Alert About Missile Bound for Hawaii Was Sent in Error, Officials Say • Hacker News Board

Re: Alert About Missile Bound for Hawaii Was Sent in Error, Officials Say

#71

Post by uabstraction » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 8:25 PM UTC

djsumdog wrote: post #28

So either this was a security breach, a human mistake or a psyops/test on a small isolated American population. In the first case, we'll probably only be told about it if they actually make an arrest and the system is patched. The second is an interesting case, we'll come back to. The final one: it was intentional and used to track what happened on the islands, and to also watch that information propagate back to the…

I'll go right ahead and call you a conspiracy theorist. If you think The US intelligence community would go out of their way to stir up a panic like this just because CoIntelPro was a thing 50 years ago, with no other evidence or reasonable motives, you must be a UFO chasing loon.

If there is anything nefarious here (seems like it), this is the work of a foreign state actor probing our infrastructure for exploitable weaknesses and sizing up our response. I'll put my money on Russia, who has already been attacking our elections¹, energy infrastructure², social media, and spearphishing candidates and elected officials³.

They have conducted similar attacks in the past, sending out tweets and text message alerts to hundreds of people for nonexistent emergencies⁴.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-13/russian-b...

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russi...

[3] https://www.secureworks.com/research/threat-group-4127-targe...

[4] https://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.ht...

Re: Alert About Missile Bound for Hawaii Was Sent in Error, Officials Say

#72

Post by JumpCrisscross » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 8:26 PM UTC

iends wrote: post #22

nsxwolf wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody teaches anyone about cover during a nuclear strike anymore. In fact, the concept is frequently mocked as cynical Cold War era propaganda.

Yeah, because putting your head down against an interior wall or under a desk is going to make any difference.

It could. If you’re in the inferno, no. If you’re outside the thermal flux, protected from ionising radiation by simple structure (i.e. away from windows) and within the pressure flux, duck and cover works. If you’re in cases one and two, you die, quickly or painfully. Since you don’t know ex ante where the bomb will burst, duck and cover makes sense.

Re: Alert About Missile Bound for Hawaii Was Sent in Error, Officials Say

#73

Post by maxerickson » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 8:26 PM UTC

MollyR wrote: post #64

So a test drill went wrong. It makes sense to have drills right now, India (tests with war against China and Pakistan), China (Telling their soldiers to be prepared to die for China), Russia(tests against Nato), and North Korea (getting ready for war with the US) are all having military tests for basically what will quickly become another world war. We are really at a big crossroads as a large amount of people are re…

Hawaii started 6 months ago though: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/07/2...

Re: Alert About Missile Bound for Hawaii Was Sent in Error, Officials Say

#74

Post by Deimorz » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 8:27 PM UTC

sehugg wrote: post #60

nodesocket wrote: post #51

This should not happen, yet time after time we see that critical American infrastructure and systems are run worse than a pre-revenue bay area chat startup. American infrastructure needs to invest and hire/pay for the same quality that bay area startups do. Let four people go that are inept and less qualified and pay a single solid person market salary. Besides the fear and chaos potentially caused to people in Hawai…

American infrastructure needs to invest and hire/pay for the same quality that bay area startups do. Looking through the Github and Slack system status pages for this month so far ... I don't know that's exactly the model to follow.

20 minutes after everyone has already figured out that they've been hit by a missile, you'd get an alert: "We are currently investigating reports of increased explosion rates."

Re: Alert About Missile Bound for Hawaii Was Sent in Error, Officials Say

#75

Post by coldtea » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 8:27 PM UTC

iends wrote: post #22

nsxwolf wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody teaches anyone about cover during a nuclear strike anymore. In fact, the concept is frequently mocked as cynical Cold War era propaganda.

Yeah, because putting your head down against an interior wall or under a desk is going to make any difference.

It's going to make a huge difference is the blast is far enough away for you to not be in the "obliterate everything" zone, but still close enough to be dangerous.

Re: Alert About Missile Bound for Hawaii Was Sent in Error, Officials Say

#76

Post by gh02t » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 8:28 PM UTC

Simulacra wrote: post #43

Serious question: for those of you reading this, how would you have responded in those 30 minutes?

If possible move upwind, as far away from any military or industrial targets as possible. Otherwise, shelter underground or in a concrete/stone building. Put on the best dust/gas mask you can find. Put on heavy or waterproof clothing and try and cover as much skin as possible.

I work in nuclear security so this is kinda my thing. If you're in the fireball zone you're pretty much toast, other than that it's mostly about avoiding the blast pressure wave (as well as secondary effects like buildings collapsing on you) and exposure to airborne fallout, which is most dangerous in the first 24-48 hours. After that it becomes much safer to move around.

Re: Alert About Missile Bound for Hawaii Was Sent in Error, Officials Say

#77

Post by JumpCrisscross » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 8:28 PM UTC

charlesdm wrote: post #69

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Civilian governments would have had to get clarity from a military caught off guard. Something as simple as the appropriate official being in a meeting could introduce delays.

You'd assume a potential strike by an incoming missile is important enough to interrupt said meeting?

If NORAD said “incoming missile strike,” sure. That isn’t what happened.

The civilian notification system sent out a false positive. Saying “false alarm” would require, at that point, asking the military for affirmative confirmation nothing is wrong. That is a lower priority than responding to an active threat.

Re: Alert About Missile Bound for Hawaii Was Sent in Error, Officials Say

#78

Post by matt4077 » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 8:29 PM UTC

Simulacra wrote: post #43

Serious question: for those of you reading this, how would you have responded in those 30 minutes?

I would seek shelter in a subway station. It’s not perfect in terms of protection, because the ventilation system would pump in radioactivity as long as there’s still power. But it would allow me to get to any place 20km away from city center without going above ground once.

Or, you know, a vodka soda.

Re: Alert About Missile Bound for Hawaii Was Sent in Error, Officials Say

#79

Post by tensor » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 8:29 PM UTC

uabstraction wrote: post #71

djsumdog wrote: post #28

So either this was a security breach, a human mistake or a psyops/test on a small isolated American population. In the first case, we'll probably only be told about it if they actually make an arrest and the system is patched. The second is an interesting case, we'll come back to. The final one: it was intentional and used to track what happened on the islands, and to also watch that information propagate back to the…

I'll go right ahead and call you a conspiracy theorist. If you think The US intelligence community would go out of their way to stir up a panic like this just because CoIntelPro was a thing 50 years ago, with no other evidence or reasonable motives, you must be a UFO chasing loon. If there is anything nefarious here (seems like it), this is the work of a foreign state actor probing our infrastructure for exploitable…

You say he's a conspiracy theorist and then jump to Russia gaining access to the emergency alert system? Seriously? Both these scenarios sound equally probably or improbable to me.

Re: Alert About Missile Bound for Hawaii Was Sent in Error, Officials Say

#80

Post by intopieces » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 8:30 PM UTC

If I were going to erode public trust in emergency broadcast systems in order to increase the amount of damage I would do by launching an actual missile, this is how I would do it. A series of false alarms.

A similar, if obviously much smaller and less disastrous example, happens at my apartment about 4 times a week: the fire alarms for entire floors of my apartment building are easily triggered by people smoking in the breeze ways or burning their dinner. The result is that I routinely ignore fire alarms because the likelihood of a real fire is has been demonstrated to be exceedingly small.