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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 automate
by 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 agoI 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...