4 ms·

BBC Down: The internet responds

18 points by wedge14 11y ago

arethuza 11y ago
The Letters of Last Resort are real: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort One important part of the UK's nuclear strategy is that the UK Trident warheads don't have PALs - the crews have everything they need to launch. The reasoning behind this being that, in the dark days of the Cold War, it was expected that there wouldn't be enough time to transmit an authorization message in the time between a nuclear strike being detected and the weapons detonating so any retaliation would be based purely on the judgement of the crews on the subs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-minute_warning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-minute_warning
- pja 11y ago
  It’s well attested that the people in charge of the Minuteman missle systems had the same concerns & set the PAL codes on all the missiles to 000000.
smegel 11y ago
> Hysteria on social media as BBC websites go offline This is the title. I can't imagine there are many people outside the UK (0.88% of world population) who were exactly hysterical.
- arethuza 11y ago
  Hysteria (rest of world) == Miffed (UK)
  - maniacalrobot 11y ago
    Exactly, I was miffed that I couldn't watch the Royal Institute Christmas lectures on iplayer
- CM30 11y ago
  Given the time it happened (about midnight UK time today), I can't imagine there are many people IN the UK who were exactly hysterical. A lot more people would be in bed at that time than browsing the BBC's website... Then again, this sort of article is exactly what's wrong with the media at the moment. Forget real stories, let's just take random minor issues and make them sound bigger by quoting random people on social media sites.
  - DrScump 11y ago
    Given the time it happened (about midnight UK time today) the Year 2016 Problem? Y2K+16?
voidz 11y ago
Wired, trying to get you to click through their nonsense content (I call it nontent) because clicks on ads equal money, and like all media nowadays they make it attractive to the curious reader by using hyperboles and exaggerations, and by focusing on panic, fear and (commonly but not in this case) conflict. It's the stuff that sells. But there's more: as a free bonus, without qualms they tell you how hilarious and foolish "the Internet responds" (yeah right) to trivial stuff like the BBC being down. And these people have the audacity to call themselves journalists. They should be ashamed of themselves and my suggestion is: don't read this stuff when even the title is this obviously clickbaity. They have been spoiled enough, the quality is abhorrent. Best thing you can do in my opinion is adblock, adblock, adblock.
- bshimmin 11y ago
  I'm not 100% confident "articles" like this are even written by humans.
- J_Darnley 11y ago
  It just what "news" or "content" is these days--repeating what others said on twitter. Their conundrum is do they post what little might be said sooner to be the first or wait a little for shit to really kick off. I will admit that I went to see if there was an archive of this story (there is) before posting (and I looked at it). > Best thing you can do in my opinion is adblock, adblock, adblock. I already do. No whitelisting, no exceptions, and I keep an eye out for sponsored posts and native advertising.
elthran 11y ago
Web attack knocks BBC websites offline http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35204915 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35204915

18 points by wedge14 11y ago

The Letters of Last Resort are real: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort One important part of the UK's nuclear strategy is that the UK Trident warheads don't have PALs - the crews have everything they need to launch. The reasoning behind this being that, in the dark days of the Cold War, it was expected that there wouldn't be enough time to transmit an authorization message in the time between a nuclear strike being detected and the weapons detonating so any retaliation would be based purely on the judgement of the crews on the subs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-minute_warning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-minute_warning

pja 11y ago
It’s well attested that the people in charge of the Minuteman missle systems had the same concerns & set the PAL codes on all the missiles to 000000.

smegel 11y ago

> Hysteria on social media as BBC websites go offline This is the title. I can't imagine there are many people outside the UK (0.88% of world population) who were exactly hysterical.

arethuza 11y ago
Hysteria (rest of world) == Miffed (UK)
- maniacalrobot 11y ago
  Exactly, I was miffed that I couldn't watch the Royal Institute Christmas lectures on iplayer
CM30 11y ago
Given the time it happened (about midnight UK time today), I can't imagine there are many people IN the UK who were exactly hysterical. A lot more people would be in bed at that time than browsing the BBC's website... Then again, this sort of article is exactly what's wrong with the media at the moment. Forget real stories, let's just take random minor issues and make them sound bigger by quoting random people on social media sites.
- DrScump 11y ago
  Given the time it happened (about midnight UK time today) the Year 2016 Problem? Y2K+16?

voidz 11y ago

Wired, trying to get you to click through their nonsense content (I call it nontent) because clicks on ads equal money, and like all media nowadays they make it attractive to the curious reader by using hyperboles and exaggerations, and by focusing on panic, fear and (commonly but not in this case) conflict. It's the stuff that sells. But there's more: as a free bonus, without qualms they tell you how hilarious and foolish "the Internet responds" (yeah right) to trivial stuff like the BBC being down. And these people have the audacity to call themselves journalists. They should be ashamed of themselves and my suggestion is: don't read this stuff when even the title is this obviously clickbaity. They have been spoiled enough, the quality is abhorrent. Best thing you can do in my opinion is adblock, adblock, adblock.

bshimmin 11y ago
I'm not 100% confident "articles" like this are even written by humans.
J_Darnley 11y ago
It just what "news" or "content" is these days--repeating what others said on twitter. Their conundrum is do they post what little might be said sooner to be the first or wait a little for shit to really kick off. I will admit that I went to see if there was an archive of this story (there is) before posting (and I looked at it). > Best thing you can do in my opinion is adblock, adblock, adblock. I already do. No whitelisting, no exceptions, and I keep an eye out for sponsored posts and native advertising.

elthran 11y ago

Web attack knocks BBC websites offline http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35204915 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35204915