Seismic Sensors at Fordow?

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Could Seismic Sensors Reveal the Fate of Fordow?

Could we have learned more from the tremors beneath the earth than from spies or satellites? In the aftermath of the strike on Iran’s Fordow uranium enrichment facility, a site buried deep within a mountain near Qom, that is precisely what may have happened.

Battle Damage Assessment (BDA) in the case of Fordow is no trivial exercise. The facility sits beneath 80-90 metres of rock, shielded against most conventional munitions and likely designed with internal blast-proofing. After the attack using Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs), satellite photographs showed entrance holes but nothing about whether the centrifuge halls remain intact, whether collapse has occurred, or whether radioactive material has been released.

So what else might one turn to? The answer lies in seismic waves.

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Seismic BDA: What Could Be Learned?

Seismic data offers a unique means of peering inside the mountain post-strike. Properly interpreted, it can reveal:

• Impact energy and depth of penetration
  High-frequency signatures and time-of-arrival data across a seismic network can reconstruct where the bombs struck, where they detonated within the mountain and whether any fizzled prematurely.

• Structural damage and cavity collapse
  The waveforms of collapsing chambers differ markedly from mere overpressure events. Cavity collapses produce low-frequency “coda waves” and can, with a dense enough sensor net, be located and mapped with remarkable precision.

• Presence of volatile materials
  A secondary explosion involving uranium hexafluoride or hydrogen might be inferred from anomalous acoustic or thermal signatures, distinct from high explosive alone.

• Sequencing and success/failure analysis
  Given that multiple penetrators were used, seismic data can time their impacts and effects to the second.

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Where Would the Sensors Need to Be?

To detect that something exploded, seismic stations at CENTCOM bases in Gulf states or Turkey - hundreds or thousands of kilometres away - are sufficient. The International Monitoring System routinely detects North Korean nuclear tests from across the Pacific.

But to resolve internal structure, track shockwave propagation, and identify which chambers collapsed?

That requires sensors within 1 to 10 km of the site, perhaps even closer. Ideally, a sparse seismic array would surround the facility, spaced in a horseshoe outside the most defended perimeter. The sensors need not be many - six to twelve would suffice for triangulation.

They would need to:

• Be sensitive to frequencies from 1 Hz up to 50+ Hz (for cavity resolution)

• Timestamp and locally store data with GPS precision

• Transmit data in bursts, intermittently, to evade detection

• Survive months in situ, in desert or mountain terrain

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What Kind of Sensor? Could They Be Drone-Deployed?

This is the 21st century. A full seismic node with GPS, battery, memory, satellite modem, and camouflaged casing can weigh under 2 kg. About the size of a football. The oil and gas industry deploys thousands.

Miniaturised versions - MEMS-based seismometers, used in structural monitoring - can be as small as a bar of soap. Tuck them into a rock-shaped casing, power them by solar trickle or long-life lithium, and they’ll record and report for months.

Could they be deployed by drone?

Absolutely.

A small, autonomous quadcopter or fixed-wing drone, guided by inertial navigation or terrain mapping (no GPS needed), could have flown low at night and dropped or perched these sensors within a few kilometres of Fordow. Drop mechanisms could implant them shallowly into soil or crevices. Comms could be low-power burst transmissions via satellite or data-mule drones passing overhead at prearranged times.

The whole operation could be conducted without a single Israeli or American operative setting foot in Iran.

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Has It Been Done?

We don’t know. But we do know this:

• Mossad penetrated deep into Tehran to extract nuclear archives.

• Israeli and U.S. drones operate over Iranian territory with impunity, including the famous RQ-170 Sentinel incident.

• The CIA spent decades tapping Soviet undersea cables, hiding recording pods under tonnes of seawater.

• Fordow was known, mapped, and inspected multiple times—perfect opportunities to slip a few toys in and leave them sleeping.

So when the bombs hit at Fordow, most likely some people were listening very carefully indeed.

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A deniable assassination drone

It is claimed that America made more than 600 attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro, the communist leader of Cuba.

One can think of one or two contemporary leaders that the US administration might also wish to terminate but in addition to competence, the problem has always been that of deniability.

Dropping something lethal on the target from a great height is rarely a problem.

