6 ms·

I don't see how this is as big a deal as people make it out to be. The person in charge of this account probably has nothing to do with anything that remotely m

I don't see how this is as big a deal as people make it out to be. The person in charge of this account probably has nothing to do with anything that remotely matters. You wouldn't worry about your 401k if the asset manager's twitter account posted some gibberish.

smt88 6y ago
What if the child were a little older and typed something related to launching missiles as a joke?
- de_Selby 6y ago
  Is it standard practice to tweet about it when launching a nuclear attack?
  - sharkweek 6y ago
    I think you’re drastically underestimating how many people would assume it was true
    - airhead969 6y ago
      Sunday, October 30, 1938
      - msla 6y ago
        Ah, the "NEW MEDIA: THREAT OR MENACE?" broadcast: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_(1938_radio_drama) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_(1938_ra... > The response may have reflected newspaper publishers' fears that radio, to which they had lost some of the advertising revenue that was scarce enough during the Great Depression, would render them obsolete. In "The War of the Worlds", they saw an opportunity to cast aspersions on the newer medium: "The nation as a whole continues to face the danger of incomplete, misunderstood news over a medium which has yet to prove that it is competent to perform the news job," wrote Editor & Publisher, the newspaper industry's trade journal.[2][55] > William Randolph Hearst's papers called on broadcasters to police themselves, lest the government step in, as Iowa Senator Clyde L. Herring proposed a bill that would have required all programming to be reviewed by the FCC prior to broadcast (he never actually introduced it). And we all know Hearst would have no incentive to gin up something to make radio look bad and newspapers look better. > Few contemporary accounts exist outside newspaper coverage of the mass panic and hysteria supposedly induced by the broadcast. Justin Levine, a producer at KFI in Los Angeles, wrote in a 2000 history of the FCC's response to hoax broadcasts that "the anecdotal nature of such reporting makes it difficult to objectively assess the true extent and intensity of the panic.[56] Bartholomew sees this as yet more evidence that the panic was predominantly a creation of the newspaper industry.[57]
    - PeterisP 6y ago
      As Reagan almost broadcast, "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."
      - lolinder 6y ago
        Reagan didn't almost broadcast that, he said it as a joke during a sound check. It was a joke in poor taste, but it only ended up public because someone recorded the sound check and leaked it.
  - pbourke 6y ago
    Well it was until January 8th or so.
    - de_Selby 6y ago
      Fair point.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - ajhurliman 6y ago
    It's actually a requirement; nuclear launches are just a Twitter webhook
    - chris_wot 6y ago
      I've heard Twitter being accused of being a nuclear wasteland, but never of causing one.
- asdff 6y ago
  Nothing would happen. Hawaii sent out an alert to every single cellphone in the state that an ICBM was imminently approaching Honolulu a few years back, and no one outside of Hawaii remembers that anymore today.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - kiddico 6y ago
    That is certainly not true. The absurdity of the situation burned the event into my mind at least, and I’ve never even been to Hawaii.
    - asdff 6y ago
      No one here is hyperbole. Clearly you and me remember it. That being said, it's not like it was some 9/11 type event where everyone remembers where they were (unless you were in Hawaii I'm sure). In 10 years it's out of the public sphere. Like that plane that crashed into the ocean (which I'm willing to bet if you asked Gen Z about they would wonder if you were talking about Lost on Netflix rather than MH370), or all the other similarly-oddball incidents from the 70s, 80s, and 90s that we no longer ever mention in public discourse today.
  - cl0ne 6y ago
    I remember reading about that here as it was happening.
  - azhenley 6y ago
    I discuss that incident every semester in my courses. Most of the students remember it and we aren't in Hawaii.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - McKayDavis 6y ago
