I realise that I may be acting silly, but I find myself afraid of running an internet search on explosives. I'd like to do some research for high-end explosives for use in my SR campaign, but I don't want Big Brother flagging my query. How do I find details on industrial-grade boom-booms? Is there something called Semtex (sp?)?.
Cheers,
UJ
Full Version: Looking for info on explosives . . .
Semtex is basically a lower-grade C4 type of gig -- made famous by terrorists around the globe.
Just wiki your way around, if you're really afraid of Google in this case. There's a "category: explosives" link right there at the bottom of that wikipedia page. Have fun.
Just wiki your way around, if you're really afraid of Google in this case. There's a "category: explosives" link right there at the bottom of that wikipedia page. Have fun.
Well, if you don't want to get flagged, it's a little late now. By posting this topic (specifically the worry about the BBEG flagging you), your IP is probably going to be flagged and they'll likely spend the next two or three years reading every single thing you do online. Be looking for unmarked black vans for awhile, and try to look for repeats of license plates.
Now that I'm done scaring you to the point you probably need to change your underwear, just do a Yahoo search on it. Every day, tons of people search for nuclear bombs, assault rifles, etc. Some random person searching for a bit of information on explosives isn't their worry. Now, if you also visit Greenpeace websites, then you might have a reason to be paranoid.
Now that I'm done scaring you to the point you probably need to change your underwear, just do a Yahoo search on it. Every day, tons of people search for nuclear bombs, assault rifles, etc. Some random person searching for a bit of information on explosives isn't their worry. Now, if you also visit Greenpeace websites, then you might have a reason to be paranoid.
Too late, I think. The NSA monitors DS as well 
.
.
LOL. Just...amazing.
My bet would be that emo samurai is working for NSA. The perfect cover. ^^
There are lots of neat industrial use (mining mostly) explosives out there too. These frequently come in gel and even rope forms. Detcord in particular is some nifty stuff.
Also, research shaped charges and tamping, as these can take a little bit of HE and make it do a whole mess of damage.
Also, research shaped charges and tamping, as these can take a little bit of HE and make it do a whole mess of damage.
Really, between the discussions of cyber-ararchism, militant Native American Uprisings, the partitioning of the United States, the assasination of a future President, religious extremeism, explosives, weapons, crime, the breakup of China, nuking Chicago, resurgant Japanese imperialism, and magic (especially magic) there must be dozens of intelligence agencies monitering dumpshock.
Edit: Anarchist Cookbook free download link removed due to it being an utterly worthless scam.
Edit2: Found a text version of both The Anarchist Cookbook and The Terrorist Handbook. I would take anything in these publications with a grain of salt. They were probably written by bored teenagers.
Edit: Anarchist Cookbook free download link removed due to it being an utterly worthless scam.
Edit2: Found a text version of both The Anarchist Cookbook and The Terrorist Handbook. I would take anything in these publications with a grain of salt. They were probably written by bored teenagers.
| QUOTE (Butterblume) |
| Too late, I think. The NSA monitors DS as well . |
A community whose conversations tend toward surveillance, counter-surveillance, espionage, demolitions, weapons, hacking, eco-terrorism and assassinations...
No, we wouldn't fit their profiles...
To be fair, I would lay good money that someone from at least one security agency is a regular on these boards but that they don't consider us a threat, just a source of information for those who do fit their profile.
| QUOTE (Firewall) |
| A community whose conversations tend toward surveillance, counter-surveillance, espionage, demolitions, weapons, hacking, eco-terrorism and assassinations... |
You forgot "which bumper stickers are best for a psychotic mass murderer looking for a reason to shoot someone?"
Miniluv is watching as we speak.
~J
~J
Ditto whoever suggested Wiki -- it includes densities, burn speeds, TNT equivalents, etc. for most of the common explosives and explosive chemicals. Then just Google to double-check the facts and/or to get specifics missing from the Wiki articles. If your government cares about your RPG habits, you're living in the wrong fucking country.
Since it hasn't been mentioned I'll toss out this link:
http://www.howstuffworks.com/
Has some pretty good stuff in it.
http://www.howstuffworks.com/
Has some pretty good stuff in it.
The Federation of American Scientists is also a prety good source of information on military munitions.
http://www.fas.org/main/home.jsp
http://www.fas.org/main/home.jsp
The content is probably the same on FAS.Org and GlobalSecurity.Org, but here's the pertinent bit on the latter site.
There's no absolute guarentee that you wont be put on a watchlist. There's no absolute guarentee that you aren't already. But fear of being caught is the biggest weapon of authority.
But The CIA, NSA, MI5 et al. are tiny little groups that struggle through a great tide of humanity and its noise. The worry about being picked on is a far greater tool for mass control than their actual ability to monitor and investigate. And the more people who can get themselves on the watch lists, the less meaning the watch lists have so do your bit against Big Brother and look up the information on explosives.
There's nothing wrong with acquiring knowledge and you shouldn't be bullied into ignorance. Knowledge for its own sake even is a laudable goal - it's what has brought us the technology we have today.
If you really want to do something about the monitoring though, try the following two technologies.
Firstly, TOR which is very easy to set up and can help safeguard your browsing (node providers also welcome, too).
Secondly, GPG which is also easy to set up and can encrypt your email.
Right now, emails are scanned en masse with automated systems, but the agencies have no legal right to do this, they've just brought it about through government pressure on private industry. Email encryption like GPG scuppers this. One person using it stands out. If you can get lots of people using it then the party is over and the governments have to return to seeking warrants and wire-tap permissions through the normal judicial channels on a case by case basis.
Now I entirely agree that we don't want "the terrorists to win." I may just have a slightly more inclusive definition of terrorist than the government would like.
If you want to be a bit more secure in your browsing habits, you can always use an anonymous proxy to conceal your browsing habits.
Not a bad idea for anyone really, considering the pressure the US government is putting on corporations to hand over aggregate data so they can search for "terrorists"
Not a bad idea for anyone really, considering the pressure the US government is putting on corporations to hand over aggregate data so they can search for "terrorists"
Pff, like its been said, you post here, someone somewhere knows your name. I swear we set their little warning lights off about every 3rd post.
| QUOTE (Lindt @ Aug 23 2006, 10:39 AM) |
| Pff, like its been said, you post here, someone somewhere knows your name. I swear we set their little warning lights off about every 3rd post. |
And as I pointed out, one little light alone is a target. But if everyone of us is setting off lights, then any actual subversive is going to be just a tiny little glimmer in the glowing sea. Once you have a large number of people pissed offf, you're pretty much lost.
I don't understand why there is a paranoia about explosives and there is none about firearms...
Explosives can be used for many useful things: construction, extinguish a fire and so on...
Firearms on the other hand only serve to kill peoples and animals...
I did some tests on explosives when I was younger, I've made very potent black powder, gun cotton, smokescreen pucks, I even tried Amonium Nitrate with Gasoline... all of this for one particular reason: curiosity. (And I do like pyrotechnics!)
I do have read both the anarchist cookbook and the terrorist handbook and as someone already mentionned it: It's done by bored kids... but some stuff works...
As long as you don't commit a crime, there is no reason that your gouvernement should be watching you... And if they do, you should NOT accept this.
If I ever hear that the governement is watching us, reading my personnal mail, looking what I'm doing and so on, you can be sure that they will think twice about doing so again... Just think about the social impact this will have in a supposed "FREE" country... Imagine the manifestations... Imagine the scandal that it can cause...
It will look more like facism/dictatorship than anything else...
Peoples should be aware of this.
Explosives can be used for many useful things: construction, extinguish a fire and so on...
Firearms on the other hand only serve to kill peoples and animals...
I did some tests on explosives when I was younger, I've made very potent black powder, gun cotton, smokescreen pucks, I even tried Amonium Nitrate with Gasoline... all of this for one particular reason: curiosity. (And I do like pyrotechnics!)
I do have read both the anarchist cookbook and the terrorist handbook and as someone already mentionned it: It's done by bored kids... but some stuff works...
As long as you don't commit a crime, there is no reason that your gouvernement should be watching you... And if they do, you should NOT accept this.
If I ever hear that the governement is watching us, reading my personnal mail, looking what I'm doing and so on, you can be sure that they will think twice about doing so again... Just think about the social impact this will have in a supposed "FREE" country... Imagine the manifestations... Imagine the scandal that it can cause...
It will look more like facism/dictatorship than anything else...
