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1994-08-25 - Re: Nuclear Weapons Material

Header Data

From: “Perry E. Metzger” <perry@imsi.com>
To: mpd@netcom.com (Mike Duvos)
Message Hash: ed2ea45391f745aeaaeb683dcab349dd5ced43ab09a300c3476cd8bccb036be6
Message ID: <9408251452.AA04745@snark.imsi.com>
Reply To: <199408251440.HAA06649@netcom7.netcom.com>
UTC Datetime: 1994-08-25 14:52:38 UTC
Raw Date: Thu, 25 Aug 94 07:52:38 PDT

Raw message

From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@imsi.com>
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 94 07:52:38 PDT
To: mpd@netcom.com (Mike Duvos)
Subject: Re: Nuclear Weapons Material
In-Reply-To: <199408251440.HAA06649@netcom7.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <9408251452.AA04745@snark.imsi.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Mike Duvos says:
> The media was making a big deal last night about the seizure of 
> twenty pounds of U-238.  This, of course, is the non-radioactive
> isotope of uranium in which trade is relatively unrestricted.

Its plenty radioactive. It just isn't fissionable. Not all isotopes
are fissionable.

> It does make excellent shell casings

Actually, depleted uranium tends to be used in place of lead in rounds
used for things like Phalanx (sp?) anti-missile gattling guns. Its
also used in some sorts of armor. I don't think anyone in their right
mind would make a shell CASING from it.

> I wonder why the issue of bomb parts is now being given such a
> huge push in the press?

Because its a real issue. Lots of nuclear material is floating around,
and some of it is going to end up in the hands of terrorists at some
point. However, as I said in the second message in this thread, this
will not be a reasonable excuse to stop strong cryptography, as anyone
with the resouces to build a bomb can also buy or build a good
cryptosystem.

Perry

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