As the recent assault on Sergei Skripal in Salisbury indicates, covert administration of a lethal agent is not a problem if you have access; but wary leaders take precautions. The idea of 'slaughterbots' comes to mind, but these are high-tech. Inevitably some will crash and only partially burn - and then the adversary's weapons lab will point the finger.

The answer is to use a biological vector - an insect such as a wasp or bee comes to mind. Surely with American leadership in deep learning and artificial neural nets this must be a trivial engineering problem? But not so. Virtually nothing is known of how the insect brain controls the insect body, in terms of flight control, visual processing and goal attainment.

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The simplest possible organism with a nervous system may be C. elegans.

"Nervous systems are complex, highly parallel information processing architectures made of seemingly imperfect and slow, yet highly adaptive and power-efficient components to carry out sophisticated information processing functions.

However, despite the rapidly growing body of knowledge on almost every aspect of neural function, currently no computational model or hardware emulation exists that is able to describe or even reproduce the complete behavioural repertoire of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, an organism with one of the simplest known nervous systems.

This is particularly surprising because C. elegans, a soil-dwelling worm with a life span of a few days, 1 mm long and 80 µm in diameter, is one of the five best characterized organisms. It is multicellular and develops from a fertilized egg to an adult worm just as a human being does. Despite its small genome (~ 10 M base pairs), there is about 40% homology to the human genome (3.2 G base pairs).

The adult hermaphrodite is comprised of exactly 959 cells, including 95 muscle cells and 302 neurons. The morphology, arrangement and connectivity of each cell including neurons have been completely described and are found to be almost invariant across different individuals. There are approximately 7000 chemical synaptic connections, 2000 of which occur at neuromuscular junctions, and approximately 600 gap junctions (White et al., 1986).

All of this data including the connectome, the detailed interconnectivity map of the 302 neurons through synapses, is publicly available through the Worm Atlas (Achacoso & Yamamoto, 1992; Oshio et al., 2003; Varshney et al., 2011).

Despite its simplicity, the nervous system of C. elegans does not only sustain vital body function, but generates a rich variety of behavioural patterns in response to internal and external stimuli. These include associative and several forms of nonassociative learning that persist over several hours (Hobert, 2003). Interestingly, many processes of learning and memory in C. elegans are highly conserved across evolution, which demonstrates that there are universal mechanisms underlying learning and memory throughout the animal kingdom (Lin & Rankin, 2010).

With all of this data, information and modern computer technology at hand, it is surprising that there is yet no comprehensive artificial C. elegans emulation system from which the principles of neural information processing underlying behaviour can be derived. The Si elegans project aims to fill this gap.

Research into neural networks (NN) and artificial or computational intelligence (AI/CI) has tried for more than 30 years and not succeeded in understanding the signal processing in a simple network made of only 302 neurons.

The main reason is: nervous systems work in different ways than current computers and any simulation running on them. In nature, information is processed in a highly parallel and "plastic" fashion, which cannot be sufficiently reproduced or simulated in hard-wired, serial multi-tasking or even parallel-linked von Neumann architectures."

I'm not sure I completely believe that final sentence, although the complete operation of neuron-neuron communication is far from understood.

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Amazon link

This (2013) ebook, " Engineered Biomimicry: Chapter 9. Flight Control Using Biomimetic Optical Sensors" comes with the following summary:

"Insects are dependent on the spatial, spectral, and temporal distributions of light in the environment for flight control and navigation. This chapter reports on flight trials of implementations of insect-inspired behaviors on unmanned aerial vehicles. Optical-flow methods for maintaining a constant height above ground and a constant course have been demonstrated to provide navigational capabilities that are impossible using conventional avionics sensors.

Precision control of height above ground and ground course were achieved over long distances. Other demonstrated vision-based techniques include a biomimetic stabilization sensor that uses the ultraviolet and green bands of the spectrum and a sky polarization compass. Both of these sensors were tested over long trajectories in different directions, in each case showing performance similar to low-cost inertial heading and attitude systems."

If we could replicate the insect's brain on hardware and remotely couple it to an insect body, a possible mission architecture sees a stealthed RPV deliver a cache of insects to within a couple of kilometres of the target.

The swarm is released and remotely flown to the target - where some kind of lethal toxin is delivered. The insects then disperse to receive a 'destruct' command. If any bodies are found, there will be little left to show that they have been engineered.

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See also: Openworm. All these 'worm simulation' projects seem to be moribund, if not dead. I wonder why?

