15 ms·

Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear war, has died

534 points by apsec112 9y ago

sillysaurus3 9y ago
When "just doing my job" saves the world. “My cozy armchair felt like a red-hot frying pan and my legs went limp. I felt like I couldn't even stand up. That's how nervous I was when I was taking this decision,” he told RT. How well would any of us have done in that situation? It's tempting to think that we'd have said no, don't launch. But picture yourself as a military commander, raised in that lifestyle. Then add the natural inclination to freeze up and make bad choices under pressure. It's also a lesson in secrecy. We almost didn't hear about this story. It was kept secret for a decade. How many secrets are you sitting on, bound by your NDAs? Will you ever make the important ones public a decade later, or will you decide it's not your position, or that it might affect your career? It's easy to rationalize that it isn't our position to say anything about what we know. But it's also too easy. I wish it were possible to make a service that lets you upload encrypted notes that will be made public after your death. But those two requirements conflict.
- abecedarius 9y ago
  Not exactly that service -- too much uncertainty about when quantum computers will get cheap enough -- but https://defuse.ca/quantum-computer-time-capsule.htm https://defuse.ca/quantum-computer-time-capsule.htm
- lawl 9y ago
  > How many secrets are you sitting on, bound by your NDAs Zero. I don't sign NDA's.
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago
    Oh? I feel like that only works while you're young and in demand. Give it a decade or so. But I'm curious about your strategy. There are many contexts that you simply can't work for someone if you won't sign an NDA. It'd be interesting to know the areas where that isn't true.
    - majewsky 9y ago
      I work in cloud infrastructure, and I cannot recall anyone here signing an NDA. Instead, our senior architects are giving talks about our network design etc. at prestigious conferences to earn street cred for the company.
- canoebuilder 9y ago
  >I wish it were possible to make a service that lets you upload encrypted notes that will be made public after your death. But those two requirements conflict. That's a very interesting idea. What do you mean by the "requirements conflict"? Couldn't it be implemented with a dead man's switch where one would check in every year or so. Of course there would need to be some verification methods baked in to thwart pranksters.
  - te 9y ago
    https://www.deadmansswitch.net/ https://www.deadmansswitch.net/
  - YuriNiyazov 9y ago
    I don't know if that's what he meant by "conflict", but it does provide an incentive for one's death
  - stordoff 9y ago
    > What do you mean by the "requirements conflict"? Possibly that such a dead man's switch would require the keys to be outside of your control to some extent - after all, if you die the day after resetting the switch, any infrastructure owned, maintained, or paid for by you might not exist for the switch to fire. If you give the keys to a third-party, you have to trust they aren't reading the contents and that their security measures are sufficient. It could be done on an ad-hoc basis if you have a trusted third-party (close friend, for instance), but it's difficult to see how it could be scaled into a service. Perhaps it could be split into two parties - you upload the encrypted notes to the service, but they don't get the keys. You pass the keys to a trusted third-party (i.e. the close friend), who can make the notes public by giving the keys to the notes holder, who (ideally) would verify the death via public records. This avoids giving the secrets directly to the friend (in case of disagreements etc.), and you can reverse the decision whilst you are still alive (by deleting the notes). Also, depending on the nature of the secrets, it does provide an incentive for death.
    - addHocker 9y ago
      You could make a time triggered death man switch that needs to be reset every year. Else your secret is decrypted
- lordnacho 9y ago
  > I wish it were possible to make a service that lets you upload encrypted notes that will be made public after your death. But those two requirements conflict. Don't people do this using a lawyer / testament? If you don't want the lawyer to know the contents either, encrypt it and give the key to another lawyer. Asking people to trust lawyers might strike some as being a bit optimistic, but I haven't come across problems with people who are privileged to my information yet. Doctors, lawyers, accountants. You might worry about the guy's infosec, but then I counter a lawyer is more likely to use a safe or other non-digital tech than most people.
- ge0rg 9y ago
  I wish it were possible to make a service that lets you upload encrypted notes that will be made public after your death. That sounds like an awesome startup idea. Except that the startup will run out of money after two years and sell your secrets to the highest bidder. Or they will become big enough to be bought by one of the Internet majors who will just shut down the servers and keep the developers.
  - pryce 9y ago
    I believe there is already a startup attempting to fill a similar niche called "Dead Mans Switch"[1] [1] https://www.deadmansswitch.net/help/ https://www.deadmansswitch.net/help/
- gruturo 9y ago
  > How well would any of us have done in that situation? It's tempting to think that we'd have said no, don't launch. But picture yourself as a military commander, raised in that lifestyle. Then add the natural inclination to freeze up and make bad choices under pressure. Worse. Much worse. Imagine 1 further thought at the back of your head: Even if I get this absolutely right and avert WW3, there's an 80% chance I get shot and my family ends up in Siberia. My only way out of this is lucking out about the mood of my whole chain of command, up to and including the paranoid tyrant on top, who may worry I am creating precedent for not following orders to the letter. This may be how my life ends, and that's if I successfully avoid a nuclear holocaust.
- branchan 9y ago
  deadmann.com
unexistance 9y ago
and I'm reminded by the movie WarGames when the nuke officers (not sure the actual designation) are replaced by relays... I'm just glad the officer-just-doing-his-job expects systems to fail & trust hsi own judgment, instead of our current ever-increasing trust in machines
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- flukus 9y ago
  In Wargames they detected a massive preemptive attack. One of the things that tipped off the officer in this case was that it was such a small scale attack, which doesn't make sense because it leaves the enemy willing and able to respond.
  - _coldfire 9y ago
