Why do they publish stories like this?

[Perseus]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061208/...rts_nuclear_dc


Yay!!! Gives you a recipe for protecting nuclear material. I feel like the people who publish these stories should be punished, but that's just me.

If it's likely for this to happen, do something about it! Maybe the people who like to publish these stories are terrorists anyway.

I guess I have no faith in my country if I'm worried about a story like this.

Anyone else get worked up by people who publish crap like this?

[lurk]

Wow, you should see the stuff in high school science books! I did not learn just about alpha, beta and gamma radiation. But also the sources of those types of radiation and the things that block it.

Sorry to be so snarky but this just pisses me off to no end. We cannot be ignorant of high school physics and chemistry because the terrorists could use that info. I am sorry to burst your bubble of ignorance, but honestly by my junior year I knew more than enough to make a dirty bomb in a myriad different ways. By my senior year I could have easily snuck it through customs. It is easy!

The thing that scares me the the incredible number of people that are going though life in a sense of security derived purely from their lack of knowledge. They tend to put exactly the wrong people into jail.

[Perseus]

You assume I have a total "lack of knowledge." I would only present a question or issue about something I generally don't know much about...not everyone has to know everything about chemistry or physics, do you know everything about New York City subway cars? I bet you don't. You probably assume something like I cannot find Iraq on a map. See this might be your subject of specialty (science -- I mean who knows) and it is easy to get angry at someone who doesn't know something about a subject you know a lot about.

I could get mad if someone didn't know something I know, say the difference between an R40 and an R42 subway car, but the difference here is you have to be a jerk about it. I am merally talking about the stories which are chosen to incite fear...that's what I find stupid.

[mdnky]

They publish those kind of stories because they "believe the people have a right to know". Whatever. They never do tell the whole story or go into the really scary parts.

What they don't tell you is that these so-called dirty bombs and improvised nuclear devices don't need weapons grade materials. Because of that, there's no reason to smuggle it in from outside the country, as it can be had inside the country. Just about anywhere you have a medical facility with radiology capabilities, you have access to this kind of stuff. Scared yet?

Now the aluminum foil part is a bit misleading. Aluminum isn't dense enough, especially not sheets of it. You need very heavy, dense materials to shield radiation (i.e. lead). Maybe that's "big brother" trying to get mis-information out to the terrorists so that they can be captured. Who knows, maybe it'll work and we'll capture some of them.


People go through life all the time with a false sense of security. It was that way before and is still that way now. I still can't believe how many people actually think the Police Departments and Officers in this country are there to protect them. They don't get the concept of "the community as a whole" at all. Maybe if those people read the PD charters and mission statements, not to mention the numerous Supreme Court rulings over the past 50+ years, they'd figure out their own safety as an individual (and that of their family) is ultimately their own responsibility.

[lurk]

Originally Posted by Perseus

You assume I have a total "lack of knowledge." I would only present a question or issue about something I generally don't know much about...not everyone has to know everything about chemistry or physics, do you know everything about New York City subway cars?

The difference is that I did not suggest that someone should be jailed for publishing the train schedule because ZOMG the terrorists could use that information to blow things up! That is exactly what you said in your post above. There is no surprise that a little bit of foil would be enough to mask a significant part of the radiation from a piece of uranium. You could block the alpha particles and most of the beta particles. Then the only thing to scan for is the gamma radiation and you don't need to hide it all, just enough so that it doesn't stand out. If I put it in the middle of a shipping container just the distance from the sensor might be enough.

This is exactly the same as the stink that people are making about the guy who made the boarding pass generator. Hello! is it any surprise if you print the boarding pass on your home computer you can print one with a fake name? Apparently it was to the TSA and so he is going to go to jail more likely than not. That pisses me off. That the brain donors who thought that was secure freak out and punish the messenger.

So don't call for the people who know what is going on to be put in jail! Listen to them when they say that something is broken, and if it only works because you have your fingers in your ears going la la la la... then it is broken.

It just pisses me off to no end that people are actually talking about criminalizing information that is so basic, because they themselves could not be bothered to educate themselves.

Sorry if I am being too adamant about this but this is just wrong on so many levels. I don't really intend to be mean.

[Mikuro]

I don't think this is "crap". I think people should know if these security measures are inadequate. It seems to me like most of the security "improvements" the U.S. government has made since the WTC attack have been made more for the sake of looking secure than actually being secure. (For example, the random backpack searches in our NYC subways; I can't decide if it's evil or just breathtakingly stupid. I'm leaning towards 'both'.) Information like this article helps the public identify which government actions make sense, and which are made just to look like they're doing something. The government seems to hope people are too stupid/uninformed to see how pointless these actions are. (And in many cases they're worse than pointless; they encroach on civil liberties and cost money.)

And it's not like the article gives a lot of details, anyway.

Personally, the idea of terrorists being able to read articles like this scares me a lot less than the idea of everyone else not being able to.

I don't think our security measures should rely on our enemies being ignorant. I mean, do you think a terrorist serious enough to build a nuclear bomb is not going to have the resources, time and interest to figure out how to get past flawed security? The only thing banning such articles would do is keep the information away from the general public. And that, in turn, would let the people in charge just ignore the issue — after all, they already look like they're doing something, and that seems to be good enough for most politicians.

If you ask me, the problem isn't that you have too little faith in the government, it's that you have too much. It sounds like you trust them to get things done without a free press lighting a fire under their keisters!

[Rhisiart]

What is the difference between an R40 and an R42 subway car?

[lurk]

The R42 has two extra neutrons and is unstable with a half-life of 7 years.

// Maybe this thread is not the place for that kind of humor...