3 ms·

I actually like the recommendations parts and already talks about encryption! >The committee finds that this catastrophe makes glaringly apparent the necessity

I actually like the recommendations parts and already talks about encryption! >The committee finds that this catastrophe makes glaringly apparent the necessity for regulation of radiotelegraphy. There must be an operator on duty at all times, day and night, to insure the immediate receipt of all distress, warning, or other important calls. Direct communication either by clear-speaking telephone, voice tube, or messenger must be provided between the wireless room and the bridge, so that the operator does not have to leave his station. There must be definite legislation to prevent interference by amateurs, and to secure secrecy of radiograms or wireless messages. There must be some source of auxiliary power, either storage battery or oil engine, to insure the operation of the wireless installation until the wireless room is submerged. Also the HTML version is here https://www.titanicinquiry.org/USInq/USReport/AmInqRep01.php https://www.titanicinquiry.org/USInq/USReport/AmInqRep01.php

londons_explore 4y ago
Nearly all those recommendations have effectively been implemented in modern boats... Not sure if the law requires it, or boat designers just see it as a sensible design. Quite impressive for someone to read an incident report and actually implement the recommendations - so often they sit in a filing cabinet forever.
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  > Quite impressive for someone to read an incident report and actually implement the recommendations - so often they sit in a filing cabinet forever. That's not really true. There is a saying when it comes to transportation regulations, "Safety regulations are written in blood." That is, nearly all safety regulations are the result of analysis after a tragic accident.
  - londons_explore 4y ago
    Oh yes, but nearly all accident reports make perhaps 30 recommendations, any one of which would probably have averted the disaster that just happened, of which only perhaps 3 are implemented. The other 27 usually get skipped because they're too costly/politically unpopular/no longer seem important after some other changes have been made to prevent reoccurance.
    - frutiger 4y ago
      Genuine question, as I have no domain knowledge: is it usual that 10% of recommendations are adopted and 90% are ignored?
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - londons_explore 4y ago
        I have no maritime knowledge, but I do handle a lot of incident reports. Yes, it's common for there to be 30 recommendations and 3 get fully implemented. Perhaps a few more get part implemented or people talk about doing them and it goes nowhere.
      - kevincox 4y ago
        Based on my work in software systems yes. Generally when I write a postmortem there is a long list of modifications that could solve the problem. However they all have different costs, different effectiveness, different specificity and may overlap in different ways. This means that the high-cost, highly-specific modification may not be worth implementing when a lower cost and very broad modification can cover that same class of problems (even if not quite as effectively). As an example you may have two recommendations: 1. Queue the requests and add many retries so that if a problem occurs in the future the requests are not lost and the problem can be fixed or allowed to resolve itself. 2. Add a second implementation of the process using different technologies and dependencies and fail over to it if the first implementation fails. If this specific type of request is not very latency sensitive 2 is likely not worth it even though it is an improvement over just doing 1. 2 might be the better solution as well however 1 would greatly mitigate not only the specific request that had a problem this time but all similar requests in the system so 1 is good to do even if 2 is done for the other types of request. In the end I would say that both are good recommendations however the logical business choice is just to do 1.
    - nostrademons 4y ago
      That's probably how it should be. Every regulation has a cost. If you want to manage that cost efficiently, you should look at the set of recommendations as a portfolio, compare across multiple accidents, and implement the most cost-effective recommendations that will prevent the most accidents.
- hef19898 4y ago
  In aviation and maritime transport the implementation of those recommendations and findings are the reason they are among the safest means if transport.
- InCityDreams 4y ago
  In moder boats, maybe. In modern life? Not so much >There must be definite legislation to prevent interference by amateurs, and to secure secrecy of radiograms or wireless messages. Update that to 'the interwebs', and we are [still] sadly lacking. /!totc
  - United857 4y ago
    IMO we've done a good job of securing the transport layer, most attacks these days are exploiting data at rest on the client or server.
- tialaramex 4y ago
  SOLAS. International maritime law requires a lot of stuff to ensure the Safety Of Life At Sea. SOLAS is initially a treaty which happens because of Titanic, but was updated repeatedly and eventually moved to a model where the safety rules change and you either keep up or you need to explicitly say "Nope, our country hates safety now". Unsurprisingly nowhere civilised wants to do that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOLAS_Convention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOLAS_Convention SOLAS doesn't make a lot of requirements of recreational vessels but in practice you'll have a Digital Selective Calling VHF radio much like SOLAS requires a container ship to have, because either local laws require it or just it was really annoying without it as you can't talk to anybody. DSC has automated Mayday. So it's practical to teach children how to activate it at about the same age you teach them to make a 911/ 112/ whatever phone call. The radio will make Mayday radio calls, automatically giving its location (unless it doesn't know) and its identity, and explaining that there's a problem, but it doesn't know what the problem is. Somebody will come investigate, because SOLAS also made explicit what is obvious to most mariners, that you should always come help people. The ocean will definitely kill us if it gets a chance, so by the Golden Rule we should all pitch in to save others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_selective_calling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_selective_calling SOLAS also requires float-release EPIRBS which are beacons that a COSPAS/SARSAT satellite can see from space, and again transmit their identity, so a shore-based emergency response co-ordinator can see e.g. this beacon is registered to a medium sized power yacht named "Example", we don't know what's wrong with it, but its beacon is activated, so either it sank or its in trouble and the beacon was activated manually (or somebody fucked up). The owner's satellite phone doesn't answer, he gives a home number, his wife answered and said he's fishing with two friends, due back this evening.

londons_explore 4y ago

Nearly all those recommendations have effectively been implemented in modern boats... Not sure if the law requires it, or boat designers just see it as a sensible design. Quite impressive for someone to read an incident report and actually implement the recommendations - so often they sit in a filing cabinet forever.

