Transweb and trafficking in illicit nuclear materials: beyond the borders of physical security

Full text: Transweb is a developing threat assessment analytical protocol that uses real time GIS based assessments (a.k.a., GTA for GIS Threat Assessment) to better understand potential trafficking in illicit nuclear materials that may come from energy related sites and/or weapons production facilities. This is not a physical security protocol nor is this program a border check format like the DOE's Second Line of Defense which is designed to detect special nuclear fuels. Transweb is a tool that allows the user to look at surreptitious transportation pathways that may be used to move illicit nuclear materials after they have already breached traditional physical security barriers and allows for movement prediction and potential mitigation/intervention if they are not traveling on the highways or railways, traversing the waterways, or entering ports equipped with detecting equipment like that deployed in Second Line of Defense program. Transweb is for the real world, a world where physical security may be breached and the smugglers that capture these materials do not follow the most traveled highways, railways, or waterways in a given society. Transweb focuses on the less obvious transportation routes that may be the most likely ways that illicit nuclear materials will be transported. Thus this program offers an additional layer of security analysis not currently in use as physical protection or as border mitigation. (author)