USA National Security at risk from grad student's research

[William Grim]

Man, you guys should check this out.  This guy who has been doing innocent PhD research has determined all these ways to bring the USA to its knees.

He doesn't want to publicize his compiled information, because it could tell terrorists exactly what to do to bring down the USA.  However, he has to publish something to make an academic name for himself.

Check it out here.

[Michael Kennedy]

At first when I read the synopsis I just assumed that this was centered around vulnerabilities and other software problems- if that was the case then I'd say "hell yeah!  publish it", but this is much different.

In this case, I'd say keep that infustructure info a secret.  It majorly sucks that it's available, but fixing the problems of having 1 or 2 points that could cut off a large area is something that's harder to fix than exploit.  It's easier to destroy something that construct something so if the trend continues where this information is widely available it would take a ton to add more redundancy, etc to areas, but wouldnt take that much effort to undo all that effort.

So, give the guy his PhD even if it means bending the rules a bit.  (I assume that it's widely acknowledged that he deserves it.)  Then give the info to the people that need it to fix some of the problems, then hope it doesnt get out.  Or rather, hope things get fixed before it gets out because I'm sure it will either come into the open, or someone will duplicate his efforts.