The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday • Hacker News Board

Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday

#231

Post by hopeless » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 4:51 PM UTC

dilyevsky wrote: post #216

fyfy18 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> crew relationship management At least with airlines this seems to be largely abandoned now. My wife worked for a large middle eastern airline for a few years, and the crews were just assigned randomly. Well I guess there is a complicated algorithm that figures it out, but given the company has nearly 15,000 cabin crew it’s unlikely you’ll see someone you flew with again on another flight. Also from the stories I he…

op probly meant Crew Resource* Management which has nothing to do with crew assigment and is alive and well (on non-shit airlines that is).

oops, yeah, Crew Resource Management is what I meant — things like making sure a junior officer can question a senior officer when she sees a problem.

Crew Relationship Management is probably something else ;-)

Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday

#232

Post by hopeless » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 4:53 PM UTC

briandear wrote: post #226

hopeless wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot we can learn from aviation: accident retrospectives, checklists, master caution alarms, crew relationship management, human factors research, etc. However, my knowledge of these things is a bit piecemeal and anecdotal. Does anyone know a good book on these things?

I actually would recommend this book: http://atulgawande.com/book/the-checklist-manifesto/

yep, you're not the first to recommend it. I was hoping there were a few others in the same vein

Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday

#233

Post by vardump » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 4:53 PM UTC

UI crudeness is one thing.

What I wonder about is whether those links generate HTTP GET-requests. Links do so by default.

If so, just need internal web spider or overzealous web browser prefetcher, and one day Hawaii might have a lot of false alerts going on...

GET-requests are not supposed to have side effects, like alerting a whole state.

When you have side effects, HTTP verb should be something else, like POST.

Of course, it's possible there's Javascript handler behind those links that generates a HTTP POST request. Overall appearance of the page does suggest otherwise.

I wonder how the confirmation page (if any) behaves and looks like...

Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday

#234

Post by jmull » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 4:53 PM UTC

MicroBerto wrote: post #178

For those of you who don't believe a single thing we're being told about this situation -- including this screenshot -- just know that you're not alone. You don't need to question the narrative publicly like some of us do, but it's always good to keep an open mind about everything we're told, and sadly, that means considering the possibility that there have been more lies than truths told since Saturday. Hopefully so…

It seems very likely to me this situation is exactly what it appears to be: a false alarm triggered by an old, underfunded, patch-upon-patch alert system. Initially very scary, then very embarrassing, everyone involved is trying to cover their asses, so you see a lot of spin.

The lack of an actual ballistic missile or missile defense response should really settle the question, IMO.

Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday

#235

Post by bhk » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 4:53 PM UTC

joshstrange wrote: post #25

The thing that annoys me most about this situation is people complaining about how long it took to send out the "Sorry, there was no missile" message. Just as I expected these were hard-coded messages that were sent out by a button (link) click and not a free-form text area. There are many (good) reasons you want your program set up this way (let's ignore the rest of the terrible UI/UX for now). It makes complete sen…

What was stopping them from sending the "This is a drill" message?

Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday

#236

Post by 7952 » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 4:58 PM UTC

daveid wrote: post #157

7952 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just make them type the message out manually every single time? Why is it a good idea to offer options at all?

Do you want a button pushing clerk to be able to write any message to millions of people over an emergency network? There is so much potential for disaster in that idea. Options is much better. Having the employee type out the predefined message word for word would really be a good confirmation though.

> Do you want a button pushing clerk to be able to write any message to millions of people over an emergency network?

Yes, in situations where the message does not fit within a pre-defined list due to an unexpected event. Of course it should still have security mechanism's to ensure that the transmission is properly authorised.

The biggest threat is probably misuse by politicians rather than the poor clerk!

Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday

#237

Post by timdeneau » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 4:59 PM UTC

Disturbing to see the control system for their emergency alert system is this careless. This was human error? No shit.

Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday

#238

Post by Analemma_ » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 4:59 PM UTC

Roman Mars at least must be psyched. Next week’s 99PI episode is practically writing itself.

Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday

#239

Post by MicroBerto » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 5:00 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #190

MicroBerto wrote: post #178

For those of you who don't believe a single thing we're being told about this situation -- including this screenshot -- just know that you're not alone. You don't need to question the narrative publicly like some of us do, but it's always good to keep an open mind about everything we're told, and sadly, that means considering the possibility that there have been more lies than truths told since Saturday. Hopefully so…

Are you suggesting that there may have been a real attack but it's being kept quiet (by idk, the Deep State, lizard people, round-earth conspiracists, etc?)

Not at all, and I take offense to what you are suggesting - that anyone who questions the 'official' story automatically believes in lizard people or whatnot.

I find it sad that people have been conditioned to lump anyone who questions such a messed up narrative in with nonsense like that.

Let's not act as if we've never been lied to before. We have reached a very low point in both credibility and transparency, and just because I have serious doubts about this story doesn't mean I'm a flat earther or whatever else you're insinuating. Let's be mature here.

Re: The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Saturday

#240

Post by ryandrake » Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 5:00 PM UTC

robotsonic wrote: post #177

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like it was absolutely a money issue. In my experience it's a matter of going "well, we'd like to redesign the screen for $x, but we could throw another link on there for a quarter of $x", and the user will always go with the cheaper option. You can't just say "No, we need to go with the more expensive option" because that makes the client unhappy, and we don't want that, and if you only go with the more expen…

I don't buy the 'it costs too much' excuse. How much does it cost to go: Testing ... FOR REAL ... It's not perfect, but at least the test alerts and the real alerts are not mixed together.

But we're not talking about a web startup. I think if you saw the actual hourly work breakdown, cost breakdown, and number of people who would need to be involved to make that change your head would spin.