NuclearWeapons
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What Trump means when he talks nukes at the State of the Union
President Donald Trump is expected to cover five main topics in his first State of the Union address tonight, including the economy, immigration, infrastructure and trade. The fifth topic, national security, will put the spotlight on North Korea and the erratic, ad hominem nuclear standoff between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Trump himself. The tension of this relationship has spilled over to Twitter, where Trump has lobbed insults and threats at Kim over the past year. Trump called Kim "little Rocket Man" and declared the US' "nuclear button" was "much bigger and more powerful" than Kim's. In August, Trump promised "fire and fury" if North Korea didn't stop testing nuclear weapons, and Kim later called Trump a "mentally deranged dotard." Meanwhile, North Korea carried out more than a dozen nuclear tests throughout 2017, including launching intercontinental ballistic missiles theoretically capable of striking the US mainland. Its most recent ICBM test was in November.
US hopes cyberattacks will stall North Korea's missile program
The US might not have had much success with cyberattacks against North Korea's nuclear program, but that apparently hasn't stopped officials from further efforts... not that they're having much success. The New York Times has learned that then-President Obama ordered escalated cyberwarfare against North Korea in 2014 a bid to thwart its plans for intercontinental ballistic missiles. However, it's not clear that this strategy has worked -- and there may be problems if it does.
The US is preparing to modernize its nuclear weapons systems
The United States has not updated its nuclear weapons program in decades, but in February President Barack Obama allocated more than $1 trillion to the modernization of the country's nuclear stockpile. Perhaps he got tired of hearing jokes about servicemen using floppy disks to activate missiles, but regardless of the catalyst, the US is preparing to create a brand new nuclear weapons system that includes connecting its missiles via a secure network. In 2017, 50 men and women on the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board will be tasked with figuring out what could go wrong in this brave new world, Defense One reports.
Iran shuts down most of its nuclear program
Iran promised to shut down the majority of its nuclear program in return for an end to stiff economic sanctions, and it's making good on its word. International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have confirmed that Iran is meeting its end of a 2015 deal that will limit its ability to produce nuclear weapons. The terms had it shut down two thirds of its nuclear centrifuges, eliminate 98 percent of its low-enriched uranium supplies, halt construction of a key reactor and curb both its refinement as well as its research for the next 15 years. It's also subject to tighter inspections that theoretically prevent it from restarting weapons development within the next 25 years.
The politics of nuclear technology, from Hiroshima to Iran
Gaze into a clear night sky for long enough and a nagging thought will worm its way into your brain: It's highly probable that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe, but if so, why haven't we found it yet? This is known as the Fermi Paradox and, among several explanations, it has one awfully pessimistic solution: We appear to be alone in the universe because all civilizations end up destroying themselves soon after developing space-capable technology. One way that could happen is through nuclear warfare, a topic hot on the minds of Earth's most powerful citizens. There are more than 15,000 nuclear warheads secreted around the world, and 90 percent of them are in the hands of the United States and Russia, two nations with a historically frosty relationship. But Iran, a country with no known nuclear warheads, dominates the international conversation. It's actively testing new weapons-delivery systems, even as world powers attempt to halt the creation of more apocalyptic weapons. As modern history demonstrates, that's not an easy task.
Stuxnet worm entered Iran's nuclear facilities through hacked suppliers
You may have heard the common story of how Stuxnet spread: the United States and Israel reportedly developed the worm in the mid-2000s to mess with Iran's nuclear program by damaging equipment, and first unleashed it on Iran's Natanz nuclear facility through infected USB drives. It got out of control, however, and escaped into the wild (that is, the internet) sometime later. Relatively straightforward, right? Well, you'll have to toss that version of events aside -- a new book, Countdown to Zero Day, explains that this digital assault played out very differently.
Los Alamos nuclear weapons lab removes Chinese tech over spying concerns
One of the leading US nuclear weapons labs, Los Alamos National Laboratory, has removed networking switches manufactured by H3C, a former venture between Huawei and 3Com, and now a full subsidiary of HP. According to a letter from November obtained by Reuters, government security specialists were alerted to the components by a lab engineer, who said the parts were installed the month before. It went on to state that two of the switches were "promptly replaced," but other H3C components may still remain in the lab, and will likely be replaced "as quickly as possible." Though H3C is no longer affiliated with Huawei, it states on its website that it maintains a close relationship with the Chinese manufacturer -- which has gone to great lengths to prove that it has no capability for surveillance in any of its products. Apparently, it still has a long ways to go before the US government is buying any of it.
Stuxnet pinned on US and Israel as an out-of-control creation
Ever since Stuxnet was discovered, most of the accusing fingers have been pointed at the US, Israel or both, whether or not there was any evidence; it was hard to ignore malware that seemed tailor-made for wrecking Iranian centrifuges and slowing down the country's nuclear development. As it turns out, Occam's Razor is in full effect. An exposé from the New York Times matter-of-factly claims that the US and Israel coded Stuxnet as part of a cyberwar op, Olympic Games, and snuck it on to a USB thumb drive that infected computers at the Natanz nuclear facility. The reason we know about the infection at all, insiders say, is that it got out of control: someone modified the code or otherwise got it to spread through an infected PC carried outside, pushing Obama to either double down (which he did) or back off. Despite all its connections, the newspaper couldn't confirm whether or not the new Flame malware attack is another US creation. Tipsters did, however, deny that Flame is part of the Olympic Games push -- raising the possibility that there are other agencies at work. [Image credit: David Holt, Flickr]
GPS stations trace nuclear explosions, summon end to underground mushroom clouds?
A team of researchers recently revealed findings that could turn GPS stations into tools for detecting illegal nuclear explosions. According to a report, being presented to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) this week, the group found that nearby GPS stations showed a change in ionospheric electron density, following a 2009 nuclear test performed by North Korea. That discovery led to the realization that the same technology we use to track everything from dogs to children can more accurately detect nuclear explosions -- even when they take place underground. By measuring the time it takes for a resulting shockwave to reach and affect surrounding stations, researchers can accurately determine the origin of the blast. The team is currently seeking funding to further its explosive (sorry, we had to) research.
