Sandia Knows You're Building a Nuke Before You Do

Jack Bauer could've used one of these:

A Sandia National Laboratories researcher has developed a simulation program designed to track the illicit trade in fissile and nonfissile radiological material well enough to predict who is building the next nuclear weapon and where they are doing it.

Brace for a bit of science content.  It's worth it.

“By using a cluster analysis algorithm coded into a program,” says Sandia researcher David York. “I evaluated those traffic patterns and routes in which thefts, seizures, and destinations of materials were reported. Data from these examinations were enough to allow me to retrospectively depict the A. Q. Kahn network before it was uncovered.”

Kahn is a Pakistani scientist linked to the illicit proliferation of nuclear technical knowledge.
...
In the study, York collected and collated data from 800 open-source incidents from 1992 to the present, along with the movement of dual-use items like beryllium and zirconium. He plotted the incidents on a global information system (GIS) software platform. He came up with a network of countries and routes between countries indicative of an illicit nuclear and radiological trafficking scheme.
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“One begins by conducting cluster analyses on the GIS platform for material or activity similar to the incident in question. This gives the analyst an idea of corridors used by potential smugglers. It also indicates where the material might have come from and where it is,” says York. “If the trafficker has only a certain amount of time to reach a destination and you have that information, one can ask what is the shortest route from point A to point B, or find major highways needed to accommodate a large shipment.”

The fact that actionable intelligence about radiological trafficking was gleaned from York's study, using only data from publicly disclosed incidents, is all the more impressive.  And it makes a heckuva case for making classified data from other incidents available to him.

Unless, of course, there's a compelling reason not to declassify such information.

The situation may be worse than it appears because much information about nuclear material traffic is classified, York says, to prevent embarrassment to countries through which a nuclear weapon or the materials to fabricate a weapon may have passed.

Uh-huh.  So a hair shy of "compelling" then.

This site gets occasional visits from the good people at Sandia National Labs.  If anyone stopping by has additional details about York's project that they can share, kindly have at it.