or even dangerous to handle. The only reason people actually wear gloves when handling it is to keep contaminants like oils from the hand off of them. Sticking it on a lathe isn't going to make a bomb, though. You could make a pretty poor dirty bomb because breathing uranium dust isn't healthy (the skin stops alpha and beta emitters pretty well, but the lungs don't), but it also isn't the best emitter. In fact, with a dirty bomb you want something with a high alpha emission rate like polonium. Spent reactor fuel contains all kinds of actinides with high emission rates, so nuclear waste makes a much better dirty bomb than raw uranium.

      As for getting fissile uranium out of pieces of uranium, well it isn't particularly hard, but it is time consuming. You basically dissolve the uranium into a solution and then run it in a centrifuge and the heavier stuff moves to the walls and lighter stuff toward the center. You then remove the lighter solution and repeat over and over again to get more purity. You need to do this to a certain level for a reactor and a much higher level for a bomb. If you wanted to take it one step further, you could use reactor level uranium and build a breeder reactor that converts uranium to plutonium and then make a plutonium bomb. Just to get it to reactor grade requires a lot of centrifuges and/or a lot of time... I think I read Iran has something like 77000 of them just to create fuel grade nuclear material.

    8. Re:If so damn many people are making nukes by jenningsthecat · · Score: 2

      Um, ammonium nitrate is an oxidizer, and can't explode in its own - it needs something to oxidize. Like, say, home heating fuel, or diesel fuel - the latter of which McVeigh used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      --
      'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
    9. Re:If so damn many people are making nukes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      "You basically dissolve the uranium into a solution and then run it in a centrifuge and the heavier stuff moves to the walls and lighter stuff toward the center."

      Not in liquid solution. You transform it into a gas, such as uranium hexafluoride. Then you run the gas through the centrifuges, which is indeed a huge, energy-intensive operation. Then you have to convert the UF6 back into uranium metal, which is about as chemically messy as the initial conversion to UF6.

      The nuclear reactor route to transform it into plutonium isn't simple either, because you'll have to handle some very hot stuff as the fuel comes out of the reactor, chemically separate the plutonium from that highly-radioactive stuff, and if you leave it in too long you get enough undesirable isotopes of plutonium that the bomb could "fizzle" rather than explode properly.

      But you're right that if the enriched uranium was in hand, machining it on a lathe would be challenging but not particularly dangerous because of uranium's mild radioactivity. By that point the really hard stuff is already done. I think most people know that getting ahold of the fissile pit for a bomb is likely the hardest part. If people have got that somehow, then keeping them from getting a bunch of other parts of alibaba or amazon isn't going to slow them down much.

    10. Re: If so damn many people are making nukes by Optali · · Score: 2

      And sexy spandex underpants to fill their leisure time with enjoyment!!!

      --
      -- 29A the number of the Beast
  2. You know what else that stuff can be used for by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    NOT making nuclear weapons...

    1. Re:You know what else that stuff can be used for by cyrano.mac · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And meanwhile, an Australian can't sell for instance a Dutch (Philips) made photomultiplier tube on ebay. I can 't get some FET transistors from TI they told me, because they couldn't really identify me. Strangely enough, the next day the FET's were in the mail...

      Oh, well, next time i'll buy Chinese, German, Dutch or Japanese. But not from an American company.

      And which country has the most problems with weaponry, by far?

    2. Re:You know what else that stuff can be used for by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This. A billion times this.

      You have NO idea what I went through last time buying some chemicals for my PCB work. It seems that buying HCl, H2O2, Isopropyl alcohol and Acetone was kinda asking for it, but I honestly didn't know. Well, now I do. And I got a new door, too...

      And yes, those things are used exactly for what I said. HCl and H2O2 for etching, Acetone for cleaning the PCB of photoresist and the alcohol to dissolve the soldering flux.

      But now I know what else you can do with that crap. Thanks law enforcement, I wouldn't even have thought about that!

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    3. Re:You know what else that stuff can be used for by cellocgw · · Score: 2

      You don't really strike me as the type that knows nothing about improvised explosives.

      The fact that you apparently know your way around circuit boards is icing on the cake.

      And the fact that you write crappy logic like that indicates that you're both a troll and one of those people who thinks anyone who's heard of The Anarchist's Cookbook should be in jail.
      sheesh

      --
      https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
  3. Well, by that logic by 50000BTU_barbecue · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  4. Why? by Etherwalk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Why? by 50000BTU_barbecue · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "Getting the government involved [...] is stupid"...

      then

      "process for getting a warrant"

      Eh what? From a private corporation I guess?

      "then you go after people who purchase the material"

      Who "you"? You and the horsemen of the free market????

      --
      Mostly random stuff.
  5. Re:It was never about the materials by Etherwalk · · Score: 2

    If you're a nuclear scientist or engineer, your activities are more closely watched than anyone else's save the president of your country.

    Kim Kardashian is President?

  6. Gallium Rare? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  7. Gallium is also a dopant in chipmaking by swschrad · · Score: 3, Informative

    problem is, almost everything has the potential for dual-use. thorium for tube filaments for audiophools and ham radio power tubes. plutonium for.... yeah, that's it, degradation deep-space power modules, right. there might be room for a law to allow the customs boys to bring you questionable materials, and inspect the delivery address... .

    --
    if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
    1. Re:Gallium is also a dopant in chipmaking by Pentium100 · · Score: 2

      Why would you go through all the effort needed to make a bomb out of water if you can use gasoline or (better) LPG for that? Those are already explosive and nobody is going to care why you are buying 60L provided it first goes into the fuel tank of your car.

    2. Re: Gallium is also a dopant in chipmaking by smaddox · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

  8. I think the time has come to prohibit everything by fustakrakich · · Score: 2

    It is the only way we will ever be safe.

