Shall we play a game? How about Global Thermonuclear War.
The only thing missing from those photos was a telephone and and old school desktop modem.[1]
I am not planning any nuclear attacks
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Re: I am not planning any nuclear attacks
#72This seems relevant:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
Title is "Dont Talk to Police" from 2008. Henry Smith should probably watch it.
Re: I am not planning any nuclear attacks
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
It takes only the barest application of common sense to realize that an ICBM attack is not going to be planned on a whiteboard in plain view in some random apartment. It does not actually appear to be plans for a terrorist attack, because terrorists don't have ICBMs.
Also: Terrorist are not too concerned about mouseclicks ....
He's just making a Visual BASIC GUI for the terrorist attack[1].
Re: I am not planning any nuclear attacks
#74Devil's Advocate: You are a nontechnical person and stumble upon what appear to be plans for a terrorist attack. You talk to the person about it and they say "Don't worry. is computer game". A great exploration of this is the 30 Rock episode where Tina Fey reports her neighbor for what ends up being a plan to get on the show 'The Amazing Race'. The problem is, not knowing any better, you feel obligated to report the…
The problem is that everyone in the chain ends up buying into this. The police make a record of it 'just in case.' You end up on a no-fly list 'just in case.' Everyone in the chain is covering their ass 'just in case' this person really is a terrorist. No one ends up willing to stick their neck out and say, "this person probably isn't a terrorist"... just in case.
[deleted]
Re: I am not planning any nuclear attacks
#75Par for the course with letting agents in the UK. I'm surprised they didn't begin evicting the renter. Using a property for work is often prohibited in the boilerplate rental agreements they charge £100 a time to change the name on.
You're doing well to be charged £100. We just renewed our tenancy, and got charged £120 by the letting agents to process us signing the same agreement we signed 12 months ago, and update their records to show we're not due to do so again for another year.
Re: I am not planning any nuclear attacks
#76Devil's Advocate: You are a nontechnical person and stumble upon what appear to be plans for a terrorist attack. You talk to the person about it and they say "Don't worry. is computer game". A great exploration of this is the 30 Rock episode where Tina Fey reports her neighbor for what ends up being a plan to get on the show 'The Amazing Race'. The problem is, not knowing any better, you feel obligated to report the…
This example illustrates the very slippery slope we find ourselves on today. The problem is that it's really no ones business unless and until I break a law. I shouldn't have to justify may legal actions to anyone, regardless of what they do and don't understand.
Re: I am not planning any nuclear attacks
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fine state of County Durham. As a tenant - a student tenant, no less - your rights are virtually squat.
Knowing some landlords, the number one thing they complain about is how impossible it is to evict anyone. I really doubt you had any rights.
was that last sentence the opposite of what you intended to type?
Re: I am not planning any nuclear attacks
#78Common sense isn't quite as "common" anymore. If you actually read those diagrams it is pretty obvious (to me) that that is a game, and not some missile design or "plan" (although who plans a state missile attack from their apartment?).
From his previous blog post, they could tell it was a game: “Except… the person who did the inspection did have some concerns about one thing. There were some… whiteboards? And some… drawings on them?” “Ah shit! Yeah I totally forgot about those! You mean the nuclear attack thing, right?” “Yeah, that’s right.” “Yeeeeeah…. Sorry! You see…. It’s for this game I was making! It’s like, a web thing and it uses Google Maps…
> Apparently somebody was still worried about the idea of a realistic nuclear attack simulation game. Reminds me of the time some kid was arrested for making a Counterstrike map based on his high school.
This is even more ridiculous. The kid could reasonably obtain weapons and bring them to school. The likelihood of obtaining an ICBM is nil.
Re: I am not planning any nuclear attacks
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
No it's not. At all. I mean, a rational person might make the assumption that this guy is not actually whiteboarding an ICBM launch from a rented apartment. But there's nothing about it indicating to a non-technical person that it's a game.
Uhhh? The "mouse click" was a dead give away. Also, Occam's Razor. Is this guy programming a game in his apartment or is he programming a ICBM with 0 related hardware plus probably no other corroborating evidence. No reason to act like it takes more than a couple minutes of investigation to figure this shit out. Edit: for the guy below me, since I can't reply directly, find me a nuclear missile guidance system that i…
I don't need to find a nuclear missile guidance system that is destination controlled by a freaking mouse click, because that is not what is being argued.
What is being argued is that it is not out of the question to expect that such a system may or could exist. It's not unreasonable to think that it could.
Occam's Razor. Are all of our nukes controlled solely by systems that do not involve a mouse, or might there be a computer sophisticated enough somewhere in that launch process that it might make use of a mouse?
Re: I am not planning any nuclear attacks
#80Devil's Advocate: You are a nontechnical person and stumble upon what appear to be plans for a terrorist attack. You talk to the person about it and they say "Don't worry. is computer game". A great exploration of this is the 30 Rock episode where Tina Fey reports her neighbor for what ends up being a plan to get on the show 'The Amazing Race'. The problem is, not knowing any better, you feel obligated to report the…
The problem is that everyone in the chain ends up buying into this. The police make a record of it 'just in case.' You end up on a no-fly list 'just in case.' Everyone in the chain is covering their ass 'just in case' this person really is a terrorist. No one ends up willing to stick their neck out and say, "this person probably isn't a terrorist"... just in case.
One big problem is that people take the idea of "better safe than sorry" as a way to avoid thought. Don't analyze the situation, just pick the option that appears safest after a glance!
What it should mean is that you should take both probabilities and costs into account when deciding what to do, as it's often worth doing something easy to reduce the risk of something unlikely but catastrophic.
But that doesn't mean you can just avoid thinking about it! "Often" doesn't mean "always". For example, it's worth checking the tire pressure in your car on a regular basis, because incorrect pressure could lead to a blowout at high speeds which can be most unpleasant, and checking it takes little time. But it's not worth checking the car for bombs every time you drive it, at least not for most of us, because the odds of being the victim of a car bomb for most of us are indistinguishable from zero.
A little thought reveals that this case is clearly in the second category, and thus calling the police is just a waste of public resources. But if you're incorrectly using "better safe than sorry" to mean "pick the option that appears to be safe without any analysis", you're not going to apply a little thought.