Who'all remembers the A-bomb Kid? Guess what he's doing today...

Eric_the_Cerise
2025-07-19T08:55:07Z

I didn't know where to categorize this. It's not current, kinda politics, kinda tech, kinda a lot of things, but mostly I guess, I was just freaked out and wanted to share/discuss.

I read about this guy 40-50 years ago in The Readers Digest, have never heard anything about him since then, until the other day, a forum chat reminded me and I went rabbit-holing...

John Aristotle Phillips did an independent research project for his Physics degree at Princeton, on how to build a simple nuclear explosive device, including explicit instructions on how and why and etc. His larger goal was to help stop nuclear material proliferation by showing that there were no "secrets" left, no tech hurdles for anyone with a brain, except that of actually acquiring weapons-grade material.

His advisor was no less than Freeman Dyson, who gave him an 'A' and then immediately pulled the paper out of circulation. A couple months later, the Pakistani govt called Phillips, asking to buy a copy of his paper.

So, that's the background. It was his claim to fame back in the '70s.

From there, he went into politics, and etc etc, long story short, he's a top data broker. For decades now, he has been the CEO of one of the biggest US data trawling corporations, holding detailed personal info on at least 175M Americans (as of 2007 - doubtless, it's more today), which they use to help get politicians elected.

"Aristotle has served every occupant of the White House since Ronald Reagan, and consults for several top political action committees."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Aristotle_Phillips#Aristotle,_Inc.

Perhaps unsurprisingly for someone who's devoted his life to gathering info about other people, there doesn't seem to be all that much out there about him or his company.

So, my gut tells me he has become "a bad guy", just my automatic reaction to anyone who deals in this field ... But, IDK, bigger picture is just, I don't know how to process this info. Maybe there's nothing to process, it is what it is.

IDK. Just looking for other people's perspectives, I guess.

Comments URL: https://tildes.net/~talk/1p5u/whoall_remembers_the_a_bomb_kid_guess_what_hes_doing_today

Votes: 23

Comments: 4