Peoples should be aware of this.
| QUOTE (JesterX) |
| I don't understand why there is a paranoia about explosives and there is none about firearms... Explosives can be used for many useful things: construction, extinguish a fire and so on... Firearms on the other hand only serve to kill peoples and animals... I did some tests on explosives when I was younger, I've made very potent black powder, gun cotton, smokescreen pucks, I even tried Amonium Nitrate with Gasoline... all of this for one particular reason: curiosity. (And I do like pyrotechnics!) I do have read both the anarchist cookbook and the terrorist handbook and as someone already mentionned it: It's done by bored kids... but some stuff works... As long as you don't commit a crime, there is no reason that your gouvernement should be watching you... And if they do, you should NOT accept this. If I ever hear that the governement is watching us, reading my personnal mail, looking what I'm doing and so on, you can be sure that they will think twice about doing so again... Just think about the social impact this will have in a supposed "FREE" country... Imagine the manifestations... Imagine the scandal that it can cause... It will look more like facism/dictatorship than anything else... Peoples should be aware of this. |
If it's not too much identifying information to share, where do you live? I ask because if you're in the USA or the UK, then your government is probably spying on you and scanning your email routinely.
Actually, your government wont as there are internal laws against this. What happens between the UK and the USA is a reciprocal arrangement that they should spy on each other's citizens. And then the information just happens to be shared.
If you are genuinely angry about this, then you will do something about it such as begin using encrypted email or run a TOR node, as linked above. Either is a valid and legal action you can take which will have an effect.
| QUOTE |
| If I ever hear that the governement is watching us, reading my personnal mail, looking what I'm doing and so on, you can be sure that they will think twice about doing so again... Just think about the social impact this will have in a supposed "FREE" country... Imagine the manifestations... Imagine the scandal that it can cause... |
You'll make them "think twice?" How? Going to go terrorist on them? That'll only make them step up surveillance. Gonna sue? Being done and been done already and nothing has stopped.
Whatever it is you believe you can do to make them think twice you may as well do it, as they're already scanning your emails and monitoring your searching habits.
I personally am all for the idea. If them scanning emails and search habits can stop the next 9/11 then by all means go ahead. Note, by "scanning" I mean just that. They look for specific words and trends. Nobody is sitting at a desk reading your emails to your grandma unless you or her have shown a marked need for deeper surveillance.
Kidnap bomb flight passenger aircraft liquid explosive hidden knife murder assassinate president congress death to america slaughter innocents smuggle biological chemical weapon.
I'm also all for your governments spying on you people. You seem very dangerous. Good thing there's fuck-all they can do about me, except ask me if I was a nazi or have the avian flu when I enter the US.
I'm also all for your governments spying on you people. You seem very dangerous. Good thing there's fuck-all they can do about me, except ask me if I was a nazi or have the avian flu when I enter the US.
LOL
NSA has been monitoring phones and emails of non-US citizens for years, even before 2001 (Echolon, for example). Not only a few, but systematically, meaning all they could.
Since 2001 they also monitored US citizens, it must have been in the US news somewhere.
Since 2001 they also monitored US citizens, it must have been in the US news somewhere.
| QUOTE (Firewall) |
| To be fair, I would lay good money that someone from at least one security agency is a regular on these boards but that they don't consider us a threat, just a source of information for those who do fit their profile. |
They don't. Trust me.
| QUOTE (James McMurray) | ||
You'll make them "think twice?" How? Going to go terrorist on them? That'll only make them step up surveillance. Gonna sue? Being done and been done already and nothing has stopped. Whatever it is you believe you can do to make them think twice you may as well do it, as they're already scanning your emails and monitoring your searching habits. I personally am all for the idea. If them scanning emails and search habits can stop the next 9/11 then by all means go ahead. Note, by "scanning" I mean just that. They look for specific words and trends. Nobody is sitting at a desk reading your emails to your grandma unless you or her have shown a marked need for deeper surveillance. |
Telling the news and inciting peoples who think like me to participate in manifestations.
Civil unrest can make them think twice, you know? Perhaps not in UK or USA ... but in Quebec, it does...
Uhh, yeah. 'Cause you guys have so many weapons and all that, to keep your government in check, up north.
| QUOTE (James McMurray) | ||
You'll make them "think twice?" How? Going to go terrorist on them? That'll only make them step up surveillance. Gonna sue? Being done and been done already and nothing has stopped. Whatever it is you believe you can do to make them think twice you may as well do it, as they're already scanning your emails and monitoring your searching habits. I personally am all for the idea. If them scanning emails and search habits can stop the next 9/11 then by all means go ahead. Note, by "scanning" I mean just that. They look for specific words and trends. Nobody is sitting at a desk reading your emails to your grandma unless you or her have shown a marked need for deeper surveillance. |
As a general rule, there is nothing wrong with scanning pubicly availabe message baords. However, once someone starts intercepting private communications, such as email, there are issues. There is really no difference between intercepting email and intercepting a letter mailed through the post office.
