Hacker News Reader

That's only because they're weapons of mass destruction. Nuclear capacity is essentially a step function - you either have it or you don't. Those who have it get to push around those who don't. There are some very strong incentives for the haves to prevent the list of nuclear powers from growing.

Also, unlike software vulnerabilities, nuclear weapons don't have a half-life counted in weeks.

It's a crude comparison, but software is a lot more like drugs than it is like nuclear weapons.

Is it? The fundamental reason the war on drugs failed is that drugs have relatively inelastic demand. Someone addicted to meth will find a way to get meth if it costs $10 or $500. Software exploits aren't like that at all. They are a tool used by gangs and governments that are only useful if they cost less than they're worth.

Software takes no less than a crappy laptop and a brain to create.

The Manhattan project consumed 10% of the total US energy output in the mid 1940s. And obviously uranium is hard to come across.

More notable is the fact that (like software transactions) drug transactions happen in private between consenting parties. The war on non-addictive drugs (say, psychedelics) failed too.

Nuclear weapons don’t grow on trees. Bug grow by a side effect of programming.