    From the article: Taught that in case of a real attack the US would have gone on an all-out offensive, Petrov told his bosses the alarm must have been caused by a system malfunction.
smitherfield 9y ago
Perhaps the better story for this audience is the one about the electrical engineer who nearly caused nuclear war...
- testestx 9y ago
  Who?
  - sturmeh 9y ago
    Whoever was responsible for the fault that detected the sun rays as incoming missiles.
- devnonymous 9y ago
  I imagine this was said a bit tongue-in-cheek but seriously tho, that would not be the better story since the reality of engineering is mistakes happen. Bugs exist in every system. Yes, these might even cause nuclear war and that's why the 'better story for this audience' is why it didn't.
pmoriarty 9y ago
Another Soviet officer who also probably prevented nuclear war was Vasili Arkhipov.[1] "On 27 October 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a group of eleven United States Navy destroyers and the aircraft carrier USS Randolph located the diesel-powered, nuclear-armed Soviet Foxtrot-class submarine B-59 near Cuba. Despite being in international waters, the Americans started dropping signaling depth charges, explosives intended to force the submarine to come to the surface for identification. There had been no contact from Moscow for a number of days and, although the submarine's crew had earlier been picking up U.S. civilian radio broadcasts, once B-59 began attempting to hide from its U.S. Navy pursuers, it was too deep to monitor any radio traffic. Those on board did not know whether war had broken out or not. The captain of the submarine, Valentin Grigorievitch Savitsky, decided that a war might already have started and wanted to launch a nuclear torpedo. "Unlike the other subs in the flotilla, three officers on board the B-59 had to agree unanimously to authorize a nuclear launch: Captain Savitsky, the political officer Ivan Semonovich Maslennikov, and the second-in-command Arkhipov. Typically, Russian submarines armed with the "Special Weapon" only required the captain to get authorization from the political officer to launch a nuclear torpedo. However, due to Arkhipov's position as flotilla commander, the B-59's captain also was required to gain Arkhipov's approval. An argument broke out, with only Arkhipov against the launch. "Even though Arkhipov was only second-in-command of the submarine B-59, he was in fact commander of the entire submarine flotilla, including the B-4, B-36 and B-130, and equal in rank to Captain Savitsky. According to author Edward Wilson, the reputation Arkhipov had gained from his courageous conduct in the previous year's Soviet submarine K-19 incident also helped him prevail. Arkhipov eventually persuaded Savitsky to surface and await orders from Moscow. This effectively averted the nuclear warfare which probably would have ensued if the nuclear weapon had been fired. The submarine's batteries had run very low and the air-conditioning had failed, causing extreme heat and high levels of carbon dioxide inside the submarine. They were forced to surface amidst its U.S. pursuers and return to the Soviet Union as a result. "Immediately upon return to Russia, many crew members were faced with disgrace from their superiors. One admiral told them "It would have been better if you'd gone down with your ship."..." [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov
- branchan 9y ago
Twisell 9y ago
This remind me of a recurring theme in "Doctor Who" fictional stories (I'm bing watching right now). There no such thing as an unimportant person because countless time in the stories the world or even the universe have been saved by ordinary people and nobody will ever know about them. Only this is real life, this is deeply amazing. I feel so much gratitude and kindnesses for this man. RIP Станислав Евграфович Петров PS: added emphasis on Fictional stories for clarity.
- hawski 9y ago
  > recurring theme in doctor who stories For others confused like me: recurring theme in the Doctor Who stories.
  - Twisell 9y ago
    I corrected for clarity. But some fans would cringe because you can refer to "Doctor Who" as the show or "The Doctor" for the character but "The Doctor Who" Make no sense so your initial correction might be even more confusing to some ;)
    - Already__Taken 9y ago
      But you would use the phrase the Doctor Who show. As The wasn't capitalized is how I would read it.
      - Twisell 9y ago
        So let's get to the bottom of this as english is not my mother tong and I will gladly learn new tricks. Does that mean that my sentence (with correction) is wrong because "the" is mandatory in this context?
        tgb 9y ago
        No, it's perfect as is. Eg: Wikipedia's use of "Br'er Rabbit stories" here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%27er_Rabbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%27er_Rabbit
jimrandomh 9y ago
This is tragic. The anniversary of the crisis Petrov saved us from is coming up soon, on September 26th. There's a ritual/ceremony that I and some others have been observing yearly on that day, which I recently put online at http://petrovday.com/ http://petrovday.com/, which talks about that (and the world's other close calls, and historical context).
- aswanson 9y ago
  That's a great idea, awareness needs to be spread about how lucky we are.
tscs37 9y ago
I first heard of his death in a very niche subreddit and only by chance. He died in May and only now we know it. I was wondering how long it'd take for mainstream media to pick up. He was truly a hero, without his reaction a good chunk of this planet would be nuclear wasteland.
- greglindahl 9y ago
  Mainstream media? This is an rt.com article, a mouthpiece for the Kremlin.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - tscs37 9y ago
    It's arguably more mainstream than a niche subreddit,no? On the other hand, there are more trustworthy news outlets.
  - int_19h 9y ago
    Its affiliation doesn't make it any less mainstream.
    - kk_cz 9y ago
      I think OP might have been disputing the "media" part rather than the "mainstream" part.
  - ameliaquining 9y ago
    As far as I know, they had this story before anyone else did.
- executesorder66 9y ago
  Which subreddit was that, if you don't mind?
  - 9y ago
ChristianGeek 9y ago
We're there a few zeros missing from the amount Kevin Costner sent him?
4WIW 9y ago
