Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear war, has died • Hacker News Board

Re: Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear war, has died

#141

Post by pryce » Tue, Sep 19, 2017, 12:30 PM UTC

ge0rg wrote: post #53

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #2

When "just doing my job" saves the world. “My cozy armchair felt like a red-hot frying pan and my legs went limp. I felt like I couldn't even stand up. That's how nervous I was when I was taking this decision,” he told RT. How well would any of us have done in that situation? It's tempting to think that we'd have said no, don't launch. But picture yourself as a military commander, raised in that lifestyle. Then add t…

I wish it were possible to make a service that lets you upload encrypted notes that will be made public after your death. That sounds like an awesome startup idea. Except that the startup will run out of money after two years and sell your secrets to the highest bidder. Or they will become big enough to be bought by one of the Internet majors who will just shut down the servers and keep the developers.

I believe there is already a startup attempting to fill a similar niche called "Dead Mans Switch"[1]

[1] https://www.deadmansswitch.net/help/

Re: Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear war, has died

#142

Post by Sommersonn » Tue, Sep 19, 2017, 7:04 PM UTC

majewsky wrote: post #58

4WIW wrote: post #25

It may be that our biggest collective luck was that the alarm happened at the time subcolonel Petrov was on duty. He was an analyst, maybe even chief analyst of the unit, he authored the playbook for the officers on duty; being on duty wasn't his main job (source: https://cont.ws/@adviser095/717098 ), he would go on duty from time to time. Due to his knowledge of the early warning system he was more likely to cast do…

> 1) The reported starts (5 in total) happened from a single base in the US which didn't make sense from the military point of view: the US would have put themselves at a grave disadvantage by sending just a few missiles There was an interview with Petrov (in the 90s or 00s) when he spoke about this point, and the interviewer said that in 1983, the US plans for a preemptive strike started with a "beheading strike", i…

>Don't have a direct source link to back this up, sorry.

So why you're spreading FUD, if you have nothing to prove your point?

Re: Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear war, has died

#143

Post by baybal2 » Tue, Sep 19, 2017, 8:35 PM UTC

stordoff wrote: post #24

canoebuilder wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish it were possible to make a service that lets you upload encrypted notes that will be made public after your death. But those two requirements conflict. That's a very interesting idea. What do you mean by the "requirements conflict"? Couldn't it be implemented with a dead man's switch where one would check in every year or so. Of course there would need to be some verification methods baked in to thwart prank…

> What do you mean by the "requirements conflict"? Possibly that such a dead man's switch would require the keys to be outside of your control to some extent - after all, if you die the day after resetting the switch, any infrastructure owned, maintained, or paid for by you might not exist for the switch to fire. If you give the keys to a third-party, you have to trust they aren't reading the contents and that their…

There are no keys to launch infrastructure in Russian military. The few things amounting to that are the key codes stored in sealed containers that open code locks on control panels with physical launch buttons. The steel plate that cover the launch panel at Topol TEL can be easily cut open with a power tool.

Topol missiles have literally only 5 control inputs available to the launch crew:

1. raise the launch tower, 2. lower the launch tower, 3. arm the missile, 4. disarm the missile, 5. launch the missile

All missiles are programmed at the factory. Precise start coordinates are held by a separate navigation receiver at the missile TEL, and if the receiver fails, there are multiple redundant fallbacks.

The only way a crew can mess up the launch is to override the start coordinates with manual input.

Re: Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear war, has died

#144

Post by baybal2 » Tue, Sep 19, 2017, 8:41 PM UTC

pmoriarty wrote: post #7

Another Soviet officer who also probably prevented nuclear war was Vasili Arkhipov.[1] "On 27 October 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a group of eleven United States Navy destroyers and the aircraft carrier USS Randolph located the diesel-powered, nuclear-armed Soviet Foxtrot-class submarine B-59 near Cuba. Despite being in international waters, the Americans started dropping signaling depth charges, explosive…

>"Immediately upon return to Russia, many crew members were faced with disgrace from their superiors. One admiral told them "It would have been better if you'd gone down with your ship."..."

The main point here - this has shown that Soviet officers were reluctant to carry orders, and if ordered "fight to the bitter end," would betray the political leadership

It showed that no matter of what Soviet political establishment tries, it would be unable to force the military to blindly follow the protocol. The fact that this got uncovered and publicised displeased the higher ups in the military because this endangered their positions, by rendering them incapable of instilling that order.

Re: Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear war, has died

#145

Post by sulam » Wed, Sep 20, 2017, 3:38 PM UTC

rl3 wrote: post #138

doublecorrect wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

s/comprised/composed/

Interesting, I never knew that grammatical holy war existed. Learn something new every day. The original mistake was just an autocorrect error. Some day I'll learn not to write posts from mobile devices. Also, I noticed you created an account just for this. Assuming it isn't a throwaway, welcome to HN. That's a cool username.

FWIW, I assumed autocorrect and wasn't trying to start any wars. :)

Re: Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear war, has died

#146

Post by rl3 » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 4:32 AM UTC

sulam wrote: post #145

rl3 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, I never knew that grammatical holy war existed. Learn something new every day. The original mistake was just an autocorrect error. Some day I'll learn not to write posts from mobile devices. Also, I noticed you created an account just for this. Assuming it isn't a throwaway, welcome to HN. That's a cool username.

FWIW, I assumed autocorrect and wasn't trying to start any wars. :)

No offense taken, I even upvoted both corrections.

Re: Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear war, has died

#147

Post by dang » Fri, Sep 22, 2017, 7:16 AM UTC

rwoodley wrote: post #123

Synaesthesia wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar to the BBC for England or many countries which have state television.

Ah you must be a Russian government employee. It is not similar at all. There is no editorial independence at rt.com. It is a tool of the KGB used for info wars. The BBC is staffed by independent journalists and is often quite critical of the UK government. Please do not posit a false equivalence between totalitarian kleptocracies and western democracies, whatever the flaws of the latter.

This comment breaks the HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. We ban accounts that do this, so would you please read them and follow them when commenting here from now on?