From: Brian D Williams (talon57@well.com)
Date: Mon Aug 27 2001 - 14:19:42 MDT
>From: Eugene Leitl <Eugene.Leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de>
>On Mon, 27 Aug 2001, Brian D Williams wrote:
>> Why is it that international drug cartels don't ship their
>>product via UPS or FedX then?
>Because they make many shipments, each typically many tons. It is
>uneconomical, and because there would be so many drug parcels in
>transit people would start screening for them.
It would be very economical, and has been tried, it is no longer
attempted because customs watches for these things amongst others.
>No one expects nukes in UPS parcels so far. Actually, if I was to
>smuggle a set of nukes into a country, and had not underground
>network of fanatics, I'd try to make contacts to the drug cartels.
>Because they do it professionally, and successfully. Assuming,
>they're willing to do it (unlikely, though), the probability of
>detection would be very low.
No one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition! Sorry, but I think
you're right, if you were to try smuggle something into the U.S,
pros would be the way to go.
>I don't care about the group (assuming, they're nice enough to
>advertize their name and their location), and the group doesn't
>care about being rational, otherwise it wouldn't do something as
>foolish. I care about the people nuked.
Me too, but your shelters would be of no use in such an attack.
> Getting an airborne form of anthrax is not easy, the Japanese
>cult Aum Shinrikyo despite being technically very sophisticated
>failed in it's attempts. Good luck playing with VX.
>Aum S. were amateurs. The preparation (rather weak agent as a
>rather dilute acetonitrile solution) and the mode of deployment
>(slowly leaking plastic baggie) indicate that they had really no
>clue. Which is a good thing. However, gambling on continuation of
>your lucky streak is not good statistics.
Actually they did an aerosol deployment of anthrax spores around
the parliment building, I think you're refering to the Sarin
attack.
>They could have achieved two orders of magnitude more victims
>merely by a different mode of deployment, by aerosoling the the
>solution with a low-temp pyrocharge. Many highschool students will
>arrive at this conclusion without prompting. By synchronous
>deployment in strategic locations they would have trapped the
>people underground. In this case, very few people would have made
>it out there alive.
I believe you're refering to their Sarin attack on the subway,
rather than anthrax.
>Well, I'm not willing the take the risk rogue nations are that
>stupid. Besides, I'm not sure it makes sense to differentiate
>rogue nations from terrorists, because a dictator has far too much
>to lose than an anonymous group that is not in control.
I was only refering to the resources a dictator has versus the
basement labs of your average terrorist.
>Very well, I've stated a number of times that the umbrella will
>cause other superpowers to increase their arsenal, and modify that
>arsenal, resulting in more more difficult to intercept nukes. This
>is not a neutral side effect, and needs to be taken into the
>calculation. Even if you're not directly protecting yourself
>against other superpowers.
China is going to increase it's arsenal regardless, smaller nations
won't have the resources.
>I very much hope that my attack will remain theoretical. And you
>seem not to understand that you're thinking rationally, but no
>rational person will nuke you. These is not the folks you have to
>be wary of.
I agree.
>Well, that's what goobvarmint is for, to create regulations that
>every new built house needs to have a shelter of an approved
>design. These are incremental costs, and as a side effect you get
>shelters with very short average distances, so that you can react
>within a few minutes forewarning.
No U.S. government is going to do this, by the way this is the ICBM
scenario. ;)
>Small portable devices will be weak, dirty fission, maybe boosted
>fission. State of the art nuclear devices should not be on the
>free market. Rogue states don't do fusion, for the same reason
>they don't do ICBMs. Good physicists and technicians are a lot
>scarcer and much less expendable than fanatics.
Let me try to restate our positions.
In the event of an ICBM attack you think shelters are more
effective/ less expensive while I think that ABM's are the better
choice. (actually I'd like both but can't afford it).
You think a suitcase nuke or megatruck bomb is more likely, but in
this case I think shelters are useless.
>Since shelters are distributed (well, they have be, because
>otherwise the mean average distance would be too long), and he
>would have to detonate his weak nuke underground, the amounts of
>survivors would be maximum in this case. If you have limited
>resources, you go for an airburst, which will profit from the nuke
>being dirty, if not salted. Much nastier than a high flux, which
>they won't get, anyway.
In a non-ICBM attack there is no warning so shelters are
ineffective.
Brian
Member:
Extropy Institute, www.extropy.org
National Rifle Association, www.nra.org, 1.800.672.3888
SBC/Ameritech Data Center Chicago, IL, Local 134 I.B.E.W
Disclosure notice: currently "plonked"
"Joe Dees" <joedees@addall.com>
"Party of Citizens"<citizens@vcn.bc.ca>
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