It may be that our biggest collective luck was that the alarm happened at the time subcolonel Petrov was on duty. He was an analyst, maybe even chief analyst of the unit, he authored the playbook for the officers on duty; being on duty wasn't his main job (source: https://cont.ws/@adviser095/717098 https://cont.ws/@adviser095/717098 ), he would go on duty from time to time. Due to his knowledge of the early warning system he was more likely to cast doubt than a regular officer on duty. Several factors looked suspicious: 1) The reported starts (5 in total) happened from a single base in the US which didn't make sense from the military point of view: the US would have put themselves at a grave disadvantage by sending just a few missiles; 2) They had visible light and infra-red visuals on the US territory and none of them checked out and 3) It would have been highly unlikely for the war to start suddenly, without any prior escalation. Like other officers on duty, he had college education as an electronics engineer and additional 2 years of special training. All this probably helped him make the right decision. This is not to take away from the importance of Mr.Petrov's heroic personal contribution: he definitely deserves recognition (which he didn't get from the Soviet Army and his own country BTW). Still I would also like to hope that we are all collectively not as stupid as to go caboom just because of the single fluke in the satellite system.
- MichaelMoser123 9y ago
  I wonder if there are other, still classified instances where the weapon has almost been launched. If lt. colonel Petrov was aware of the limitations of the early warning system then there must have been other faults as well - I bet there have been problems with the early warning system on both sides...
  - sillysaurus3 9y ago
    Ever hear of the bomb the US accidentally dropped on the mainland? When they recovered it, they discovered the bomb had armed itself and that all the safety mechanisms failed except one.
    - leeoniya 9y ago
      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash
Lxr 9y ago
Petrov's story is a really good example of why employing smart people and trusting them beats procedures and metrics every time. May he rest in peace.
- tqkxzugoaupvwqr 9y ago
  You can’t take this case and generalize. In fact, the US’ strategy was a first strike with a handful of nukes and a second, huge wave after the first strike took out main communication/decision centers. So if this had been a real strike, having this intelligent person disregard protocol could have ended in a disaster for the Soviet Union. …On the other hand, a not-so-intelligent person that blindly followed protocol would have caused the downfall of the US and Soviet Union and the death of hundreds of millions of people all over the world. We all just got lucky.
  - gambiting 9y ago
    >>So if this had been a real strike, having this intelligent person disregard protocol could have ended in a disaster for the Soviet Union. It would have been a disaster anyway, if it was a real strike Soviet Union couldn't prevent it in any feasible way. The only thing they could possibly do was level the United States, but it wouldn't change the outcome for them.
  - TremendousJudge 9y ago
    >On the other hand, a not-so-intelligent person that blindly followed protocol would have caused the downfall of the US and Soviet Union I was reading on the Cuban missile crisis last night. There not one but several instances where the Americans said 'if x happens, we nuke the soviets', and then when x happened they didn't (for example, the downed U2 incident). The Soviets probably had just as many of those incidents. I think it really shows that deep down nobody was actually ready to go to war, so in all the chances they had to launch they chose instead not to.
    - mikeash 9y ago
      The Cuban Missile Crisis is fascinating. I think the US military was absolutely ready to go to war, but thankfully they were reined in by the civilian leadership. Some parts of the US military had been pushing for a preemptive strike on the Soviets for years (thinking, correctly, that the Soviets had little capability to strike back at the US, but that it would not remain that way for much longer) and saw Cuba as a good opportunity to finally get it done. That scene from Dr. Strangelove where General Turgidson says the US would "get our hair mussed" with a mere 10-20 million dead was a pretty accurate portrayal of how a lot of the military leadership thought. And they pushed Kennedy hard to go to war. A more bellicose president could have easily been swayed by them, and we'd be living in a different world today.
forapurpose 9y ago
When AIs are making life and death decisions (because there are only microseconds to act), will they hold their fire in the name of humanitarianism? Would an AI have launched the missiles?
- wutbrodo 9y ago
  You've misunderstood the story. Petrov didn't defy high-level Soviet goals in the name of humanitarianism: the goal was to fire back if fired upon and _not_ to fire back if not fired upon. Petrov's achievement was making the right judgment call that the US had not actually fired on Russia (i.e. that it was a detection anomaly or something). Given that he wasn't deviating from the high-level goals handed down, I don't see why an AI would be different in that regard.
  - gambiting 9y ago
    Correct, it's actually likely that a good AI would also conclude, just like Petrov did, that this is not an attack, given everything that was expected from a real attack at the time. If they simply wired a launch detector to the button that launches nukes, then that's not AI.
    - maxxxxx 9y ago
      I look forward to the debugging cycle of such an AI. After a few failures it will work perfectly:)
- Synaesthesia 9y ago
  Let’s not connect autonomous AIs to our nuclear weapons launch systems, please!
addHocker 9y ago
Im pretty sure, similar stories happend in the US, but as the winner gets to write history, this page did not made it to print.
- clishem 9y ago
  The 'winner' of the cold war?
- chiph 9y ago
  Anyone with the appropriate level of SIOP access (these days called OPLAN 8010-12) won't be talking.
sien 9y ago
The USSR put the first objects and people into space. They also built armaments that could compete with NATO's best. Meanwhile, today in North Korea it's pretty different. Who knows what kind of systems they have in place to detect US attacks and how faulty and flawed they are likely to be and how unstable the people on top of them are and it's really something to fear.
- tryingagainbro 9y ago
  Who knows what kind of systems they have in place to detect US attacks and how faulty and flawed they are likely to be and how unstable the people on top of them are and it's really something to fear. It's easier, there the top leader decides and he loves his life: "Should you launch something at us, we know where you are (show a few slides) and will launch x nuclear weapons personally at you, wiping your entire family." USSR had a leader but also the Politburo, in NK we have everything in one, and so far for three generations. Maybe relay the same threat to the top generals and you're done. Make it personal. Not your country, but your family will go go first. The country will follow...
csomar 9y ago
This should actually sound the alarm: The decision (and the alarms) were so randomly affected by life unbalances. This means that a whole system of nuclear missiles might be just waiting for the right random wrong moment to unleash hell on humans.
