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Can we stop with this idiotic "Could have started WW3" comment? I can't believe the amount of "blue checks" who've been repeating that since last night. How d

by dudul 6y ago

Can we stop with this idiotic "Could have started WW3" comment? I can't believe the amount of "blue checks" who've been repeating that since last night. How do you start a war on Twitter? Let's say the hacker impersonates Trump and tweet "Missiles heading your way Kim!!", then what? First of all, every develop nation in the world has ways to detect missile launches. Second, there would just be a phone call between embassy asking "Whut??" and the situation would be solved in 15 minutes. People need to stop pretending that Twitter is the real world.

rsynnott 6y ago
Yes, given that there have been real life incidents where the _missile detection systems_ said there were missiles on the way, and it was all sorted out, the "twitter starting a war" thing seems extremely alarmist. No-one would take a tweet, especially from bloody _Trump_, as sufficient evidence of an attack.
manquer 6y ago
Certainly a single tweet like that will not start a war . The tweets would have to be subtle and not something you wouldn’t say or now can back down from easily without damaging your reputation . Social engineering is not a hammer , it needs find grained understanding of psychology , pressure points and what resonates with the crowds , these are skills which blue checks also need to be well blue checks that’s probably why they are more scared . manipulating public opinion is their day job after all . Deep fakes and hacks like this are scary for them coz these attack at the core of their strength - the trust the people have in them and their ability to manipulate it .
closeparen 6y ago
You might enjoy The 2020 Commission Report, speculative fiction by a foreign policy PhD specializing in nuclear proliferation. One of his central interests is how these decisions are made. Where is the conference room? Where are the decision-makers? What does it take to get them assembled? What are their moods and information diets, and how might that influence them in a moment of crisis? What are plausible sequences of "accidental" escalation events that might align the stars for a nuclear launch? And how might Trump's Twitter interact with all of this? It's fiction, obviously, but if you're interested in the guy's bona fides, this is some really fascinating open source intelligence work [0]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9QbI8Jf4hg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9QbI8Jf4hg
Uehreka 6y ago
If, in 2014, President Obama had tweeted something like "I've had it with Kim! Sending the missiles now!" no one would've believed it, as it would've been quite out-of-character and also he didn't go around announcing policies, executive orders and other business using Twitter. With Trump though, it gets more complicated. He has antagonized and name-called the leader of NK on Twitter. He has announced policies on Twitter that even his cabinet weren't aware of beforehand. If he posted the above tweet (sub out "Kim" for "Little Rocket man") and you were Kim Jong-un, what would you do? Sure, he's never announced a military attack on Twitter before (I think... although I'm not 100% sure) but given the other things he's done and his general nature, could you be 100% sure it's fake? And if it's not fake, then the rational thing would be to counterattack with whatever capability you have without waiting for confirmation from someone else. And then, if you're one of the US Joint Chiefs: You see the tweet, you know that it's false, but you consider it from Kim's perspective (see the last paragraph) and have to game out the chance that Kim will see this as a credible attack and launch his rockets, in which case you'd want to launch ours immediately. It's totally possible that they could get Kim on some sort of "Red Phone Line" and convince him that it's fake before he launches, and that might even be the most likely outcome. But if the hacker timed this right (to some time where the president was asleep or harder than usual to contact) I feel like there is a nontrivial chance it could result in at least one nuclear warhead getting launched.
- fireattack 6y ago
  I think the point is while it will indeed cause serious trouble in real world, it still not enough to "start WW3".
- paxys 6y ago
  If something like this came from Trump's account, people would believe that he tweeted it but not that it was actually going to happen. Heck I'm pretty certain he has already tweeted about bombing random countries before.
cameronbrown 6y ago
Imagine if you were able to impersonate Trump, and claim China started a war, with ICBMs heading for San Fransisco and Washington. Then, tweet from the Clinton, Obama and Biden accounts that he's actually telling the truth. Add in some international flair (e.g. Boris Johnson) and some celebrity voices, and even if it sounds outlandish, enough social proof from these people and you've got yourself mass panic on your hands. It might not be WW3, but it likely could've resulted in major riots.
clarkmoody 6y ago
Wars have been started over less, no?
- dudul 6y ago
  Can you provide 2 or 3 examples? And they would have to be in a hyper-connected world like today, where any head of state can directly reach another in less than 1 hour.