"The Quantum Spy" - David Ignatius

Amazon link

I first heard about this techno-thriller via Peter Woit's website, 'Not Even Wrong'.

"I don’t often read spy thrillers, but just finished one, The Quantum Spy, by David Ignatius. Ignatius is a well-known journalist at the Washington Post, specializing in international affairs and the intelligence community (and known to some as The Mainstream Media’s Chief Apologist for CIA Crimes). While the book is fiction, it’s also clearly closely based on reality. Sometimes writing this sort of “fiction” allows an author to provide their take on aspects of current events that confidentiality prevents them from writing about as “non-fiction”.  ...

The topic of The Quantum Spy is Chinese spying on American research in quantum computing. This is very much in the news these days: after finishing the book I picked up today’s paper to read about the arrest of a Chinese-American ex-CIA agent on charges of being a mole spying for the Chinese (a central theme of the Ignatius novel is the divided loyalties of a Chinese-American CIA agent). ...

Ignatius clearly spent quite a bit of time talking to those very knowledgeable about this. One part of his story is about a company closely based on D-Wave, and he explains that the technology they have is different than the true quantum computer concept that is being pursued by others. Majorana fermions and topologically protected states make an appearance in another part of the story. One character’s reading material to orient himself is Scott Aaronson’s Quantum Computing Since Democritus.

The novel portrays the US and Chinese governments as highly concerned and competitive about quantum computing technology and its security implications. I’d always naively assumed that classified research on quantum computing was carried on just by groups within the NSA or other security agencies, but Ignatius tells a different story. According to him, what happens is that groups performing unclassified government-funded quantum computing research in the open can find themselves forced to “go dark”, with their work going forward classified and no longer publicly accessible. His plot revolves around Chinese efforts to get information about such research. ..."

But is the novel any good? Peter Woit rather piously explains:

"I’m the wrong person to ask, the few spy stories I’ve read have been because of an interest in some non-spy thriller aspect of the story. The spy thriller aspect of this one didn’t seem particularly compelling, but what do I know."

But on Amazon, the title of the thriller is given as: "The Quantum Spy: An unputdownable technothriller that will keep you gripped".

Having devoured this on my Kindle, I can confirm that it's an edge-of-the-seat page-turner.

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Characters good: check. Plot races along: check. Not too much political correctness: check.

I thought the conflicting loyalties thing of Chinese-Americans was sympathetically done. It's the perennial question.  Substitute 'ethnic kin' for 'friend'.

In the novel, the 'D-wave'-like machine seems to accomplish wonders in facial recognition over a vast CCTV dataset. This seems completely unrealistic: I think with some image-pre-processing (eigenfaces) this task would be fast-enough on conventional computers, and I think it's beyond the state of the art for current quantum computers. But what do I know?

The novel only really disappoints in its saccharine finale: all must have prizes.

Very American.

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My review of  'Quantum Computing Since Democritus' - Scott Aaronson.

Adrian Wooldridge on Torture (Sunday Times)

Adrian Wooldridge is The Economist’s management editor and Schumpeter columnist. Today he wrote an op-ed in The Sunday Times entitled  "Dick Cheney is wrong about torture, but for all the right reasons".

"Since the Senate committee published its torture report last Tuesday, Washington has been engaged in a full-scale civil war, which has pitted Democrats against Republicans and the CIA against liberal institutions such as The New York Times.
...
"But the most interesting battle is not partisan or institutional but philosophical: the battle between soft hearts, who think that torture is an offence against fundamental moral principles, and the hard heads, who think that it is justified if it saves lives. The soft hearts say that good people don’t torture, full stop. The hard heads say that that is self-indulgent pap."

Good to hear someone taking the issue seriously.

"Is this distinction between hard heads and soft hearts correct? The torture report poked some holes in it. On the basis of a detailed study of 20 cases, the report argues that enhanced interrogation played no role in disrupting terrorism plots, capturing terrorist leaders or finding bin Laden.

"But the more I reflected on the report, the more it struck me that conventional wisdom is upside down. Hard heads such as Cheney were motivated by a mixture of outrage over what happened on September 11 and fear of something worse: Cheney’s friends have repeatedly argued that 9/11 changed him fundamentally and transformed a measured figure into a warrior. But there is also a hard-headed case against torture.