paulbjensen 9y ago
I watched this documentary about him and that event http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2277106/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2277106/ It's a good watch. RIP Stanislav Petrov.
lngnmn 9y ago
rt.com crap on HN? Why here?
aaron695 9y ago
The concept that people 'believe' the USSR would not have considered that a satellite might give off a false positive seems the most important piece thing to learn here. It sounds like a well trained person, who was good at their job, did their job well. Had they not of, which we all know happens, it would have been caught up the chain. It seems like people are more surprised that a Soviet officer was an intelligent, controlled human being and I think this says more about us than anything else.
merraksh 9y ago
It was later revealed that what the Soviet satellites took for missiles launch was sunlight reflected from clouds I hope detection systems improved since the 80s.
random_upvoter 9y ago
As a religious person it is my belief that only divine protection saved us from nuclear annihilation during that era. If you think about the primitive state of that technology, the amount of brutal, stupid men that walked around in the military and the number of close calls, you really have to wonder how it did not happen.
- tame_lame 9y ago
  Love science and also believe in God too. When I read about incidents like this, this quote from psalms comes to mind: "When the earth totters, and all its inhabitants, it is I who keep steady its pillars."
- badosu 9y ago
  > the primitive state of that technology, the amount of brutal, stupid men that walked around in the military and the number of close calls History (and present) is filled with occasions where you can use that same quote. I agree with the luck of not having bombed ourselves yet though. The way I rationalize it is that the human behaviour is extremely complex and it's very difficult to try and understand the reasons why some things happen (or do not happen), perhaps there's a subtlety that is not visible for most people unrelated with the powers that be.
- staticelf 9y ago
  Really respectful to take away his heroic act and give credit to a fantasy-figure. /s
  - pc2g4d 9y ago
    Why does believing God was involved mean Petrov wasn't heroic? Perhaps God was why the hero Petrov was there when he was?
    - staticelf 9y ago
      Because it's fucking stupid and below HN. You are still giving a fantasy figure the credit since he put the right guy there.
jacquesm 9y ago
So, how many Western countries will erect a statue for him?
- MrZongle2 9y ago
  And in those countries, how many generations will pass before the mob demands the statue be torn down?
  - mikeash 9y ago
    Do not sully this man by attempting to associate him with people whose only notable achievement was fighting for the right to own other people.
    - MrZongle2 9y ago
      Do you need both hands to hold such a broad brush?
      - mikeash 9y ago
        Can you provide an example of where it's wrong?
known 9y ago
Reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Few_Good_Men https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Few_Good_Men
laretluval 9y ago
The prevalence of close calls on the Soviet side, and their likely existence on the American side too, suggests thst the MAD system is robust to false positives.
- vkou 9y ago
  When I play Russian Roulette, and I pull the trigger four times with no ill effects, that does not indicate that the revolver is robust against false firings. This is the poster child for survivourship bias. How robust are we talking about? Do you think the odds of a nuclear war in your lifetime are <1%? I certainly do not.
- glhaynes 9y ago
  On a time scale of about 50 years.
- mikeash 9y ago
  Can you quantify "robust"? The fact that these incidents have happened and armageddon has not yet happened suggests that the probability of accidental nuclear war is relatively low. But how low? Maybe the odds are one in a million per year. Maybe the odds are one in a hundred per year. I'd say that both numbers are compatible with the publicly known facts, but result in wildly different conclusions. The former number suggests that nuclear war is a minor worry and we should concentrate elsewhere. The latter suggests that human civilization is very likely to be destroyed in this way, and we should do everything possible to avert it.
triangleman 9y ago
According to the article, Petrov actually died on May 19th.
- ameliaquining 9y ago
  Yes, but it seems as though no one outside of Petrov's family knew about it until just now.
StanislavPetrov 9y ago
Obligatory post on this thread due to my username (chosen to honor him).
faragon 9y ago
Glory for a true hero. Thank you, Mr Petrov.
rwoodley 9y ago
rt.com is a russian tv station funded by the government. It is a proganda outlet for Russia. one can assume kgb involvement and vetting of their stories. so this story seems benign enough, but bear in mind the source and consider what their motivations might be. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_(TV_network) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_(TV_network)
- Synaesthesia 9y ago
  Similar to the BBC for England or many countries which have state television.
  - aaronlifshin 9y ago
    Not really. The BBC is a pretty independent body, and criticizes the government often. RT is a propaganda arm of the government and is under its direct control, as all mass media in Russia now (with few exceptions).
    - Synaesthesia 9y ago
      The BBC is quite balanced, I watch Russia today and find it similar in tone to most western outlets, both state owned and private ... screeching on about terrorism. Repetitive, mundane. They’re all quite openly propagandistic from my point of view.
  - rwoodley 9y ago
    Ah you must be a Russian government employee. It is not similar at all. There is no editorial independence at rt.com. It is a tool of the KGB used for info wars. The BBC is staffed by independent journalists and is often quite critical of the UK government. Please do not posit a false equivalence between totalitarian kleptocracies and western democracies, whatever the flaws of the latter.
    - Synaesthesia 9y ago
      You seem a little paranoid there, no I’m not a Russian employee, I know RT will be pro-Russian. Don’t fool yourself western media ha bounds to it’s criticism too, due to the way it’s structured. Anyway the piece in question is on a well known Soviet hero, I had heard of him before. Cheers to him.
amai 9y ago
Not to forget: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov
gozur88 9y ago
If I had my druthers only two people would be recognized as individuals with a national holiday in the US: Stanislav Petrov and Norman Borlaug.