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  9. Gallium? by M0HCN · · Score: 2

    Well yea Gallium can be used to stabilise Pu, it is after all a potent neutron absorber....
    This is not a metal you want anywhere near your fissile core.

    Kind of cool stuff however, it melts right around body heat, so amusing to play with, but as a nuclear material its major use is preventing big piles of corium from accidents from going critical.

    An interesting obsevation about the black market as applied to nuclear matters: If I have some Pu for sale I stand about an 80% chance that any given attempt to close a deal will result in a swat team and men from the intellegence services wanting a word.
    The same thing applies if I am a buyer, no effective market can exist under these conditions.
    However, given that presumably everyones intel agencies run stings of both types the result must surely be that much of the time you get two intellegence agencies swatting each other....

    Now the ready availibility of copper vapour lasers and narrow line width dyes, that might actually be a worry (There is approximately a 0.5nm difference in the photon energy required to ionise U235 compared to U238 as a hexafloride, this is explotable at least in experimental plants), 1950s tech not so much (There are probably easier ways to get there these days).

    Regards, Dan.

    1. Re:Gallium? by Beryllium+Sphere(tm) · · Score: 2

      That's the thing, gallium is not that exotic and has recreational uses. Casting equipment?! A staggering range of uses for thousands of years.

      BTW "stabilize" is in the metallurgical sense. If the open literature is correct, and I hope it is full of booby traps for bomb makers, plutonium is less of a nightmare to put into controlled shapes if alloyed with gallium.

    2. Re:Gallium? by 50000BTU_barbecue · · Score: 2

      OK, how about we not infringe your right to bear 17th century muskets as long as you make it yourself, make your own bullets and gunpowder?

      --
      Mostly random stuff.
    3. Re:Gallium? by M0HCN · · Score: 2

      Suggesting a potent neutron poison as a component of the alloy strikes me as being a fairly obvious one of those traps, the critical mass for a spherical PU assembly is also quoted differently in different literature (I have not bothered doing the maths to figure out which one is correct for a non reflector based design), but it is pretty much highschool level sums.

      Now getting the tamper design right and manufacturing sufficiently homoginous compression charges, not often discussed in the civil literature.

      Nuclear terrorism strikes me as a total non starter for all sorts of reasons, not least that tacking a few methyl groups onto some mercury is so much easier (First really nasty simple chemistry that came to mind, ther are plenty of others), and as a terrorist weapon simple CNS toxins on the subway would seem to have much to commend them (A lousy military chemical weapon, but terrorists go for civilian targets generally).

      Spend the time worrying either about state actors (Who are not shopping chianese websites), or nutjobs with **SIMPLE** explosive or chemical devices for whom tracking precursors is probably ineffective (Nitric and sulfuric acids are so commonplace industrially that tracking is impossible), those guys need proper police work to catch.

      Regards, Dan.

  10. Centrifuge parts by quenda · · Score: 2

    Millions of uranium centrifuge parts sold openly:

    http://www.alibaba.com/country...

    Somebody call Colin Powell!

  11. 1940s technology by physicsphairy · · Score: 2

    The technology to actually manufacture nuclear weapons is starting to close in on a century old. What prohibits their manufacture is ultimately a combination of international pressure, expense, and engineering difficulty. If your country doesn't have a bullet train then it probably doesn't have nuclear weapons for much the same reason or else because it has specifically chosen not to manufacture them (the fact any money from western nations would quickly evaporate makes a strong incentive). If you're going to worry about people getting hold of galium and high speed cameras, you're just being ridiculous. Anyone who could even have a shot at building a nuclear weapon also has enough resources to easily obtain those sorts of items, no matter what international restrictions are applied.

    --
    When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
  12. Lump of metal != centrifuge by janoc · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  13. eBay and Alibaba are for babies ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 2

    ... and there are other more dangerous sites.

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  14. Stop the proliferation of stones to Iran ! by burni2 · · Score: 2

    Now!

    Stones used in stonings in Iran.

    We old (in)continentler (european) stopped delivering sodiompenthatol to the U.S. because of its use in executions.

    Stop delivering stones to Iran.

    The funny thing about nuclear weapons is.

    You need the fucking key ingredient!
    Uran or Plutonium

    And yes when you have that you can enrich it!
    But when I remember correctly the Uranium content of the best ton of uranium ore was about 0,3%.

    And the amount of centrifuges to increase the concentration is enormous.

    Now you need to put that Caterpiller Truck also on the list.

    No fucking idiot without a big organisation can do that.

    We should track lathe and mill buyers first, because these are the tools weapons of person destruction are built off.

  15. I got gallium from my black market contact... by Drachs · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Code name, Amazon Prime

    http://www.amazon.com/Gallium-99-99%25-Pure-20-Grams/dp/B00BSRAH5M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414958244&sr=8-1&keywords=gallium

    I used it to make a novelty heart, which melted in her hands.

    1. Re:I got gallium from my black market contact... by Drachs · · Score: 2

      Nope, I just microwaved some water in a bowl, then I placed the container of gallium in the bowl of warm water, it melted in a minute or so, and I poured it into a mold. Takes quite a while for it to melt at body temperature, so you'll have to hold hands for a while. :)

  16. Reversed conditional by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  17. Re:Walmart sells landmines! by guruevi · · Score: 2

    You know that IS the whole point of a land mine (or any type of IED) right? Not to kill but to maim, slow down, drive up the expenses and bring down the morale of your enemy.

    --
    Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
  18. Ban everything!! by Charcharodon · · Score: 2
    This is stupid, if you have a basic machine shop, access to a electronics supply store, and some raw materials you have what it takes to make nuclear weapons. How exactly do you think they did it back in the day? They didn't special order it out of a catalog.....

    The level of stupid in the world is astounding.