Define a "marked need for deeper survailence, please. Supporting same-sex marriage? Being a known member of a religious minority? Being employed by a business that competes against a corporation that a affulant politician owns stock in?
Even if one assumes that such pervasive survailence isn't a fundamental violation of basic constitutional principals, one must ask the most basic question "Who watches the watchers?" Without fully open public oversight such programs are a natural source of a wide range of irresistable temptations ranging from greed (insider trading, theft of trade secrets, stock manipulation) to self-righteousness (attacking popular political movements) to sexual gratification (a surprisingly large number of Homeland Security agents have been arrested for statutory rape ).
| QUOTE (Critias) |
| Uhh, yeah. 'Cause you guys have so many weapons and all that, to keep your government in check, up north. |
You're right about this... It's kinda safe up there... ^_^ That's perhaps why we don't have to be always afraid.
However, paranoia isn't a solution and will never be. They should correct the problem at its source.
| QUOTE (hyzmarca) | ||||
As a general rule, there is nothing wrong with scanning pubicly availabe message baords. However, once someone starts intercepting private communications, such as email, there are issues. There is really no difference between intercepting email and intercepting a letter mailed through the post office. Define a "marked need for deeper survailence, please. Supporting same-sex marriage? Being a known member of a religious minority? Being employed by a business that competes against a corporation that a affulant politician owns stock in? Even if one assumes that such pervasive survailence isn't a fundamental violation of basic constitutional principals, one must ask the most basic question "Who watches the watchers?" Without fully open public oversight such programs are a natural source of a wide range of irresistable temptations ranging from greed (insider trading, theft of trade secrets, stock manipulation) to self-righteousness (attacking popular political movements) to sexual gratification (a surprisingly large number of Homeland Security agents have been arrested for statutory rape ). |
Great post. You did put to words what was in my mind and wasn't able to formulate correctly... ^_^
| QUOTE (James McMurray) |
| You'll make them "think twice?" How? Going to go terrorist on them? |
<waves at the nice government men reading this thread>
-karma
-karma
Kage and I are gonna be watch list buddies!
| QUOTE (hyzmarca) |
| |
| QUOTE |
| As a general rule, there is nothing wrong with scanning pubicly availabe message baords. However, once someone starts intercepting private communications, such as email, there are issues. There is really no difference between intercepting email and intercepting a letter mailed through the post office. |
Issues to you, not to me.
| QUOTE |
| Define a "marked need for deeper survailence, please. Supporting same-sex marriage? Being a known member of a religious minority? Being employed by a business that competes against a corporation that a affulant politician owns stock in? |
"Demonstrated probable cause." None of the activities you list are probable cause, but there is way too many possibilities to list them all here.
| QUOTE |
| Even if one assumes that such pervasive survailence isn't a fundamental violation of basic constitutional principals, one must ask the most basic question "Who watches the watchers?" Without fully open public oversight such programs are a natural source of a wide range of irresistable temptations ranging from greed (insider trading, theft of trade secrets, stock manipulation) to self-righteousness (attacking popular political movements) |
Agreed, somewhat. The difficulty lies in finding the right balance of secrecy and public awareness. For instance, letting Joe Terrorist know you're reading his emails and wnt to use them to capture his entire terrorist cell is a bad idea.
| QUOTE |
| to sexual gratification (a surprisingly large number of Homeland Security agents have been arrested for statutory rape ). |
Source? Surprising in comparison to what? The priesthood? NAMBLA membership lists? Tupperware party attendees?
Kage: you do realize that statements like that are what will pull the surveillance knot tighter, right?
| QUOTE (JesterX @ Aug 23 2006, 09:47 AM) |
| However, paranoia isn't a solution and will never be. They should correct the problem at its source. |
50 Megaton Warhead on Tehran ought to clear all this up.
Runners needed: Leave a message for Mr. Johnson at <<File Corrupted delete 1.3mp>>
Didn't the guys who wrote Cyberpunk, or the Cyberpunk supplement for GURPS or something, get raided by the FBI who took all their computers etc.?
