5 ms·

If I were going to erode public trust in emergency broadcast systems in order to increase the amount of damage I would do by launching an actual missile, this i

If I were going to erode public trust in emergency broadcast systems in order to increase the amount of damage I would do by launching an actual missile, this is how I would do it. A series of false alarms. A similar, if obviously much smaller and less disastrous example, happens at my apartment about 4 times a week: the fire alarms for entire floors of my apartment building are easily triggered by people smoking in the breeze ways or burning their dinner. The result is that I routinely ignore fire alarms because the likelihood of a real fire is has been demonstrated to be exceedingly small.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago
These systems are being revisited for the first time in a generation. Honest mistake is far more likely.
- bradfitz 9y ago
  I don't think user intopieces was taking a stance on whether it was intentional or an accident. Crying wolf is crying wolf either way.
- intopieces 9y ago
  Looking at the screenshot of the alert [0], it appears to be using the alert system adopted in 2006 in response to the Warning, Alert, and Response Network (WARN) Act[1]. How is this system for a missile attack different, and in what way is it being revisited for the first time in a generation? Text messages are just now 1 generation old (SMS first implemented 1992[2]; generation is about 25.5 years[3].)And of course the alert system itself is only 11 years old. [0]https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/01/14/us/14xp-hawaii-sub2/merlin_132228536_17a59f1a-03c7-4243-841a-44888c17108b-master768.jpg https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/01/14/us/14xp-hawaii-su... [1]https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/house-bill/5785/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/house-bill/5785... [2]http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-12-03/after-25-years-of-sms-were-still-anxious-about-text-speak/9205734 http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-12-03/after-25-years... [3]https://isogg.org/wiki/How_long_is_a_generation%3F_Science_provides_an_answer https://isogg.org/wiki/How_long_is_a_generation%3F_Science_p...
  - dmix 9y ago
    Well they tested the nuclear/missle attack warning sirens in Hawain cities for the first time in a very long time last month. Just because the sirens were installed during the cold war doesnt make the new attention and urgency being given to them is any less new. Same with the underlying infrastructure behind cell phone alerts being old while the systems on top are being newly revised and tested. Clearly there is a whole bunch of new attention being paid towards this. And rightfully so given the provocations from NK and the general decline in maintenance/quality of the US nuclear and ICBM weapon systems.
    - sorenbs 9y ago
      I'm surprised the sirens aren't tested more frequently. In Denmark we have a national system of sirens. They are tested once a year at a specific date and time. In the cold war era they used to test them every Wednesday at noon, but it has been scaled down since then :-)
      - azernik 9y ago
        The US has no national siren system; there are just state and local ones. I've heard siren tests every once in a while living in San Francisco, but there's zero public education about their meaning or appropriate responses. (This false alarm was a push alert sent to cell phones. What about people who don't have a cell phone on them when the alert comes? ... good luck)
        roywiggins 9y ago
        It played over TV broadcasts as well, I think. Probably went to radio, but I haven't seen anything written about that.
        dmix 9y ago
        It was also on radio and TV.
      - 9y ago
dogma1138 9y ago
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 their general direction it might work but if a nuke could get you it would do it regardless if you duck and cover or not.
- comicjk 9y ago
  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.
  - drewrobb 9y ago
    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.
- Tuna-Fish 9y ago
  > but if a nuke could get you it would do it regardless if you duck and cover or not. This is just not true. The area in which the nuke will get everyone regardless is less than a tenth of the area where taking precautions would save you. This is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. People widely laugh at "duck and cover" as if it was some huge joke. Even at the height of the cold war when the nuke stocks were at their largest, only a small portion of the population would be screwed regardless of what they did. While the majority of the population would be at a distance from the closest explosion where ducking and covering would save them.
  - dfox 9y ago
    Another thing that constantly astonishes me is how the immediate direct damage caused by any kind of intentional explosion is consistently overestimated by public at large. I largely blame action movies where C4 block of the size typically used for initiating industrial explosives in bore holes is often shown as leveling complete buildings.
dvirsky 9y ago
Israeli here. We get false rocket alerts every once in a while. Usually it's a bug or a badly calibrated radar picking up something else, sometimes a human error.
conspiracyies 9y ago
Fuck you and fuck this bullshit conspiracy nonsense. Evolve a bit, idiot.
ImSkeptical 9y ago
I think a series of false alarms would have the effect you describe. However, based on some of the reactions I'm seeing online, I wonder if a one-off false alarm will cause a lot of people to figure out what they should be doing if the alarm were to go off again for real.
SheinhardtWigCo 9y ago
If you want to go down this particular rabbit hole, then let me say that I think it's more likely this was "us" than "them". Now the whole country is talking and thinking about the effects of a real ballistic missile launch. We got a glimpse at the chaos and mass panic that would ensue. Tomorrow there will be more people in favor of putting a swift and aggressive end to NK's nuclear ambitions than there were yesterday.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago

