Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Researchers devise a zero-knowledge proof for nuke inspection


Nuclear weapons inspection poses a dilemma: how do you train inspectors to identify nukes without revealing top-secret information about how to build them? Spreading detailed nuclear weapons knowledge goes against the principle of non-proliferation, and many countries would object to letting inspectors from a body like the United Nations dig around inside their war technology.


As James Acton of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace writes:


The problem seems as imponderable as Bilbo’s riddle to Gollum in The Hobbit: "What have I got in my pocket?" A state has a concealed object that it claims is a nuclear weapon. It wishes to provide proof, but the object’s design is largely secret and inspectors are forbidden from making...

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