Edit: It was the GURPS Cyberpunk, and it was the Secret Service http://www.sjgames.com/SS/ (or just a media stunt)
Edit: It was the GURPS Cyberpunk, and it was the Secret Service http://www.sjgames.com/SS/ (or just a media stunt)
The problem is you'd have to make that bomb first. So you've got to steal an H-bomb, preferably one of those 20MT ones for SS-N-18 Mod 6s, and insert a tertiary (fusion) fuel source with its own tamper and spark plug. You'd get off a lot easier if you made do with just the 20 megatonnes. Hoist it on a crane on an elevated spot near central Teheran (or where ever), and watch reinforced concrete structures being ripped apart 10km away.
| QUOTE (James McMurray @ Aug 23 2006, 01:48 PM) |
| Kage: you do realize that statements like that are what will pull the surveillance knot tighter, right? |
At this point, there are three primary paths I can see things going:
1) Surveillance largely evaporates. The government gets used to the idea that maybe some people can kill some other people, and they won't know beforehand. Fat chance, certainly, but if it happens I'm fine with it.
2) The government tightens far enough, fast enough that true popular revolt becomes possible. The government is overthrown and replaced. I'm fine with this too.
3) The government tightens slowly, ensuring that at no point does popular support for revolution reach sufficient levels to sustain a successful revolt. This is not acceptable to me.
I'd love it if they'd lighten up and things could go on peacefully, but I'm not going to stop speaking my mind—not just because I think I should have a right to, but also because the consequences of speaking out aren't, in my mind, as bad as the consequences of not speaking out.
Or, to approach the question from a different, shorter direction: it is their responsibility to not tighten the knot, not my responsibility not to speak.
~J
Cool. I'd be willing to bet it'll be #3, accompanied by a lot of emigration.
| QUOTE (Austere Emancipator) |
| The problem is you'd have to make that bomb first. So you've got to steal an H-bomb, preferably one of those 20MT ones for SS-N-18 Mod 6s, and insert a tertiary (fusion) fuel source with its own tamper and spark plug. You'd get off a lot easier if you made do with just the 20 megatonnes. Hoist it on a crane on an elevated spot near central Teheran (or where ever), and watch reinforced concrete structures being ripped apart 10km away. |
Don't worry I'm working on raising my Physics Genius skill and collecting as much unobtanium as I can
In the meantime I'll bounce your plan off Ade.....er Mr. Johnson and see if he's ok with it.
I just have to ask, are you a terrorist or plan on doing something along those lines?
If not why the hell care, I google everything that I feel like. WHat are they going to do? have a bunch of low paid governement goons sift through all the shit I look at? I like making up searches just in cae they are watching.
I dont like the idea of the government spying on people, not even criminals without probable cause. But as of right now the amount they do listen in on is pretty much a waste of time for most people.
So unless you are planning something why care?
If not why the hell care, I google everything that I feel like. WHat are they going to do? have a bunch of low paid governement goons sift through all the shit I look at? I like making up searches just in cae they are watching.
I dont like the idea of the government spying on people, not even criminals without probable cause. But as of right now the amount they do listen in on is pretty much a waste of time for most people.
So unless you are planning something why care?
Do what Stephen Colbert said he does: make every third search for something you wouldn't really search for. His search history looked something like:
Anti-Bush
Stephen Colbert
Laundering Drug money
Then also preface every search with something to throw them off the scent. He uses "I AM NOT STEPHEN COLBERT" before every search term.
Anti-Bush
Stephen Colbert
Laundering Drug money
Then also preface every search with something to throw them off the scent. He uses "I AM NOT STEPHEN COLBERT" before every search term.
| QUOTE (Smokeskin @ Aug 23 2006, 02:02 PM) |
| Edit: It was the GURPS Cyberpunk, and it was the Secret Service http://www.sjgames.com/SS/ (or just a media stunt) |
Not a media stunt (or a really, really bad one?)
The seizure of those materials and freezing of accounts almost put SJGames under permanently. They had a hard road to recovery, and I think they're still feeling after-effects. From a consumer standpoint, they've never seemd quite the same since then.
| QUOTE (James McMurray) | ||||
Issues to you, not to me. |
So you wouldn't mind if the post office opened ever letter and package you send or recieve and put it through an electronic scanner?
| QUOTE | ||
"Demonstrated probable cause." None of the activities you list are probable cause, but there is way too many possibilities to list them all here. |
That's the great thing about mass survailance. There is never any probably cause. If they had a warrent then it wouldn't be mass survailence.