"The classic hard-headed argument in favour of torture — the ticking timebomb — is less convincing than it sounds. Imagine that a nuclear bomb has been placed in the heart of London and you have half an hour to extract the necessary information from a jihadist before the device goes off. Will he really give you the right information as you apply the electrodes? Or will he waste your time by giving the wrong leads and then rejoice as you are all blown to smithereens?"

This is sophistry - the specious argument of the inutility of torture. Any interrogation of the nuclear-bomb jihadist is going to be met with initial silence or obfuscation. Suppose torture is the only way to make the jihadist say anything? Suppose you can rapidly check answers and persist until you get the truth? Suppose you have a scanner which can reliably detect the act of lying (so keep applying the current until the subject gives the right leads)?

In other words, suppose torture does in fact work - does that make it OK, Mr Wooldridge?

"Public opinion has been so thoroughly focused on the CIA report that the revelation that last month alone jihadists killed more than 5,000 people passed almost without comment.

"It is precisely because the stakes in this war are so high that we should avoid using torture. The war is fought on the home front: you have to keep the people on your side in a world where patience is limited and the enemy can disappear for long periods of time. Torture divides serious people and gives succour to the frivolous looking for an excuse to argue that “we” are not so wonderful and “they” are merely misunderstood."

"Torture divides serious people ...". Of course it's not alone in that, you could make the same case against drone attacks.

"The most interesting thing about the terrorism report is what it reveals about the internal state of the CIA. Torture took a toll on morale: in August 2002 some officers in a black facility in Thailand found torture so harrowing that they petitioned for a transfer. It created internal divisions: in January 2003 the CIA’s chief of interrogations sent an email to colleagues saying that “enhanced interrogation” was a wreck “waiting to happen and I intend to get the hell off the train before it happens”. It forced the agency to engage in endless lies and cover-ups — not just to Congress but even to the more sympathetic Bush White House."

Again, there are many cases where military exigencies clash with liberal ideals. Pacifism and unilateral disarmament have durable and vocal constituencies. Not a slam-dunk reason to desist from doing what states sometimes have to do, even against their own public opinion.

But Wooldridge has a final argument.

"Democracies that have given in to the use of torture — Britain in the Cyprus emergency in the 1950s, the French in the Algerian War and the Americans in Vietnam — have always come to regret it deeply not just because they lost the moral high ground but also because torture has a peculiarly corrosive effect on democratic institutions.

"It is easy for people who take the war on terror seriously to dismiss the terrorism report as a charade. The Democrats who are baying for the CIA’s blood this week were as one in demanding tough action in the wake of 9/11. They will be as one in condemning the CIA for negligence if jihadists mount another attack on the West.

"But this temptation should be resisted: the West must do what it can to ensure that the dubious decisions taken in the wake of 9/11 are not repeated — for hard-headed reasons rather than soft-hearted ones. Eschewing torture is not just the right thing to do morally. It is the right thing strategically as well."

What it comes down to, I think, is Wooldridge's statement that "torture has a peculiarly corrosive effect on democratic institutions". There is something uniquely unpleasant about torture, not just that it's horribly painful (many battlefield injuries are also agonising), but that the pain is inflicted with intent.

As social and moral creatures we have always made the most profound distinction between bad outcomes which just happen, and those carried through with full forethought and intent. It's the difference between manslaughter and murder. We have a horror of the psychopath, the malevolent person who literally doesn't care about the welfare of others - no conscience and no remorse; pretty much our definition of evil.

I think that for populations with a high degree of empathy, (arguably European populations), there is a profound disinclination to write a blank cheque for the application of unbearable pain by state employees. As a consequence, torture cannot be legitimised in policy or law.

That is not to say (as 'Andy McNab' wrote in The Times last week) that torture isn't (or shouldn't be?) used tactically by troops in battlefield situations (they keep quiet about it). Equally, other cultures which displayed less empathy seem to have had less angst about their states using torture (I recall few protests in the Roman Empire).

So while Adrian Wooldridge's article is full of logical flaws, in the end our inbuilt sense of empathy prevents us from ever legitimising torture, while we should be aware that it's a tool which may never be completely dispensed with in practice due to its sheer utility.

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I'm sorry if this seems a cop-out, but you've got two principles in contradiction with each other, each with its own domain of compelling applicability. Some degree of hypocrisy is inevitable. Ask the Christian church if it agrees with killing people.