    Please don't discount the people in Hawaii that experienced this event. We lived on O'ahu when it happened and the topic still comes up occasionally. At the time, it was quite traumatic for myself, my wife, and our kids. I spoke to a large number of people who were still in a state of shock in the following week. At least one person died of a heart attack. Errant tweets or text messages like this from positions of authority have the potential to have very real and major effects on people's lives. Don't downplay the power they hold.
- boomboomsubban 6y ago
  If nothing else, I bet it'd cause a short term panic in the stock market.
- adolph 6y ago
  Seriously, they could fake being sick by holding the thermometer against a lightbulb when their mom isn’t looking and after being left home alone for the day dial into that modem connected to the WOPR to play that global thermonuclear war game.
  - unnouinceput 6y ago
    Ha! Nice reference. Well, if they get a nice gf looking like Ally Sheedy then it's all for the greater good
scarecrowbob 6y ago
I do some work for gov website that is more or less a PR blog. Although you can't do anything to the systems that this agency deals with via the back end to this website, the scope of abuses that someone could engage in if they had these credentials is quite broad, ranging from "Agency XYZ endorses PQR" to "Agency XYZ will begin action against LMN". Or, if you can't see the implications of that ability, consider that there's an entire cult of folks in the US that has some pretty questionable beliefs based on the mere assertion of "clearance" by an anon poster on a chan board... imagine how damaging it would be if those assertions could be "demonstrated" via an agency account?
- thephyber 6y ago
  I think most people underestimate cybersecurity claiming they don’t have much to “steal”. I think these same people failed to learn the lessons of the 9/11 commission or have horse blinders on so they only apply those learnings to air travel or military contexts. Think you aren’t worth anyone’s time to hack? Assume hacks are 100% automated — they aren’t targeting you, but if you are vulnerable they won’t do anything to avoid you. Think you aren’t the biggest target? Assume it costs no more to hack the marginal device / server / Twitter account than it costs to send a single email. Assume the person running this hack is being paid a low wage in the poorest country - your coffee money is a decent day’s wages for them. Think you have no assets to lose? Assume they can force you deep in debt to the extent that some greedy financial company will offer them a large loan in your name.
- Mindless2112 6y ago
  "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_begin_bombing_in_five_minutes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_begin_bombing_in_five_minut...
  - danellis 6y ago
    > Reagan's impromptu comments have had significant staying power, being referenced, cited, and used as literary inspiration as recently as 2017. Time to update that, then!
csomar 6y ago
Probably because it is the "official" twitter account; and thus people will assume the tweets to be official messages. An agency responsible for nuclear weapons tweeting some gibberish is certainly scary for some.
vonwoodson 6y ago
Agree. The account is almost certainly manned by an employee that works in public relations and not making any operational decisions within the agency. Furthermore, OPM still has all federal employees on “maximum telework”. With most daycare centers inside the beltway closed or restricted due to COVID-19, maybe we should find a little humanity in this situation. That a public servant is trying to do their job in extraordinarily out-of-the ordinary circumstances, and that this parent’s small child pounded out a few characters on their phone while they were dealing with any of a million things that involves trying to work from home and be a good parent. Something, I think, many people around the world can relate to right now. This government For the People, is absolutely made up By the People; and have real issues, just like everyone does these days. Also, regardless of what some one-term Presidents have done in the past, Twitter should not be taken so seriously.

