A Future Vision of Nuclear Material Information Systems*

To address the current and future needs for nuclear materials management and safeguards information, Lawrence Liver-more National Laboratory envisions an integrated nuclear information system that will support several functions. The vision is to link distributed information systems via a common communications infrastructure designed to address the information interdependencies between two major elements: International, with information about specific nuclear materials and their properties, and International, with information pertaining to foreign nuclear materials, facility design and operations. The communication infrastructure will enable data consistency, validation and reconciliation, as well as provide a common access point and user interface for a broad range of nuclear materials information. Information may be transmitted to, from, and within the system by a variety of linkage mechanisms, including the Internet. Strict access control will be employed as well as data encryption and user authentication to provide the necessary information assurance. The system can provide a mechanism to address the growing national security needs of the U.S. government for an integrated database that includes national and international information.