# What happens if you accidentally design a 'fictional' classified real-life weapons system? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 28, 2017, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-you-accidentally-design-a-fictional-classified-real-life-weapons-system/790043 "2017-06-28T08:53:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2017, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-you-accidentally-design-a-fictional-classified-real-life-weapons-system/790043/41 "2017-06-30T02:44:07Z")
Well going to the NSA won’t be pleasant if you are not American. ---
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2017, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-you-accidentally-design-a-fictional-classified-real-life-weapons-system/790043/42 "2017-06-30T13:15:37Z")
> [@Enola\_Straight](#): > > What if it isn’t a coincidental invention, but a scientific/mathematical discovery? > > Suppose I come up with a way to crack codes by factoring large primes into/out of Public Keys, or tap into Quantum Entangled transmissions. > > I don’t actually break into classified files…I just publish my creation. > I can imagine some shadowy three-letter government agency getting uncomfortably interested in me. I don’t know if this is true, but I’ve heard you have to have permission from the NSA to become a professional cryptologist. Probably they could arrest you just for violating that law. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2017, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-you-accidentally-design-a-fictional-classified-real-life-weapons-system/790043/43 "2017-06-30T13:34:08Z")
A lot of Frederick Forsyth’s stories seem oddly prescient, including at least one that predicted the current wave of extremists in the West getting radicalised via the internet quite some time before it became a hot-button issue. And probably anecodatal, but I read somewhere that the producers of the Bond movie _Goldfinger_ had to guess what the inside of Fort Knox looks like (for obvious reasons) and apparently while it wasn’t close enough to be a concern to anyone, it wasn’t a million miles off the mark either. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2017, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-you-accidentally-design-a-fictional-classified-real-life-weapons-system/790043/44 "2017-06-30T13:41:16Z")
If you publish an interesting, let alone revolutionary, result (in any field of research) then people will be interested (that means you have done good work). Including the NSA if applicable. If you don’t want your work to receive public scrutiny/peer review just don’t publish it. But you can publish whatever you want. Indeed, why wouldn’t you, having done all that hard work? You can study, receive various doctorates, apply for and be granted funding for research in cryptography (say) with no communication to or from the NSA. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2017, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-you-accidentally-design-a-fictional-classified-real-life-weapons-system/790043/45 "2017-06-30T13:49:27Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > I wonder if this has gone the other way … some author writes about a futuristic weapons systems that the military thinks might work … Well, there was the [“Disney Bomb,”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_bomb) although that was a proposed weapon from an educational/propaganda film based on a non-fiction book, not a fictional weapon appearing in a fictional context. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2017, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-you-accidentally-design-a-fictional-classified-real-life-weapons-system/790043/46 "2017-06-30T14:14:18Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > A lot of Frederick Forsyth’s stories seem oddly prescient, including at least one that predicted the current wave of extremists in the West getting radicalised via the internet quite some time before it became a hot-button issue… A work of fiction getting uncomfortably close to a geopolitical secret, and officialdom overreacting, is part of the plot of the 1975 Robert Redford thriller _Three Days of the Condor_. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2017, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-you-accidentally-design-a-fictional-classified-real-life-weapons-system/790043/47 "2017-06-30T14:32:25Z")
Heinlein in “Solution Unsatisfactory” (?) not only proposed a dirty bomb (drop radioactive material on a city) but also predicted the cold war MAD standoff. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2017, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-you-accidentally-design-a-fictional-classified-real-life-weapons-system/790043/48 "2017-06-30T16:01:12Z")
> [@furryman](#): > > I don’t know if this is true, but I’ve heard you have to have permission from the NSA to become a professional cryptologist. Probably they could arrest you just for violating that law. It’s not true. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2017, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-you-accidentally-design-a-fictional-classified-real-life-weapons-system/790043/49 "2017-06-30T17:31:30Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > Heinlein in “Solution Unsatisfactory” (?) not only proposed a dirty bomb (drop radioactive material on a city) but also predicted the cold war MAD standoff. Jacques d’Emal’s Masters Thesis, “[ANTICIPATING THE ATOM: POPULAR PERCEPTIONS OF ATOMIC POWER BEFORE HIROSHIMA](https://works.bepress.com/jacques_demal/1/)” lists 160 atomic power stories before Heinlein’s. There were a dozen before Wells’ _The World Set Free_, although not all used atomic weaponry in the modern sense. Fandom’s love of Campbell’s Golden Age sf is like Orwellian propaganda: it rewrote history to make it appear that it arose out of nothingness fully formed. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2017, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-you-accidentally-design-a-fictional-classified-real-life-weapons-system/790043/50 "2017-06-30T17:45:40Z")
“By The Waters of Babylon” by Benét is often mistaken for just another post-atomic war return-to-savagery story. yet it was published in 1937 (In the _Saturday Evening Post_ !! ) and imagined a level of war(s) so horrific it completely destroys civilization, written before WWII trumped the WWI’s scale of destructive orgy. Not in the OP’s range, but a demonstration of the range of imagination of earlier writers. No, Campbell did not invent SF, nor did Gernsback, nor did Wells. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2017, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-you-accidentally-design-a-fictional-classified-real-life-weapons-system/790043/51 "2017-06-30T18:59:43Z")
> [@furryman](#): > > I don’t know if this is true, but I’ve heard you have to have permission from the NSA to become a professional cryptologist. Probably they could arrest you just for violating that law. Sounds doubtful. First of all, what would a “professional cryptologist” be? Someone well-versed in cryptology? The mathematical foundations behind cryptology are publicly available; they are out there, in books and journals, for everyone with an interest in the matter to read. The NSA can’t prevent you from going to a good library and reading up on it. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2017, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-you-accidentally-design-a-fictional-classified-real-life-weapons-system/790043/52 "2017-06-30T19:35:14Z")