534 points by apsec112 9y ago

When "just doing my job" saves the world. “My cozy armchair felt like a red-hot frying pan and my legs went limp. I felt like I couldn't even stand up. That's how nervous I was when I was taking this decision,” he told RT. How well would any of us have done in that situation? It's tempting to think that we'd have said no, don't launch. But picture yourself as a military commander, raised in that lifestyle. Then add the natural inclination to freeze up and make bad choices under pressure. It's also a lesson in secrecy. We almost didn't hear about this story. It was kept secret for a decade. How many secrets are you sitting on, bound by your NDAs? Will you ever make the important ones public a decade later, or will you decide it's not your position, or that it might affect your career? It's easy to rationalize that it isn't our position to say anything about what we know. But it's also too easy. I wish it were possible to make a service that lets you upload encrypted notes that will be made public after your death. But those two requirements conflict.

abecedarius 9y ago
Not exactly that service -- too much uncertainty about when quantum computers will get cheap enough -- but https://defuse.ca/quantum-computer-time-capsule.htm https://defuse.ca/quantum-computer-time-capsule.htm
lawl 9y ago
> How many secrets are you sitting on, bound by your NDAs Zero. I don't sign NDA's.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  Oh? I feel like that only works while you're young and in demand. Give it a decade or so. But I'm curious about your strategy. There are many contexts that you simply can't work for someone if you won't sign an NDA. It'd be interesting to know the areas where that isn't true.
  - majewsky 9y ago
    I work in cloud infrastructure, and I cannot recall anyone here signing an NDA. Instead, our senior architects are giving talks about our network design etc. at prestigious conferences to earn street cred for the company.
canoebuilder 9y ago
>I wish it were possible to make a service that lets you upload encrypted notes that will be made public after your death. But those two requirements conflict. That's a very interesting idea. What do you mean by the "requirements conflict"? Couldn't it be implemented with a dead man's switch where one would check in every year or so. Of course there would need to be some verification methods baked in to thwart pranksters.
- te 9y ago
  https://www.deadmansswitch.net/ https://www.deadmansswitch.net/
- YuriNiyazov 9y ago
  I don't know if that's what he meant by "conflict", but it does provide an incentive for one's death
- stordoff 9y ago
  > What do you mean by the "requirements conflict"? Possibly that such a dead man's switch would require the keys to be outside of your control to some extent - after all, if you die the day after resetting the switch, any infrastructure owned, maintained, or paid for by you might not exist for the switch to fire. If you give the keys to a third-party, you have to trust they aren't reading the contents and that their security measures are sufficient. It could be done on an ad-hoc basis if you have a trusted third-party (close friend, for instance), but it's difficult to see how it could be scaled into a service. Perhaps it could be split into two parties - you upload the encrypted notes to the service, but they don't get the keys. You pass the keys to a trusted third-party (i.e. the close friend), who can make the notes public by giving the keys to the notes holder, who (ideally) would verify the death via public records. This avoids giving the secrets directly to the friend (in case of disagreements etc.), and you can reverse the decision whilst you are still alive (by deleting the notes). Also, depending on the nature of the secrets, it does provide an incentive for death.
  - addHocker 9y ago
    You could make a time triggered death man switch that needs to be reset every year. Else your secret is decrypted
lordnacho 9y ago
> I wish it were possible to make a service that lets you upload encrypted notes that will be made public after your death. But those two requirements conflict. Don't people do this using a lawyer / testament? If you don't want the lawyer to know the contents either, encrypt it and give the key to another lawyer. Asking people to trust lawyers might strike some as being a bit optimistic, but I haven't come across problems with people who are privileged to my information yet. Doctors, lawyers, accountants. You might worry about the guy's infosec, but then I counter a lawyer is more likely to use a safe or other non-digital tech than most people.
ge0rg 9y ago
I wish it were possible to make a service that lets you upload encrypted notes that will be made public after your death. That sounds like an awesome startup idea. Except that the startup will run out of money after two years and sell your secrets to the highest bidder. Or they will become big enough to be bought by one of the Internet majors who will just shut down the servers and keep the developers.
- pryce 9y ago
  I believe there is already a startup attempting to fill a similar niche called "Dead Mans Switch"[1] [1] https://www.deadmansswitch.net/help/ https://www.deadmansswitch.net/help/
gruturo 9y ago
> How well would any of us have done in that situation? It's tempting to think that we'd have said no, don't launch. But picture yourself as a military commander, raised in that lifestyle. Then add the natural inclination to freeze up and make bad choices under pressure. Worse. Much worse. Imagine 1 further thought at the back of your head: Even if I get this absolutely right and avert WW3, there's an 80% chance I get shot and my family ends up in Siberia. My only way out of this is lucking out about the mood of my whole chain of command, up to and including the paranoid tyrant on top, who may worry I am creating precedent for not following orders to the letter. This may be how my life ends, and that's if I successfully avoid a nuclear holocaust.
branchan 9y ago
deadmann.com

unexistance 9y ago

and I'm reminded by the movie WarGames when the nuke officers (not sure the actual designation) are replaced by relays... I'm just glad the officer-just-doing-his-job expects systems to fail & trust hsi own judgment, instead of our current ever-increasing trust in machines

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
flukus 9y ago
In Wargames they detected a massive preemptive attack. One of the things that tipped off the officer in this case was that it was such a small scale attack, which doesn't make sense because it leaves the enemy willing and able to respond.
- _coldfire 9y ago
  From the article: Taught that in case of a real attack the US would have gone on an all-out offensive, Petrov told his bosses the alarm must have been caused by a system malfunction.