smt88 6y ago

What if the child were a little older and typed something related to launching missiles as a joke?

de_Selby 6y ago
Is it standard practice to tweet about it when launching a nuclear attack?
- sharkweek 6y ago
  I think you’re drastically underestimating how many people would assume it was true
  - airhead969 6y ago
    Sunday, October 30, 1938
    - msla 6y ago
      Ah, the "NEW MEDIA: THREAT OR MENACE?" broadcast: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_(1938_radio_drama) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_(1938_ra... > The response may have reflected newspaper publishers' fears that radio, to which they had lost some of the advertising revenue that was scarce enough during the Great Depression, would render them obsolete. In "The War of the Worlds", they saw an opportunity to cast aspersions on the newer medium: "The nation as a whole continues to face the danger of incomplete, misunderstood news over a medium which has yet to prove that it is competent to perform the news job," wrote Editor & Publisher, the newspaper industry's trade journal.[2][55] > William Randolph Hearst's papers called on broadcasters to police themselves, lest the government step in, as Iowa Senator Clyde L. Herring proposed a bill that would have required all programming to be reviewed by the FCC prior to broadcast (he never actually introduced it). And we all know Hearst would have no incentive to gin up something to make radio look bad and newspapers look better. > Few contemporary accounts exist outside newspaper coverage of the mass panic and hysteria supposedly induced by the broadcast. Justin Levine, a producer at KFI in Los Angeles, wrote in a 2000 history of the FCC's response to hoax broadcasts that "the anecdotal nature of such reporting makes it difficult to objectively assess the true extent and intensity of the panic.[56] Bartholomew sees this as yet more evidence that the panic was predominantly a creation of the newspaper industry.[57]
  - PeterisP 6y ago
    As Reagan almost broadcast, "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."
    - lolinder 6y ago
      Reagan didn't almost broadcast that, he said it as a joke during a sound check. It was a joke in poor taste, but it only ended up public because someone recorded the sound check and leaked it.
- pbourke 6y ago
  Well it was until January 8th or so.
  - de_Selby 6y ago
    Fair point.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ajhurliman 6y ago
  It's actually a requirement; nuclear launches are just a Twitter webhook
  - chris_wot 6y ago
    I've heard Twitter being accused of being a nuclear wasteland, but never of causing one.
asdff 6y ago
Nothing would happen. Hawaii sent out an alert to every single cellphone in the state that an ICBM was imminently approaching Honolulu a few years back, and no one outside of Hawaii remembers that anymore today.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- kiddico 6y ago
  That is certainly not true. The absurdity of the situation burned the event into my mind at least, and I’ve never even been to Hawaii.
  - asdff 6y ago
    No one here is hyperbole. Clearly you and me remember it. That being said, it's not like it was some 9/11 type event where everyone remembers where they were (unless you were in Hawaii I'm sure). In 10 years it's out of the public sphere. Like that plane that crashed into the ocean (which I'm willing to bet if you asked Gen Z about they would wonder if you were talking about Lost on Netflix rather than MH370), or all the other similarly-oddball incidents from the 70s, 80s, and 90s that we no longer ever mention in public discourse today.
- cl0ne 6y ago
  I remember reading about that here as it was happening.
- azhenley 6y ago
  I discuss that incident every semester in my courses. Most of the students remember it and we aren't in Hawaii.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- McKayDavis 6y ago
  Please don't discount the people in Hawaii that experienced this event. We lived on O'ahu when it happened and the topic still comes up occasionally. At the time, it was quite traumatic for myself, my wife, and our kids. I spoke to a large number of people who were still in a state of shock in the following week. At least one person died of a heart attack. Errant tweets or text messages like this from positions of authority have the potential to have very real and major effects on people's lives. Don't downplay the power they hold.
boomboomsubban 6y ago
If nothing else, I bet it'd cause a short term panic in the stock market.
adolph 6y ago
Seriously, they could fake being sick by holding the thermometer against a lightbulb when their mom isn’t looking and after being left home alone for the day dial into that modem connected to the WOPR to play that global thermonuclear war game.
- unnouinceput 6y ago
  Ha! Nice reference. Well, if they get a nice gf looking like Ally Sheedy then it's all for the greater good

scarecrowbob 6y ago

I do some work for gov website that is more or less a PR blog. Although you can't do anything to the systems that this agency deals with via the back end to this website, the scope of abuses that someone could engage in if they had these credentials is quite broad, ranging from "Agency XYZ endorses PQR" to "Agency XYZ will begin action against LMN". Or, if you can't see the implications of that ability, consider that there's an entire cult of folks in the US that has some pretty questionable beliefs based on the mere assertion of "clearance" by an anon poster on a chan board... imagine how damaging it would be if those assertions could be "demonstrated" via an agency account?

thephyber 6y ago
I think most people underestimate cybersecurity claiming they don’t have much to “steal”. I think these same people failed to learn the lessons of the 9/11 commission or have horse blinders on so they only apply those learnings to air travel or military contexts. Think you aren’t worth anyone’s time to hack? Assume hacks are 100% automated — they aren’t targeting you, but if you are vulnerable they won’t do anything to avoid you. Think you aren’t the biggest target? Assume it costs no more to hack the marginal device / server / Twitter account than it costs to send a single email. Assume the person running this hack is being paid a low wage in the poorest country - your coffee money is a decent day’s wages for them. Think you have no assets to lose? Assume they can force you deep in debt to the extent that some greedy financial company will offer them a large loan in your name.
Mindless2112 6y ago
"My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_begin_bombing_in_five_minutes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_begin_bombing_in_five_minut...
- danellis 6y ago
  > Reagan's impromptu comments have had significant staying power, being referenced, cited, and used as literary inspiration as recently as 2017. Time to update that, then!

csomar 6y ago

Probably because it is the "official" twitter account; and thus people will assume the tweets to be official messages. An agency responsible for nuclear weapons tweeting some gibberish is certainly scary for some.

vonwoodson 6y ago

Agree. The account is almost certainly manned by an employee that works in public relations and not making any operational decisions within the agency. Furthermore, OPM still has all federal employees on “maximum telework”. With most daycare centers inside the beltway closed or restricted due to COVID-19, maybe we should find a little humanity in this situation. That a public servant is trying to do their job in extraordinarily out-of-the ordinary circumstances, and that this parent’s small child pounded out a few characters on their phone while they were dealing with any of a million things that involves trying to work from home and be a good parent. Something, I think, many people around the world can relate to right now. This government For the People, is absolutely made up By the People; and have real issues, just like everyone does these days. Also, regardless of what some one-term Presidents have done in the past, Twitter should not be taken so seriously.