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

#201

Post by drewrobb » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 9:45 PM UTC

comicjk wrote: post #163

dogma1138 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A ballistic missile heading for Hawaii would be nuclear, the amount of additional loss of life that would incur from “damaging the public’s trust” in the early warning system would be pretty much negligible if the missile hits any major population center. This is basically not an issue for nuclear missiles for something more like to the situation in southern Israel with conventional unguided munitions blindly shot at…

Even for a megaton hydrogen bomb, there is some radius in which you would be safer in your basement. It's just a big radius.

Also, the area within by that large radius is going to be much bigger than from non-nuclear threats, so the number of people who could have reduced injuries via preparation might be much greater.

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

#202

Post by drdeadringer » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 9:46 PM UTC

blantonl wrote: post #139

packetslave wrote: post #117

Just watched an interview on CNN with the Governor of Hawaii and their director of emergency management. Pretty impressed that the director didn't throw anybody under the bus. He basically said "An employee pushed the wrong button. It's my responsibility, so this is my fault. We're going to make procedure and technical changes to make sure this doesn't happen again."

A lot of people are calling for the person who did this to be instantly fired, but I've always been of the opinion that the guy that pushed that button would be an outstanding hire - because he'll never, ever do something like that again and he's learned an important lesson.

A chemistry lab instructor I had in university had the same sentiments.

Her story was regarding an employee adding water to acid instead of the reverse, thereby creating an acidic cloud initiating an evacuation of the building [we're talking high volumes of acid and water here; think pumping in the water using a garden hose].

"You'll never have me doing this again," the person managed through tears.

"No, I'll have you do this from now on as my go-to person," was the response, "because I know you'll never do this again."

This was our "Add Acid" lesson.

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

#203

Post by topspin » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 9:46 PM UTC

jacksmith21006 wrote: post #127

Not to sound crude but if a nuclear bomb what can people on an island really do?

A great deal. Nuclear weapons are not infinitely large or powerful.

Here[1] is an account by Akiko Takakura. She was less than 300 meters from the hypocenter (the point on the ground directly below the nuclear blast) of the Hiroshima attack. She and others survived because they were inside a well built bank. She was 20 at the time and lived another 40 years.

There are a number of things you can do to contribute to your survival and minimize long term consequences. First is distance; the further you are from a target the better. Assuming you have sufficient distance then you need shelter, anything you can put between you and the blast will help mitigate or entirely eliminate the impact; a hill can make an enormous difference. Should you have the good fortune to survive the blast then you need to deal with fire (nuclear blasts ignite many things simultaneously) and avoiding the bulk of the fallout until you're clear of the damage. If you manage all that you can indeed survive and live a long life.

Much contempt is shown toward the old cold war era videos one can find of school children practicing nuclear attack drills by diving under desks and covering their heads. The fact is that these are entirely legitimate tactics that will mitigate the effect of the light flash, thermal pulse, flying glass and other debris.

[1] https://www.inicom.com/hibakusha/akiko.html

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

#204

Post by 21 » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 9:48 PM UTC

chki wrote: post #102

I actually wonder why this warning can be send in the first place. As this unwanted "test" has shown, people have absolutely no idea what to/where to go in that situation. Instead there was a lot of panic. If there is the possibility that you will send out such a message it would be a good idea to give some advice on what to do.

On TV there were some instructions - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gfvju0sBXgc

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

#205

Post by ronald_raygun » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 9:48 PM UTC

packetslave wrote: post #195

nodesocket wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love to hear the story how you took down Google for six minutes? Was this a long time ago?

This was in 2012. Let's just say that a router config only getting partially applied (because of a software bug) can cause a LOT of traffic to suddenly go places it's not supposed to go.

Oh wow, I was a noogler there 4ish years ago, and they still tell that story as an example of "its okay to break things, we care about fixing them after so they dont break in the future"

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

#206

Post by nickysielicki » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 9:50 PM UTC

blantonl wrote: post #139

packetslave wrote: post #117

Just watched an interview on CNN with the Governor of Hawaii and their director of emergency management. Pretty impressed that the director didn't throw anybody under the bus. He basically said "An employee pushed the wrong button. It's my responsibility, so this is my fault. We're going to make procedure and technical changes to make sure this doesn't happen again."

A lot of people are calling for the person who did this to be instantly fired, but I've always been of the opinion that the guy that pushed that button would be an outstanding hire - because he'll never, ever do something like that again and he's learned an important lesson.

That's one way to look at it.

The other perspective is that most people would not need to learn that lesson in the first place. This employee is unlikely to make this type of mistake again, but broadly speaking, is he less likely to make mistakes than someone who wouldn't have made this mistake in the first place? Doubtful.

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

#207

Post by CapacitorSet » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 9:51 PM UTC

dzhiurgis wrote: post #197

nradov wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to play devil's advocate, in some cases the point of firing an employee in a situation like this isn't about that one employee but more pour encourager les autres . So the remaining employees will see that management takes the issue seriously and they need to be diligent about following procedures. In this particular case no real harm was done and firing would probably be excessive.

> no real harm was done I wish to believe, but probably there was real harm, probably someone will come up with some million figures. Statistically, probably someone died during those minutes of terror and someone will try to attribute to this incident. What is interesting that employee probably meant no harm, but compare this to that SWAT murder a month earlier. The prankster meant no harm either, but he's going to…

>What is interesting that employee probably meant no harm, but compare this to that SWAT murder a month earlier.

Swatting is intentional, triggering the alert wasn't (at least, so it seems). It's not like the operator pressed the button knowing that it would trigger an alert and expected it not to be taken seriously; he didn't mean to trigger the alert at all.

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

#208

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 9:51 PM UTC

blantonl wrote: post #139

packetslave wrote: post #117

Just watched an interview on CNN with the Governor of Hawaii and their director of emergency management. Pretty impressed that the director didn't throw anybody under the bus. He basically said "An employee pushed the wrong button. It's my responsibility, so this is my fault. We're going to make procedure and technical changes to make sure this doesn't happen again."

A lot of people are calling for the person who did this to be instantly fired, but I've always been of the opinion that the guy that pushed that button would be an outstanding hire - because he'll never, ever do something like that again and he's learned an important lesson.

[deleted]

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

#209

Post by dzhiurgis » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 9:52 PM UTC

joering2 wrote: post #135

makecheck wrote: post #85

An interesting Reddit comment described a chaotic traffic situation for 20 minutes (people running lights, wrong-side-of-the-road driving, extreme speed, etc.). Human nature in these moments is very “Tragedy of the Commons” apparently.

Just recently I spoke to my friends that literally are living in LaLa land. They are making fun of me prepping and saving dry food, water, stacking up on legal guns and munition. I took upon challenge last xmas to meetup with them and they brought my prepardness as one of laughing subjects. It really saddens me when they believe that when gloves of society are off, we all gonna be happy singing kumbaya and respecting…

> mercilessly fires handgun into a nuclear mushroom

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

#210

Post by neurotech1 » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 9:53 PM UTC

packetslave wrote: post #117

Just watched an interview on CNN with the Governor of Hawaii and their director of emergency management. Pretty impressed that the director didn't throw anybody under the bus. He basically said "An employee pushed the wrong button. It's my responsibility, so this is my fault. We're going to make procedure and technical changes to make sure this doesn't happen again."

This is known as the "Asoh Defense". Capt. Kohei Asoh accidentally flew a DC-8 airliner into the water while on approach to SFO. No major injuries and the aircraft was repaired. The incident was noted for Capt. Asoh frankly accepting responsibility.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines_Flight_2#The_"A...