smitherfield 9y ago

Perhaps the better story for this audience is the one about the electrical engineer who nearly caused nuclear war...

testestx 9y ago
Who?
- sturmeh 9y ago
  Whoever was responsible for the fault that detected the sun rays as incoming missiles.
devnonymous 9y ago
I imagine this was said a bit tongue-in-cheek but seriously tho, that would not be the better story since the reality of engineering is mistakes happen. Bugs exist in every system. Yes, these might even cause nuclear war and that's why the 'better story for this audience' is why it didn't.

pmoriarty 9y ago

Another Soviet officer who also probably prevented nuclear war was Vasili Arkhipov.[1] "On 27 October 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a group of eleven United States Navy destroyers and the aircraft carrier USS Randolph located the diesel-powered, nuclear-armed Soviet Foxtrot-class submarine B-59 near Cuba. Despite being in international waters, the Americans started dropping signaling depth charges, explosives intended to force the submarine to come to the surface for identification. There had been no contact from Moscow for a number of days and, although the submarine's crew had earlier been picking up U.S. civilian radio broadcasts, once B-59 began attempting to hide from its U.S. Navy pursuers, it was too deep to monitor any radio traffic. Those on board did not know whether war had broken out or not. The captain of the submarine, Valentin Grigorievitch Savitsky, decided that a war might already have started and wanted to launch a nuclear torpedo. "Unlike the other subs in the flotilla, three officers on board the B-59 had to agree unanimously to authorize a nuclear launch: Captain Savitsky, the political officer Ivan Semonovich Maslennikov, and the second-in-command Arkhipov. Typically, Russian submarines armed with the "Special Weapon" only required the captain to get authorization from the political officer to launch a nuclear torpedo. However, due to Arkhipov's position as flotilla commander, the B-59's captain also was required to gain Arkhipov's approval. An argument broke out, with only Arkhipov against the launch. "Even though Arkhipov was only second-in-command of the submarine B-59, he was in fact commander of the entire submarine flotilla, including the B-4, B-36 and B-130, and equal in rank to Captain Savitsky. According to author Edward Wilson, the reputation Arkhipov had gained from his courageous conduct in the previous year's Soviet submarine K-19 incident also helped him prevail. Arkhipov eventually persuaded Savitsky to surface and await orders from Moscow. This effectively averted the nuclear warfare which probably would have ensued if the nuclear weapon had been fired. The submarine's batteries had run very low and the air-conditioning had failed, causing extreme heat and high levels of carbon dioxide inside the submarine. They were forced to surface amidst its U.S. pursuers and return to the Soviet Union as a result. "Immediately upon return to Russia, many crew members were faced with disgrace from their superiors. One admiral told them "It would have been better if you'd gone down with your ship."..." [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov

branchan 9y ago

Twisell 9y ago

This remind me of a recurring theme in "Doctor Who" fictional stories (I'm bing watching right now). There no such thing as an unimportant person because countless time in the stories the world or even the universe have been saved by ordinary people and nobody will ever know about them. Only this is real life, this is deeply amazing. I feel so much gratitude and kindnesses for this man. RIP Станислав Евграфович Петров PS: added emphasis on Fictional stories for clarity.

hawski 9y ago
> recurring theme in doctor who stories For others confused like me: recurring theme in the Doctor Who stories.
- Twisell 9y ago
  I corrected for clarity. But some fans would cringe because you can refer to "Doctor Who" as the show or "The Doctor" for the character but "The Doctor Who" Make no sense so your initial correction might be even more confusing to some ;)
  - Already__Taken 9y ago
    But you would use the phrase the Doctor Who show. As The wasn't capitalized is how I would read it.
    - Twisell 9y ago
      So let's get to the bottom of this as english is not my mother tong and I will gladly learn new tricks. Does that mean that my sentence (with correction) is wrong because "the" is mandatory in this context?
      - tgb 9y ago
        No, it's perfect as is. Eg: Wikipedia's use of "Br'er Rabbit stories" here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%27er_Rabbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%27er_Rabbit

jimrandomh 9y ago

This is tragic. The anniversary of the crisis Petrov saved us from is coming up soon, on September 26th. There's a ritual/ceremony that I and some others have been observing yearly on that day, which I recently put online at http://petrovday.com/ http://petrovday.com/, which talks about that (and the world's other close calls, and historical context).

aswanson 9y ago
That's a great idea, awareness needs to be spread about how lucky we are.

tscs37 9y ago

I first heard of his death in a very niche subreddit and only by chance. He died in May and only now we know it. I was wondering how long it'd take for mainstream media to pick up. He was truly a hero, without his reaction a good chunk of this planet would be nuclear wasteland.

greglindahl 9y ago
Mainstream media? This is an rt.com article, a mouthpiece for the Kremlin.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- tscs37 9y ago
  It's arguably more mainstream than a niche subreddit,no? On the other hand, there are more trustworthy news outlets.
- int_19h 9y ago
  Its affiliation doesn't make it any less mainstream.
  - kk_cz 9y ago
    I think OP might have been disputing the "media" part rather than the "mainstream" part.
- ameliaquining 9y ago
  As far as I know, they had this story before anyone else did.
executesorder66 9y ago
Which subreddit was that, if you don't mind?
- 9y ago

ChristianGeek 9y ago

We're there a few zeros missing from the amount Kevin Costner sent him?