by dudul 6y ago

rsynnott 6y ago

Yes, given that there have been real life incidents where the _missile detection systems_ said there were missiles on the way, and it was all sorted out, the "twitter starting a war" thing seems extremely alarmist. No-one would take a tweet, especially from bloody _Trump_, as sufficient evidence of an attack.

manquer 6y ago

Certainly a single tweet like that will not start a war . The tweets would have to be subtle and not something you wouldn’t say or now can back down from easily without damaging your reputation . Social engineering is not a hammer , it needs find grained understanding of psychology , pressure points and what resonates with the crowds , these are skills which blue checks also need to be well blue checks that’s probably why they are more scared . manipulating public opinion is their day job after all . Deep fakes and hacks like this are scary for them coz these attack at the core of their strength - the trust the people have in them and their ability to manipulate it .

closeparen 6y ago

You might enjoy The 2020 Commission Report, speculative fiction by a foreign policy PhD specializing in nuclear proliferation. One of his central interests is how these decisions are made. Where is the conference room? Where are the decision-makers? What does it take to get them assembled? What are their moods and information diets, and how might that influence them in a moment of crisis? What are plausible sequences of "accidental" escalation events that might align the stars for a nuclear launch? And how might Trump's Twitter interact with all of this? It's fiction, obviously, but if you're interested in the guy's bona fides, this is some really fascinating open source intelligence work [0]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9QbI8Jf4hg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9QbI8Jf4hg

Uehreka 6y ago

If, in 2014, President Obama had tweeted something like "I've had it with Kim! Sending the missiles now!" no one would've believed it, as it would've been quite out-of-character and also he didn't go around announcing policies, executive orders and other business using Twitter. With Trump though, it gets more complicated. He has antagonized and name-called the leader of NK on Twitter. He has announced policies on Twitter that even his cabinet weren't aware of beforehand. If he posted the above tweet (sub out "Kim" for "Little Rocket man") and you were Kim Jong-un, what would you do? Sure, he's never announced a military attack on Twitter before (I think... although I'm not 100% sure) but given the other things he's done and his general nature, could you be 100% sure it's fake? And if it's not fake, then the rational thing would be to counterattack with whatever capability you have without waiting for confirmation from someone else. And then, if you're one of the US Joint Chiefs: You see the tweet, you know that it's false, but you consider it from Kim's perspective (see the last paragraph) and have to game out the chance that Kim will see this as a credible attack and launch his rockets, in which case you'd want to launch ours immediately. It's totally possible that they could get Kim on some sort of "Red Phone Line" and convince him that it's fake before he launches, and that might even be the most likely outcome. But if the hacker timed this right (to some time where the president was asleep or harder than usual to contact) I feel like there is a nontrivial chance it could result in at least one nuclear warhead getting launched.

fireattack 6y ago
I think the point is while it will indeed cause serious trouble in real world, it still not enough to "start WW3".
paxys 6y ago
If something like this came from Trump's account, people would believe that he tweeted it but not that it was actually going to happen. Heck I'm pretty certain he has already tweeted about bombing random countries before.

cameronbrown 6y ago

Imagine if you were able to impersonate Trump, and claim China started a war, with ICBMs heading for San Fransisco and Washington. Then, tweet from the Clinton, Obama and Biden accounts that he's actually telling the truth. Add in some international flair (e.g. Boris Johnson) and some celebrity voices, and even if it sounds outlandish, enough social proof from these people and you've got yourself mass panic on your hands. It might not be WW3, but it likely could've resulted in major riots.

clarkmoody 6y ago

Wars have been started over less, no?

dudul 6y ago
Can you provide 2 or 3 examples? And they would have to be in a hyper-connected world like today, where any head of state can directly reach another in less than 1 hour.