These systems are being revisited for the first time in a generation. Honest mistake is far more likely.

bradfitz 9y ago
I don't think user intopieces was taking a stance on whether it was intentional or an accident. Crying wolf is crying wolf either way.
intopieces 9y ago
Looking at the screenshot of the alert [0], it appears to be using the alert system adopted in 2006 in response to the Warning, Alert, and Response Network (WARN) Act[1]. How is this system for a missile attack different, and in what way is it being revisited for the first time in a generation? Text messages are just now 1 generation old (SMS first implemented 1992[2]; generation is about 25.5 years[3].)And of course the alert system itself is only 11 years old. [0]https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/01/14/us/14xp-hawaii-sub2/merlin_132228536_17a59f1a-03c7-4243-841a-44888c17108b-master768.jpg https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/01/14/us/14xp-hawaii-su... [1]https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/house-bill/5785/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/house-bill/5785... [2]http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-12-03/after-25-years-of-sms-were-still-anxious-about-text-speak/9205734 http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2017-12-03/after-25-years... [3]https://isogg.org/wiki/How_long_is_a_generation%3F_Science_provides_an_answer https://isogg.org/wiki/How_long_is_a_generation%3F_Science_p...
- dmix 9y ago
  Well they tested the nuclear/missle attack warning sirens in Hawain cities for the first time in a very long time last month. Just because the sirens were installed during the cold war doesnt make the new attention and urgency being given to them is any less new. Same with the underlying infrastructure behind cell phone alerts being old while the systems on top are being newly revised and tested. Clearly there is a whole bunch of new attention being paid towards this. And rightfully so given the provocations from NK and the general decline in maintenance/quality of the US nuclear and ICBM weapon systems.
  - sorenbs 9y ago
    I'm surprised the sirens aren't tested more frequently. In Denmark we have a national system of sirens. They are tested once a year at a specific date and time. In the cold war era they used to test them every Wednesday at noon, but it has been scaled down since then :-)
    - azernik 9y ago
      The US has no national siren system; there are just state and local ones. I've heard siren tests every once in a while living in San Francisco, but there's zero public education about their meaning or appropriate responses. (This false alarm was a push alert sent to cell phones. What about people who don't have a cell phone on them when the alert comes? ... good luck)
      - roywiggins 9y ago
        It played over TV broadcasts as well, I think. Probably went to radio, but I haven't seen anything written about that.
        dmix 9y ago
        It was also on radio and TV.
    - 9y ago

dogma1138 9y ago

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 their general direction it might work but if a nuke could get you it would do it regardless if you duck and cover or not.

comicjk 9y ago
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.
- drewrobb 9y ago
  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.
Tuna-Fish 9y ago
> but if a nuke could get you it would do it regardless if you duck and cover or not. This is just not true. The area in which the nuke will get everyone regardless is less than a tenth of the area where taking precautions would save you. This is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. People widely laugh at "duck and cover" as if it was some huge joke. Even at the height of the cold war when the nuke stocks were at their largest, only a small portion of the population would be screwed regardless of what they did. While the majority of the population would be at a distance from the closest explosion where ducking and covering would save them.
- dfox 9y ago
  Another thing that constantly astonishes me is how the immediate direct damage caused by any kind of intentional explosion is consistently overestimated by public at large. I largely blame action movies where C4 block of the size typically used for initiating industrial explosives in bore holes is often shown as leveling complete buildings.

dvirsky 9y ago

Israeli here. We get false rocket alerts every once in a while. Usually it's a bug or a badly calibrated radar picking up something else, sometimes a human error.

conspiracyies 9y ago

Fuck you and fuck this bullshit conspiracy nonsense. Evolve a bit, idiot.

ImSkeptical 9y ago

I think a series of false alarms would have the effect you describe. However, based on some of the reactions I'm seeing online, I wonder if a one-off false alarm will cause a lot of people to figure out what they should be doing if the alarm were to go off again for real.

SheinhardtWigCo 9y ago

If you want to go down this particular rabbit hole, then let me say that I think it's more likely this was "us" than "them". Now the whole country is talking and thinking about the effects of a real ballistic missile launch. We got a glimpse at the chaos and mass panic that would ensue. Tomorrow there will be more people in favor of putting a swift and aggressive end to NK's nuclear ambitions than there were yesterday.