RE: Nuclear Hedge Funds / Social Engineering in History / Wiretap DiFi

Declan McCullagh wrote:
> On Mon, 8 Sep 1997, Bill Stewart wrote:
> > However, we need to get off this "Nuke Washington!" kick,
> > and on to something more realistic like "Wiretap DiFi!"
> 
> I'd like to ask that if anyone is planning to Nuke Washington, they
> politely let me know so I can go on an extended business trip to the
> Montana mountains. I mean, it's just common courtesy!
Look on the bright side: You will probably never know what hit you :-)

At 6:48 PM -0700 9/9/97, rab@stallion.oz.au wrote:
>Declan McCullagh wrote:
>> On Mon, 8 Sep 1997, Bill Stewart wrote:
>> > However, we need to get off this "Nuke Washington!" kick,
>> > and on to something more realistic like "Wiretap DiFi!"
>>
>> I'd like to ask that if anyone is planning to Nuke Washington, they
>> politely let me know so I can go on an extended business trip to the
>> Montana mountains. I mean, it's just common courtesy!
>Look on the bright side: You will probably never know what hit you :-)

Yes, the very, very, intensely bright side.

In actuality, the damage radius of course goes approximately as the cube
root of the megatonnage. The multimegaton warheads of some decades back are
no more, replaced by 1 MT and even 200 KT warheads as the "workhorses" of
MIRV and cruise missile delivery systems. And of course nuclear
demolitions, designed to take out dams, close mountain passes, etc., are of
even less megatonnage.

In Hiroshima and Nagasaki, people survived the blast at a radius of several
hundred meters, if they were not looking at the blast and were not in the
open, or in residences ignited. (The Japanese houses were more easily
ignited than modern American or European houses and apartments, for various
reasons.

These bombs were roughly 20 KT. A suitcase bomb might well be comparable,
or even smaller. And even the "workhorses" I mentioned, at 200 KT, would
have roughly the same survivability at 2 or 3 times the radius, i.e. at
1000 meters or so.

Declan would be very unlikely to be in the lethal zone, unless he happened
to be near one of the obvious targets.

(Which in my opinion would be the White House, the Congress, the Pentagon,
or the densepack burrowcrat warrens. Using the above calculations, it is
quite reasonable that big chunks of these buildings would survive a
suitcase nuke placed a few hundred meters away. The Pentagon might lose a
bite out of it, and thus look like some kind of mil-spec Apple logo.)


--Tim May


There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws.
Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!"
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

At 01:00 AM 9/10/97 -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>That's hardly comforting (not sure if it was meant to be). I work four or
>so blocks from the White House and spend a good bit of time in the Capitol
>and related buildings. My office is in the densepack lobbyist warren
>territory on K Street.

The obvious time for a unpacking a suitcase would be during a State of the
Union address. I trust you watch those from home?


--Lucky Green <shamrock@netcom.com>
  PGP encrypted mail preferred.
  DES is dead! Please join in breaking RC5-56.
  http://rc5.distributed.net/

Lucky Green <shamrock@netcom.com> writes:

>
> At 01:00 AM 9/10/97 -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote:
> >That's hardly comforting (not sure if it was meant to be). I work four or
> >so blocks from the White House and spend a good bit of time in the Capitol
> >and related buildings. My office is in the densepack lobbyist warren
> >territory on K Street.
>
> The obvious time for a unpacking a suitcase would be during a State of the
> Union address. I trust you watch those from home?

Where is the vice president usually during the state of the union address?

---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

On Tue, 9 Sep 1997, Tim May wrote:
> Declan would be very unlikely to be in the lethal zone, unless he happened
> to be near one of the obvious targets.
> 
> (Which in my opinion would be the White House, the Congress, the Pentagon,
> or the densepack burrowcrat warrens. Using the above calculations, it is
> quite reasonable that big chunks of these buildings would survive a
> suitcase nuke placed a few hundred meters away. The Pentagon might lose a
> bite out of it, and thus look like some kind of mil-spec Apple logo.)

That's hardly comforting (not sure if it was meant to be). I work four or
so blocks from the White House and spend a good bit of time in the Capitol
and related buildings. My office is in the densepack lobbyist warren
territory on K Street.

I do live, however, about a mile and a half from anything especially
targetworthy.

-Declan

On Tue, 9 Sep 1997, Tim May wrote:
> > The Pentagon might lose a
> > bite out of it, and thus look like some kind of mil-spec Apple logo.)

Having just finished reading the "Illuminatus!" trilogy, I _really_ hope
that this doesn't happen...   :-)

MJ

At 10:00 PM -0700 9/9/97, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>On Tue, 9 Sep 1997, Tim May wrote:
>> Declan would be very unlikely to be in the lethal zone, unless he happened
>> to be near one of the obvious targets.
>>
>> (Which in my opinion would be the White House, the Congress, the Pentagon,
>> or the densepack burrowcrat warrens. Using the above calculations, it is
>> quite reasonable that big chunks of these buildings would survive a
>> suitcase nuke placed a few hundred meters away. The Pentagon might lose a
>> bite out of it, and thus look like some kind of mil-spec Apple logo.)
>
>That's hardly comforting (not sure if it was meant to be). I work four or
>so blocks from the White House and spend a good bit of time in the Capitol
>and related buildings. My office is in the densepack lobbyist warren
>territory on K Street.
>
>I do live, however, about a mile and a half from anything especially
>targetworthy.

Then you may  be OK, as the best time to trigger such events is probably at
rush hour in the morning, where I assumed, being a reporter, you're still
recovering from the shmooze parties the night before.

One thing that seems possible is a coordinated, multi-city detonation
(assuming the freedom fighters have several armable devices, which seems
possible). Several small nukes being detonated in A, B, C, and D (where
these are the capitals or centers of influence of one's political
opponents) would synergistically magnify the terror effect. Detonating just
one of them would probably result in severe travel restrictions, martial
law, etc., and so make detonation of the later ones problematic.

More of us will be executed, tortured, or otherwise injured in the
aftermath of martial law than would be injured in a suitcase-nuking of the
snake's head. (By "us" I mean reasonable people like ourselves, not the
unemployable welfare addicts and unemployable government lifers who cluster
around the target zones.)

--Tim May



There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws.
Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!"
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."