Return-Path: <sentto-279987-4942-1025755823-fc=all.net@returns.groups.yahoo.com> Delivered-To: fc@all.net Received: from 204.181.12.215 [204.181.12.215] by localhost with POP3 (fetchmail-5.7.4) for fc@localhost (single-drop); Wed, 03 Jul 2002 21:21:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 8200 invoked by uid 510); 4 Jul 2002 04:18:58 -0000 Received: from n21.grp.scd.yahoo.com (66.218.66.77) by all.net with SMTP; 4 Jul 2002 04:18:58 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-279987-4942-1025755823-fc=all.net@returns.groups.yahoo.com Received: from [66.218.67.196] by n21.grp.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 04 Jul 2002 04:10:23 -0000 X-Sender: fc@red.all.net X-Apparently-To: iwar@onelist.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_7_4); 4 Jul 2002 04:10:23 -0000 Received: (qmail 73441 invoked from network); 4 Jul 2002 04:10:23 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.217) by m3.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 4 Jul 2002 04:10:23 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO red.all.net) (12.232.72.152) by mta2.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 4 Jul 2002 04:10:22 -0000 Received: (from fc@localhost) by red.all.net (8.11.2/8.11.2) id g644Ahj10015 for iwar@onelist.com; Wed, 3 Jul 2002 21:10:43 -0700 Message-Id: <200207040410.g644Ahj10015@red.all.net> To: iwar@onelist.com (Information Warfare Mailing List) Organization: I'm not allowed to say X-Mailer: don't even ask X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL3] From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net> X-Yahoo-Profile: fcallnet Mailing-List: list iwar@yahoogroups.com; contact iwar-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list iwar@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:iwar-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com> Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2002 21:10:43 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [iwar] [fc:Experts.Concerned.Over.Bomb-Making.Instructions] Reply-To: iwar@yahoogroups.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Status: No, hits=0.0 required=5.0 tests=DIFFERENT_REPLY_TO version=2.20 X-Spam-Level: Experts Concerned Over Bomb-Making Instructions By CHARLES J. HANLEY .c The Associated Press When Norwegian physicist Morten Bremer Maerli published an essay two years ago concluding that terrorists could do the ''trivial'' job of building a nuclear bomb, he suddenly saw his footnotes disappearing. In place of references to technical sources, editors of the U.S.-based journal Nonproliferation Review repeatedly substituted a note saying citations were being removed to keep ''unwanted actors'' from gaining information. Such is the nervousness over the growing universe of information, on the Internet and elsewhere, about making ultimate weapons. Experts have long said sufficient information is publicly available for a dedicated team to build a crude nuclear weapon of the ''gun'' type the United States dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945. In that bomb, two loads of highly enriched uranium-235, totaling about 92 pounds, were slammed together by an explosive charge, forming a ''critical mass,'' a self-sustaining fission reaction and a nuclear explosion. In his essay, Maerli cited early U.S. weapon scientist Luis W. Alvarez's statement that ''even a high school kid,'' if he had enough enriched uranium, could achieve a high-yield explosion simply by dropping one half onto another. Alvarez didn't say, however, how much is ''enough.'' The complex relationship between amount of bomb material and sophistication of bomb design is what makes it difficult to fix minimums for fashioning a nuclear weapon. Other variables are involved, too, especially the level of fissionable U-235 isotope within the uranium. Although a weapon can be made with far less plutonium, that material is more dangerous to handle and more difficult to engineer. The International Atomic Energy Agency has its own standard: 55 pounds of highly enriched uranium is considered ''significant,'' that is, sufficient for a bomb. That standard has the practical effect of exempting smaller amounts from the most stringent IAEA safeguards in the civilian nuclear sector. Some specialists say much smaller amounts should be strictly safeguarded, but that would require a vote of member states to change the benchmark. These specialists say a bomb could be built with as little as 18 pounds or even 7 pounds of highly enriched uranium, depending on the sophistication of the design. At a Washington hearing in March, senators were told that U.S. national laboratories, whose technology can produce weapons using minuscule amounts of bomb material, had gone back to review primitive methods, to see what terrorists might do. Their findings, like Maerli's footnotes, will not be made public. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Will You Find True Love? Will You Meet the One? Free Love Reading by phone! http://us.click.yahoo.com/ztNCyD/zDLEAA/Ey.GAA/kgFolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> ------------------ http://all.net/ Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
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