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"Meanwhile, you are presumably aware that..." Meanwhile you are presumably aware that breaking into a top secret military safe during a war (or at any time) is

"Meanwhile, you are presumably aware that..." Meanwhile you are presumably aware that breaking into a top secret military safe during a war (or at any time) is a federal crime, and that exceptions cannot be made based upon our personal preferences in celebrity scientists, and that the atomic bomb was, in fact, not a stapler, but a device capable of killing millions of people. You are probably also aware that there were co-inventors of the atomic bomb who did, in fact, pass secrets onto the soviets, and you are aware that a person breaking into a safe would be suspect #1 for that in addition to the more specific crime of breaking into a safe. You are probably also aware that security clearances are compartmentalized on a need-to-know basis and that having such a security clearance does not entitle you to all secrets at that level. No doubt you are also aware that the "hacker" ethics that evolved in-between games of hunt-the-wumpus at MIT are not universally applicable. You are probably also are aware that you are wrong in this line of arguing, and so I finish there.

DaniFong 19y ago
Are you crazy? The safes didn't provide security sufficient to keep spies out - some didn't even have the codes set to anything other than the default. Feynman strengthened the whole system. Most of the safe cracking was done in order to provide access for the owners of said safes. His activities were quite well known: would you presume to advise the corrections department at Los Alamos to hang their scientists leading their technical divisions? Additionally, he kept Oak Ridge from blowing up when he noticed the water moderated uranium was stored closely enough to be near-critical. Were he hanged, there would have been hundreds of direct deaths, and the entire effort would have been held up for months: they kept all their enriching equipment there, not to mention that it housed their enrichment experts.
- mynameishere 19y ago
  Were he hanged, there would have been hundreds of direct deaths Well, you're looking forward from a past point of time, and that shouldn't be done. Actually hanging someone probably wouldn't be a good idea. It depends on the circumstances: If he made it clear what he was doing, a loss of clearance would have been more appropriate. Of course, in the back of my mind are a lot of hypotheticals--using the bomb was partly strategic, ie, to scare the Soviets. That didn't work, partly because of the spying. North Korea and Red China were tragedies of the highest order, and the lost nuke secrets were a part of that game...
imgabe 19y ago
"breaking into a top secret military safe during a war (or at any time) is a federal crime, and that exceptions cannot be made based upon our personal preferences in celebrity scientists" Right, because laws are laws, and must be blindly followed, always, without regard to circumstances or logic. Surely, it would have been beneficial to hang one of the people instrumental in developing the atomic bomb for exposing flaws in the security at Los Alamos.

DaniFong 19y ago

Are you crazy? The safes didn't provide security sufficient to keep spies out - some didn't even have the codes set to anything other than the default. Feynman strengthened the whole system. Most of the safe cracking was done in order to provide access for the owners of said safes. His activities were quite well known: would you presume to advise the corrections department at Los Alamos to hang their scientists leading their technical divisions? Additionally, he kept Oak Ridge from blowing up when he noticed the water moderated uranium was stored closely enough to be near-critical. Were he hanged, there would have been hundreds of direct deaths, and the entire effort would have been held up for months: they kept all their enriching equipment there, not to mention that it housed their enrichment experts.

mynameishere 19y ago
Were he hanged, there would have been hundreds of direct deaths Well, you're looking forward from a past point of time, and that shouldn't be done. Actually hanging someone probably wouldn't be a good idea. It depends on the circumstances: If he made it clear what he was doing, a loss of clearance would have been more appropriate. Of course, in the back of my mind are a lot of hypotheticals--using the bomb was partly strategic, ie, to scare the Soviets. That didn't work, partly because of the spying. North Korea and Red China were tragedies of the highest order, and the lost nuke secrets were a part of that game...

imgabe 19y ago

"breaking into a top secret military safe during a war (or at any time) is a federal crime, and that exceptions cannot be made based upon our personal preferences in celebrity scientists" Right, because laws are laws, and must be blindly followed, always, without regard to circumstances or logic. Surely, it would have been beneficial to hang one of the people instrumental in developing the atomic bomb for exposing flaws in the security at Los Alamos.