4WIW 9y ago

It may be that our biggest collective luck was that the alarm happened at the time subcolonel Petrov was on duty. He was an analyst, maybe even chief analyst of the unit, he authored the playbook for the officers on duty; being on duty wasn't his main job (source: https://cont.ws/@adviser095/717098 https://cont.ws/@adviser095/717098 ), he would go on duty from time to time. Due to his knowledge of the early warning system he was more likely to cast doubt than a regular officer on duty. Several factors looked suspicious: 1) The reported starts (5 in total) happened from a single base in the US which didn't make sense from the military point of view: the US would have put themselves at a grave disadvantage by sending just a few missiles; 2) They had visible light and infra-red visuals on the US territory and none of them checked out and 3) It would have been highly unlikely for the war to start suddenly, without any prior escalation. Like other officers on duty, he had college education as an electronics engineer and additional 2 years of special training. All this probably helped him make the right decision. This is not to take away from the importance of Mr.Petrov's heroic personal contribution: he definitely deserves recognition (which he didn't get from the Soviet Army and his own country BTW). Still I would also like to hope that we are all collectively not as stupid as to go caboom just because of the single fluke in the satellite system.

MichaelMoser123 9y ago
I wonder if there are other, still classified instances where the weapon has almost been launched. If lt. colonel Petrov was aware of the limitations of the early warning system then there must have been other faults as well - I bet there have been problems with the early warning system on both sides...
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  Ever hear of the bomb the US accidentally dropped on the mainland? When they recovered it, they discovered the bomb had armed itself and that all the safety mechanisms failed except one.
  - leeoniya 9y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash

Lxr 9y ago

Petrov's story is a really good example of why employing smart people and trusting them beats procedures and metrics every time. May he rest in peace.

tqkxzugoaupvwqr 9y ago
You can’t take this case and generalize. In fact, the US’ strategy was a first strike with a handful of nukes and a second, huge wave after the first strike took out main communication/decision centers. So if this had been a real strike, having this intelligent person disregard protocol could have ended in a disaster for the Soviet Union. …On the other hand, a not-so-intelligent person that blindly followed protocol would have caused the downfall of the US and Soviet Union and the death of hundreds of millions of people all over the world. We all just got lucky.
- gambiting 9y ago
  >>So if this had been a real strike, having this intelligent person disregard protocol could have ended in a disaster for the Soviet Union. It would have been a disaster anyway, if it was a real strike Soviet Union couldn't prevent it in any feasible way. The only thing they could possibly do was level the United States, but it wouldn't change the outcome for them.
- TremendousJudge 9y ago
  >On the other hand, a not-so-intelligent person that blindly followed protocol would have caused the downfall of the US and Soviet Union I was reading on the Cuban missile crisis last night. There not one but several instances where the Americans said 'if x happens, we nuke the soviets', and then when x happened they didn't (for example, the downed U2 incident). The Soviets probably had just as many of those incidents. I think it really shows that deep down nobody was actually ready to go to war, so in all the chances they had to launch they chose instead not to.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    The Cuban Missile Crisis is fascinating. I think the US military was absolutely ready to go to war, but thankfully they were reined in by the civilian leadership. Some parts of the US military had been pushing for a preemptive strike on the Soviets for years (thinking, correctly, that the Soviets had little capability to strike back at the US, but that it would not remain that way for much longer) and saw Cuba as a good opportunity to finally get it done. That scene from Dr. Strangelove where General Turgidson says the US would "get our hair mussed" with a mere 10-20 million dead was a pretty accurate portrayal of how a lot of the military leadership thought. And they pushed Kennedy hard to go to war. A more bellicose president could have easily been swayed by them, and we'd be living in a different world today.

forapurpose 9y ago

When AIs are making life and death decisions (because there are only microseconds to act), will they hold their fire in the name of humanitarianism? Would an AI have launched the missiles?

wutbrodo 9y ago
You've misunderstood the story. Petrov didn't defy high-level Soviet goals in the name of humanitarianism: the goal was to fire back if fired upon and _not_ to fire back if not fired upon. Petrov's achievement was making the right judgment call that the US had not actually fired on Russia (i.e. that it was a detection anomaly or something). Given that he wasn't deviating from the high-level goals handed down, I don't see why an AI would be different in that regard.
- gambiting 9y ago
  Correct, it's actually likely that a good AI would also conclude, just like Petrov did, that this is not an attack, given everything that was expected from a real attack at the time. If they simply wired a launch detector to the button that launches nukes, then that's not AI.
  - maxxxxx 9y ago
    I look forward to the debugging cycle of such an AI. After a few failures it will work perfectly:)
Synaesthesia 9y ago
Let’s not connect autonomous AIs to our nuclear weapons launch systems, please!

addHocker 9y ago

Im pretty sure, similar stories happend in the US, but as the winner gets to write history, this page did not made it to print.

clishem 9y ago
The 'winner' of the cold war?
chiph 9y ago
Anyone with the appropriate level of SIOP access (these days called OPLAN 8010-12) won't be talking.

sien 9y ago

The USSR put the first objects and people into space. They also built armaments that could compete with NATO's best. Meanwhile, today in North Korea it's pretty different. Who knows what kind of systems they have in place to detect US attacks and how faulty and flawed they are likely to be and how unstable the people on top of them are and it's really something to fear.

tryingagainbro 9y ago
Who knows what kind of systems they have in place to detect US attacks and how faulty and flawed they are likely to be and how unstable the people on top of them are and it's really something to fear. It's easier, there the top leader decides and he loves his life: "Should you launch something at us, we know where you are (show a few slides) and will launch x nuclear weapons personally at you, wiping your entire family." USSR had a leader but also the Politburo, in NK we have everything in one, and so far for three generations. Maybe relay the same threat to the top generals and you're done. Make it personal. Not your country, but your family will go go first. The country will follow...

