Spencer Ackerman was gracious enough to quote me in this “good piece”:http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/11/loose-geek/ about the potential spread of nuclear expertise:

bq. But the fact that no one precisely knows how large the problem is speaks to its danger. [Sharon] Squassoni, like every expert contacted for the story, laments the fact that it’s an under-researched topic. If the U.S. government even knows, it’s not telling. “It’s the kind of thing that when you start asking, you hit the classification wall pretty quickly,” says Paul Kerr, a proliferation expert at the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, who estimates that the number is in the tens of thousands of scientists.

I do feel the need to clarify one thing…although I told Spencer that the tens of thousands estimate sounded credible to me, it’s not MY estimate; I’ve never researched that particular issue. That’s not to say the number’s wrong – as I said, it sounds credible to me.

Spencer is a great blogger/journalist and I’m certainly not accusing him of making stuff up or misquoting me; there was just a misunderstanding.