> [@furryman](#): > > I don’t know if this is true, but I’ve heard you have to have permission from the NSA to become a professional cryptologist. Probably they could arrest you just for violating that law. Yup. It’s a damn shame they arrested [Phil Zimmerman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Zimmermann) just as he was beginning to write [Pretty Good Privacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy), so that it couldn’t become the foundation of a multi-billion-dollar-per-year commercial cryptographic security industry. No, wait, that’s the opposite of what happened. Zimmerman wrote and released PGP, in spite of the opposition of cryptologic agencies, and those agencies did nothing (other than fume silently, and maybe try ill-fated efforts to supplant strong commercial crypto with [weaker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/40-bit_encryption) or [key-escrowed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip) systems that the market almost completely ignored.) The NSA is not The Star Chamber. They do not have assassin teams, or black helicopters, or most of law enforcement in their pockets. And you will not be arrested for implementing cryptography. You should be, if you implement poor home-rolled crap cryptography, but only for fraud, not for “unlicensed practice of cryptology”. ---
**Author:** ![joema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9adbd/32.png) [@joema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joema)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2017, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-you-accidentally-design-a-fictional-classified-real-life-weapons-system/790043/53 "2017-07-01T00:40:59Z")
> [@gnoitall](#): > > …you will not be arrested for implementing cryptography. … While you don’t need a “license to be a professional cryptologist”, cryptographic consulting services still require an export license, and encryption registration with the U.S. Bureau of Information and Security is required for the export of mass market encryption commodities, software and components with encryption exceeding 64 bits. Other items require a one-time review by or notification to BIS prior to export to most countries: [Crypto Wars - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars) ---
**Author:** ![cwthree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de0a6/32.png) [@cwthree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cwthree)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2017, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-you-accidentally-design-a-fictional-classified-real-life-weapons-system/790043/54 "2017-07-01T01:09:43Z")
My dad tells me that if, as a student at the US Naval Academy, you write a term paper that describes something uncomfortably close to something that is actually in development, you will get your paper back just long enough to learn your grade, and then you’ll never see that paper again. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2017, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-you-accidentally-design-a-fictional-classified-real-life-weapons-system/790043/55 "2017-07-01T01:14:43Z")
> [@cwthree](#): > > My dad tells me that if, as a student at the US Naval Academy, you write a term paper that describes something uncomfortably close to something that is actually in development, you will get your paper back just long enough to learn your grade, and then you’ll never see that paper again. Presumably a good grade. ---
**Author:** ![gazpacho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6f9a4e/32.png) [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2017, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-you-accidentally-design-a-fictional-classified-real-life-weapons-system/790043/56 "2017-07-01T01:16:27Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > Sounds doubtful. First of all, what would a “professional cryptologist” be? Someone well-versed in cryptology? The mathematical foundations behind cryptology are publicly available; they are out there, in books and journals, for everyone with an interest in the matter to read. The NSA can’t prevent you from going to a good library and reading up on it. I personally know several professional cryptologists. A few years ago NIST requested proposals for how SHA-3 should work. There were a lot of proposals from different companies. My colleagues worked on one proposal. Sadly for them a different proposal was chosen. Schnitte is correct they are basically mathematicians who have specialized in the math of cryptography. They have no special licenses. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2017, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-you-accidentally-design-a-fictional-classified-real-life-weapons-system/790043/57 "2017-07-01T02:07:23Z")
> [@rbroome](#): > > What if I patented the idea in Germany or Japan-countries where we have reciprocal patent treaties? There are agreements between at least some governments in which they can request that such patent applications be declared secret by the local government. I’ve seen at least one case of such a thing in Canada, after it was finally declassified, in which the US asked Canada to classify it. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2017, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-you-accidentally-design-a-fictional-classified-real-life-weapons-system/790043/58 "2017-07-01T02:24:35Z")
Good thing you cannot patent an algorithm; you can publish it, say online or in a journal, or not. To the extent that the government is interested in restricting the export of cryptographic software, that is less like regulating stories involving fictional sci-fi death rays, and more like restricting export of actual death rays or detailed blueprints for manufacturing death rays. ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2017, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-you-accidentally-design-a-fictional-classified-real-life-weapons-system/790043/59 "2017-07-01T02:32:25Z")
1920’s style? ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2017, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-you-accidentally-design-a-fictional-classified-real-life-weapons-system/790043/60 "2017-07-01T02:49:03Z")
> [@cwthree](#): > > My dad tells me that if, as a student at the US Naval Academy, you write a term paper that describes something uncomfortably close to something that is actually in development, you will get your paper back just long enough to learn your grade, and then you’ll never see that paper again. I’m aware your dad was probably in school back in the Uncle Joe Stalin era, judging by the average age of posters on this board, but surely even Admiral Halsey’s Navy would have heard of the magical technological wonder of carbon paper and, I don’t know, handwritten notes and outlines. Plus, any sign that distinguishes the interesting from the uninteresting is a grave security breach in and of itself, and you don’t need to be Claude Shannon to understand the importance of not leaking even one bit of information about what you deem interesting. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-you-accidentally-design-a-fictional-classified-real-life-weapons-system/790043.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-you-accidentally-design-a-fictional-classified-real-life-weapons-system/790043.md?page=4)