csomar 9y ago

This should actually sound the alarm: The decision (and the alarms) were so randomly affected by life unbalances. This means that a whole system of nuclear missiles might be just waiting for the right random wrong moment to unleash hell on humans.

paulbjensen 9y ago

I watched this documentary about him and that event http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2277106/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2277106/ It's a good watch. RIP Stanislav Petrov.

lngnmn 9y ago

rt.com crap on HN? Why here?

aaron695 9y ago

The concept that people 'believe' the USSR would not have considered that a satellite might give off a false positive seems the most important piece thing to learn here. It sounds like a well trained person, who was good at their job, did their job well. Had they not of, which we all know happens, it would have been caught up the chain. It seems like people are more surprised that a Soviet officer was an intelligent, controlled human being and I think this says more about us than anything else.

merraksh 9y ago

It was later revealed that what the Soviet satellites took for missiles launch was sunlight reflected from clouds I hope detection systems improved since the 80s.

random_upvoter 9y ago

As a religious person it is my belief that only divine protection saved us from nuclear annihilation during that era. If you think about the primitive state of that technology, the amount of brutal, stupid men that walked around in the military and the number of close calls, you really have to wonder how it did not happen.

tame_lame 9y ago
Love science and also believe in God too. When I read about incidents like this, this quote from psalms comes to mind: "When the earth totters, and all its inhabitants, it is I who keep steady its pillars."
badosu 9y ago
> the primitive state of that technology, the amount of brutal, stupid men that walked around in the military and the number of close calls History (and present) is filled with occasions where you can use that same quote. I agree with the luck of not having bombed ourselves yet though. The way I rationalize it is that the human behaviour is extremely complex and it's very difficult to try and understand the reasons why some things happen (or do not happen), perhaps there's a subtlety that is not visible for most people unrelated with the powers that be.
staticelf 9y ago
Really respectful to take away his heroic act and give credit to a fantasy-figure. /s
- pc2g4d 9y ago
  Why does believing God was involved mean Petrov wasn't heroic? Perhaps God was why the hero Petrov was there when he was?
  - staticelf 9y ago
    Because it's fucking stupid and below HN. You are still giving a fantasy figure the credit since he put the right guy there.

jacquesm 9y ago

So, how many Western countries will erect a statue for him?

MrZongle2 9y ago
And in those countries, how many generations will pass before the mob demands the statue be torn down?
- mikeash 9y ago
  Do not sully this man by attempting to associate him with people whose only notable achievement was fighting for the right to own other people.
  - MrZongle2 9y ago
    Do you need both hands to hold such a broad brush?
    - mikeash 9y ago
      Can you provide an example of where it's wrong?

known 9y ago

Reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Few_Good_Men https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Few_Good_Men

laretluval 9y ago

The prevalence of close calls on the Soviet side, and their likely existence on the American side too, suggests thst the MAD system is robust to false positives.

vkou 9y ago
When I play Russian Roulette, and I pull the trigger four times with no ill effects, that does not indicate that the revolver is robust against false firings. This is the poster child for survivourship bias. How robust are we talking about? Do you think the odds of a nuclear war in your lifetime are <1%? I certainly do not.
glhaynes 9y ago
On a time scale of about 50 years.
mikeash 9y ago
Can you quantify "robust"? The fact that these incidents have happened and armageddon has not yet happened suggests that the probability of accidental nuclear war is relatively low. But how low? Maybe the odds are one in a million per year. Maybe the odds are one in a hundred per year. I'd say that both numbers are compatible with the publicly known facts, but result in wildly different conclusions. The former number suggests that nuclear war is a minor worry and we should concentrate elsewhere. The latter suggests that human civilization is very likely to be destroyed in this way, and we should do everything possible to avert it.

triangleman 9y ago

According to the article, Petrov actually died on May 19th.

ameliaquining 9y ago
Yes, but it seems as though no one outside of Petrov's family knew about it until just now.

StanislavPetrov 9y ago

Obligatory post on this thread due to my username (chosen to honor him).

faragon 9y ago

Glory for a true hero. Thank you, Mr Petrov.

rwoodley 9y ago

rt.com is a russian tv station funded by the government. It is a proganda outlet for Russia. one can assume kgb involvement and vetting of their stories. so this story seems benign enough, but bear in mind the source and consider what their motivations might be. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_(TV_network) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_(TV_network)

Synaesthesia 9y ago
Similar to the BBC for England or many countries which have state television.
- aaronlifshin 9y ago
  Not really. The BBC is a pretty independent body, and criticizes the government often. RT is a propaganda arm of the government and is under its direct control, as all mass media in Russia now (with few exceptions).
  - Synaesthesia 9y ago
    The BBC is quite balanced, I watch Russia today and find it similar in tone to most western outlets, both state owned and private ... screeching on about terrorism. Repetitive, mundane. They’re all quite openly propagandistic from my point of view.
- rwoodley 9y ago
  Ah you must be a Russian government employee. It is not similar at all. There is no editorial independence at rt.com. It is a tool of the KGB used for info wars. The BBC is staffed by independent journalists and is often quite critical of the UK government. Please do not posit a false equivalence between totalitarian kleptocracies and western democracies, whatever the flaws of the latter.
  - Synaesthesia 9y ago
    You seem a little paranoid there, no I’m not a Russian employee, I know RT will be pro-Russian. Don’t fool yourself western media ha bounds to it’s criticism too, due to the way it’s structured. Anyway the piece in question is on a well known Soviet hero, I had heard of him before. Cheers to him.

amai 9y ago

Not to forget: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov

gozur88 9y ago

If I had my druthers only two people would be recognized as individuals with a national holiday in the US: Stanislav Petrov and Norman Borlaug.