And lets face it, what the government considers to be probable cause many not be what you consider to be probable cause. The GURPS Cyberpuk seizure is a good example. Heck, with the attitude those agents had it wouldn't be too difficult to seize Shadowrun as a 'manual for terrorism.' Sure, the the courts eventually straightened everything out, but eventually isn't good enough when your livlihood is almost destroyed or when you're imprisoned for
five years without charges
| QUOTE (Kagetenshi) | ||
|
I like that term... I guess I would fall in this category... ^_^
| QUOTE (stevebugge) | ||
50 Megaton Warhead on Tehran ought to clear all this up. Runners needed: Leave a message for Mr. Johnson at <<File Corrupted delete 1.3mp>> |
Sorry, this will probably spread some flames but I find this answer as "Typical USA'an response to a typical USA'an propaganda"
Are you aware of how many countries do have the nuclear weapon? Are you gonna bomb yourself? Are you gonna bomb the entire Europe?
| QUOTE (hyzmarca) |
| |
| QUOTE |
| So you wouldn't mind if the post office opened ever letter and package you send or recieve and put it through an electronic scanner? |
Not as long as it remains otherwise unchanged.
| QUOTE |
| That's the great thing about mass survailance. There is never any probably cause. If they had a warrent then it wouldn't be mass survailence. |
Probable cause is what you have when you don't have a warrant. And I'm not talking probable cause as in "what lets the cop search your car." I meant it more generic, as is "they did something that it makes sense to investigate further." If someone's online activities fit the correct patterns, that is enough for me (assuming the patterns are applicable of course).
| QUOTE |
| And lets face it, what the government considers to be probable cause many not be what you consider to be probable cause. |
I can almost gaurantee it isn't going to be the same. But then again, I'm not a lawmaker, nor do I expect my country's actions to always fall in line with my beliefs.
| QUOTE |
| The GURPS Cyberpuk seizure is a good example. Heck, with the attitude those agents had it wouldn't be too difficult to seize Shadowrun as a 'manual for terrorism.' Sure, the the courts eventually straightened everything out, but eventually isn't good enough when your livlihood is almost destroyed or when you're imprisoned for five years without charges |
Mistakes are made, and sometimes people do stupid things. I'm not convinced they had no cause. It was mentioned somewhere that some people there frequented known hacker boards. There's no telling what was said on those boards to give the government cause for alarm, but I would bet that it wasn't just a bunch a guy sitting around and one says "let's go raid someone without a reason."
The law itself might be made perfect (it hasn't so far) but the people enforcing it will always be fallible. I don't expect perfection from my country any more than I expect it from myself. I expect us to strive towards it, and to recognize and work to fix errors when possible.
| QUOTE |
| Benatta entered a six-month training program for foreign air force engineers in Virginia in December 2000, plotting from the start to desert and flee to Canada. In June 2001, he stole out of a hotel the night before his scheduled flight back to Algeria. He lived briefly in New York before arriving Sept. 5 on Canada's doorstep. |
It seems to me like they had cause to suspect him of something. Perhaps not 5 years worth, but this administration has been incredibly slow in recognizing and fixing its mistakes. I expect that to change somewhat after the next elections.
Hell even if no one bombs you back for the 50 megaton birthday present the whole mess doesn't have any over all organization like that. All you'd do is motivate more of the little buggers without getting many worthwhile leaders taken out. Decentralized "control". if you can call it that.
| QUOTE (JesterX) | ||||
Sorry, this will probably spread some flames but I find this answer as "Typical USA'an response to a typical USA'an propaganda" Are you aware of how many countries do have the nuclear weapon? Are you gonna bomb yourself? Are you gonna bomb the entire Europe? |
Actually that was a rather bad attempt to try to bring this way off topic thread somewhat remotely back towards Shadowrun.
That being said Possession of Atomic Weapons is not the entire issue, responsible possession is. Countries like France, Germany, the USA, China, Russia, India, Israel can all be believed to have the ability to keep their weapons controlled well enough that a single person cannot just fire one off and most of the inventory can be accounted for. Those governments can reasonably be expected to be very unlikely to use a weapon in the future. North Korea and Iran don't meet either criteria, and Pakistan clearly has some difficulty keeping count of their weapons and production facilities. Russia also has trouble keeping it's inventory under control, but in that case it seems to be in spite of the best efforts of their government not because of government policies.
As for Iran they declared War on the USA in 1979, and they are clearly an antagonistic power to the USA. War is still a legitimate, if seldom used, foreign policy option. Barring the Iranian populace taking action against their increasingly reckless oligarchy of radical clerics, their foreign policy has put them on a collision course with the USA. The belief and practice common in Western Europe, Canada, and certain groups of America of bending over backwards to keep from getting in to small fights with belligerent foreign powers is ultimately going to end just as badly as Neville Chamberlain's run at being Prime Minister in England did.
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