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
> Quite impressive for someone to read an incident report and actually implement the recommendations - so often they sit in a filing cabinet forever. That's not really true. There is a saying when it comes to transportation regulations, "Safety regulations are written in blood." That is, nearly all safety regulations are the result of analysis after a tragic accident.
- londons_explore 4y ago
  Oh yes, but nearly all accident reports make perhaps 30 recommendations, any one of which would probably have averted the disaster that just happened, of which only perhaps 3 are implemented. The other 27 usually get skipped because they're too costly/politically unpopular/no longer seem important after some other changes have been made to prevent reoccurance.
  - frutiger 4y ago
    Genuine question, as I have no domain knowledge: is it usual that 10% of recommendations are adopted and 90% are ignored?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - londons_explore 4y ago
      I have no maritime knowledge, but I do handle a lot of incident reports. Yes, it's common for there to be 30 recommendations and 3 get fully implemented. Perhaps a few more get part implemented or people talk about doing them and it goes nowhere.
    - kevincox 4y ago
      Based on my work in software systems yes. Generally when I write a postmortem there is a long list of modifications that could solve the problem. However they all have different costs, different effectiveness, different specificity and may overlap in different ways. This means that the high-cost, highly-specific modification may not be worth implementing when a lower cost and very broad modification can cover that same class of problems (even if not quite as effectively). As an example you may have two recommendations: 1. Queue the requests and add many retries so that if a problem occurs in the future the requests are not lost and the problem can be fixed or allowed to resolve itself. 2. Add a second implementation of the process using different technologies and dependencies and fail over to it if the first implementation fails. If this specific type of request is not very latency sensitive 2 is likely not worth it even though it is an improvement over just doing 1. 2 might be the better solution as well however 1 would greatly mitigate not only the specific request that had a problem this time but all similar requests in the system so 1 is good to do even if 2 is done for the other types of request. In the end I would say that both are good recommendations however the logical business choice is just to do 1.
  - nostrademons 4y ago
    That's probably how it should be. Every regulation has a cost. If you want to manage that cost efficiently, you should look at the set of recommendations as a portfolio, compare across multiple accidents, and implement the most cost-effective recommendations that will prevent the most accidents.
hef19898 4y ago
In aviation and maritime transport the implementation of those recommendations and findings are the reason they are among the safest means if transport.
InCityDreams 4y ago
In moder boats, maybe. In modern life? Not so much >There must be definite legislation to prevent interference by amateurs, and to secure secrecy of radiograms or wireless messages. Update that to 'the interwebs', and we are [still] sadly lacking. /!totc
- United857 4y ago
  IMO we've done a good job of securing the transport layer, most attacks these days are exploiting data at rest on the client or server.
tialaramex 4y ago
SOLAS. International maritime law requires a lot of stuff to ensure the Safety Of Life At Sea. SOLAS is initially a treaty which happens because of Titanic, but was updated repeatedly and eventually moved to a model where the safety rules change and you either keep up or you need to explicitly say "Nope, our country hates safety now". Unsurprisingly nowhere civilised wants to do that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOLAS_Convention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOLAS_Convention SOLAS doesn't make a lot of requirements of recreational vessels but in practice you'll have a Digital Selective Calling VHF radio much like SOLAS requires a container ship to have, because either local laws require it or just it was really annoying without it as you can't talk to anybody. DSC has automated Mayday. So it's practical to teach children how to activate it at about the same age you teach them to make a 911/ 112/ whatever phone call. The radio will make Mayday radio calls, automatically giving its location (unless it doesn't know) and its identity, and explaining that there's a problem, but it doesn't know what the problem is. Somebody will come investigate, because SOLAS also made explicit what is obvious to most mariners, that you should always come help people. The ocean will definitely kill us if it gets a chance, so by the Golden Rule we should all pitch in to save others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_selective_calling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_selective_calling SOLAS also requires float-release EPIRBS which are beacons that a COSPAS/SARSAT satellite can see from space, and again transmit their identity, so a shore-based emergency response co-ordinator can see e.g. this beacon is registered to a medium sized power yacht named "Example", we don't know what's wrong with it, but its beacon is activated, so either it sank or its in trouble and the beacon was activated manually (or somebody fucked up). The owner's satellite phone doesn't answer, he gives a home number, his wife answered and said he's fishing with two friends, due back this evening.