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I always wonder how much damage a bug can do in a war. Maybe nothing tops an hypothetical catastrophic bug in the Minuteman III ICBM during a first strike/MAD s

I always wonder how much damage a bug can do in a war. Maybe nothing tops an hypothetical catastrophic bug in the Minuteman III ICBM during a first strike/MAD scenario.

13of40 5y ago
The interesting twist here is that the programmed target is calculated to be the place where the most damage can be inflicted. A malfunction involving an actual nuclear explosion is likely to happen over somewhere like the polar ice cap.
andbberger 5y ago
oh a bug in the ICBM warning system would be far worse. if minuteman's are flying we've already lost
- penisverse 5y ago
  And that already happened! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar...
elihu 5y ago
A bug in one's cryptography could be really bad, if there's someone like Alan Turing on the other side capable of noticing and exploiting it. Also any automated threat detection system that looks at satellite photos / night vision camera feeds / radar / sonar and misinterprets enemy military equipment for something innocuous or vice versa could be really bad. Especially if weapons are used on the targets on the basis of the system's recommendation.
- gambiting 5y ago
  I mean, the world almost came to an end in 1983 when the Soviet early detection system detected with 100% confidence multiple missile launches from US heading towards Russia. The only reason we are still alive is because one man, officer in the Soviet Air Defence forces, took a personal decision to wait for radar confirmation before informing his superiors(who would have almost certainly ordered a counterstrike before the missiles could arrive). The most terrifying point in all of this is that multiple systems were all coming up with confirmation that the attack is really happening, he had his entire department checking and checking and checking everything over, and it was coming back as 100% positive. I don't think Soviets ever publicly said what the issue actually was, we can only guess. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar...

I always wonder how much damage a bug can do in a war. Maybe nothing tops an hypothetical catastrophic bug in the Minuteman III ICBM during a first strike/MAD scenario.

13of40 5y ago

The interesting twist here is that the programmed target is calculated to be the place where the most damage can be inflicted. A malfunction involving an actual nuclear explosion is likely to happen over somewhere like the polar ice cap.

andbberger 5y ago

oh a bug in the ICBM warning system would be far worse. if minuteman's are flying we've already lost

penisverse 5y ago
And that already happened! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar...

elihu 5y ago

A bug in one's cryptography could be really bad, if there's someone like Alan Turing on the other side capable of noticing and exploiting it. Also any automated threat detection system that looks at satellite photos / night vision camera feeds / radar / sonar and misinterprets enemy military equipment for something innocuous or vice versa could be really bad. Especially if weapons are used on the targets on the basis of the system's recommendation.

gambiting 5y ago
I mean, the world almost came to an end in 1983 when the Soviet early detection system detected with 100% confidence multiple missile launches from US heading towards Russia. The only reason we are still alive is because one man, officer in the Soviet Air Defence forces, took a personal decision to wait for radar confirmation before informing his superiors(who would have almost certainly ordered a counterstrike before the missiles could arrive). The most terrifying point in all of this is that multiple systems were all coming up with confirmation that the attack is really happening, he had his entire department checking and checking and checking everything over, and it was coming back as 100% positive. I don't think Soviets ever publicly said what the issue actually was, we can only guess. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar...