5 ms·

Debugging Behind the Iron Curtain (2010)

78 points by indrora 1y ago

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
adzm 1y ago
> Possession of personal Geiger counters was restricted by the Soviet government A tangent, but why was this?
- evan_ 1y ago
  pretty sure this explains it: > the government plan was to mix the meat from Chernobyl-area cattle with the uncontaminated meat from the rest of the country I wonder if this was posted now as a result of a report of radioactive shrimp being sold at Wal-Mart: https://www.fda.gov/food/alerts-advisories-safety-information/fda-advises-public-not-eat-sell-or-serve-certain-imported-frozen-shrimp-indonesian-firm https://www.fda.gov/food/alerts-advisories-safety-informatio...
- Analemma_ 1y ago
  I mean, the post itself kinda answers it.
  - AnimalMuppet 1y ago
    Not really. But the answer that one would conclude is "so that private citizens can't find out all the shady things we're doing with radioactive stuff". I presume that was the policy even before Chernobyl. The US did not run an entirely clean nuclear program, but the USSR was worse (perhaps because ordinary people in the US could have Geiger counters, and so the powers that be knew that they were less likely to get away with spilling radio emitters).
    - pinewurst 1y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyshtym_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyshtym_disaster
- gostsamo 1y ago
  there is no problem if nobody knows about it. explain many government decisions both inside and outside the USSR.
- y-curious 1y ago
  This was news to me too. I did some surface level research and couldn't find any mention of that. That said, my parents are from the former USSR and just because there isn't a law on the books doesn't mean it wasn't de facto banned.
  - barbazoo 1y ago
    > just because there isn't a law on the books doesn't mean it wasn't de facto banned Same is true the other way around. Just because someone claims something to have happened, it doesn't mean it actually has. Maybe they were just "impossible" to obtain similar to how a lot of non essential things were hard to obtain in socialist/communist countries at that time.
- lb1lf 1y ago
  I do not know if this was the rationale, but presumably the powers that be could not see any upside to civilians possessing such equipment - after all, it could be used for purposes like calling the bluff on the official narrative ('During the recent fire at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant, only trace amounts of radioactivity has been detected outside the immediate vicinity...') or espionage ('Hmmm... I wonder why many of the freight cars coming down the track from the alleged paint factory in East Podunkskij are 100x more radioactive than those from other areas?') We are, after all, talking about a system which restricted access to photocopiers.
- guga42k 1y ago
  It wasn't restricted per se. Just it didn't exist or produced as a civil appliance, so you won't be able to buy it. But civil defense kits usually had the counter, so if you really wanted one you probably could get it. My dad got one right after Chernobyl disaster.
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    "restricted by economic circumstance"
- cyberax 1y ago
  It was not. Moreover, decommissioned Geiger counters from bomb shelters were available. It's more fair to say that Geiger counters were not sold on the open market because they were considered to be specialized equipment. The USSR was strictly controlling radio transmitters and survey equipment but not regular measurement devices.
mlyle 1y ago
Bullshit. There is no way that living things are releasing enough ionizing radiation to interfere with a computer, especially an older one-- attenuated both by the rest of their flesh, the building's walls, the computer's chassis, and at least several feet of free space/inverse square.
- y-curious 1y ago
  You're right. This and the "banned Geiger counters" are both implausible. Shame, I already sent this to my coworkers. Time to retract this cool story.
- reillyse 1y ago
  but don't you see, Communism is so bad that it changes the laws of fundamental physics! But of course you are right, this is a total nonsense story but it is interesting to reflect on why somebody would feel compelled to tell such a lie and spread such propaganda. Also interesting to reflect on what the capitalist analog of this story might be - do we trust that American food corporations would never knowingly ship unhealthy meat?
  - krapp 1y ago
    >do we trust that American food corporations would never knowingly ship unhealthy meat? We know for a fact that many American businesses knowingly allow faulty and dangerous products on the market (see the Ford Pinto,) and that American food corporations have allow tainted meat onto the market. But for some reason we don't fault capitalism for that the way we would fault communism for this, if it were true. If anything, the most likely reaction this happening in the US would be to deregulate industries so capitalism could capitalize even harder.
  - flohofwoe 1y ago
    Calm down Igor, it's probably just a tall tale the seniors told the juniors and the juniors took it in as the truth. Also didn't you have sarcastic Chornobyl jokes in the 80s if you lived anywhere near East or Central Europe? We certainly did have a lot of them in East Germany.
xenonite 1y ago
Original post: https://www.jakepoz.com/debugging-behind-the-iron-curtain/ https://www.jakepoz.com/debugging-behind-the-iron-curtain/
- dang 1y ago
  Ah thanks! We've changed to that from https://beza1e1.tuxen.de/lore/crash_cows.html https://beza1e1.tuxen.de/lore/crash_cows.html now. Submitters: "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
imzadi 1y ago
Company antivirus blocked this page and said it contains malware
- dang 1y ago
  We've since changed the URL (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44964232 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44964232)
  - jannyfer 1y ago
    My company blocked the new URL as "games" but the old link works.
- _def 1y ago
  time wasting activity detected, deducting estimated cost from salary BEEP
dang 1y ago
Related. Others? Debugging Behind the Iron Curtain (2010) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41586836 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41586836 - Sept 2024 (21 comments) Debugging Behind the Iron Curtain - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24208014 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24208014 - Aug 2020 (1 comment) Debugging Behind the Iron Curtain (2010) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16628877 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16628877 - March 2018 (19 comments)
vzaliva 1y ago
I was living in Kyiv at the time of the accident, and later I worked for the Ministry of Chernobyl (a special government ministry created to deal with the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster). I assisted groups of international researchers in analysing data on the consequences of the accident, including radioactive contamination distribution through food chains. This article is complete rubbish. Everything was tightly measured and controlled. The radiation levels required to trigger memory bits (ferrite memory!) in a building next to the train station, through the walls and metal panels enclosing computer blocks and at such a distance, would probably make a cow glow in the dark :) Geiger counters weren’t restricted - they just weren’t sold to the general public. But somehow, after Chernobyl, every one of my friends managed to procure one (I had three). Even the final part about "filling in immigration papers with any country" is implausible. It wasn’t possible to simply emigrate from the Soviet Union to any country. There was a limited Jewish emigration path, but it was far from easy.
- wojciii 1y ago
  Also I remember reading the exact same "story" on the daily WTF website .. ~20 years ago. It surfaces regularly. :)
- indrora 1y ago
  All fair. This is likely also related to the (likely stretched) story about a train full of radioactive meat that floated around for a while [0] that seems to get interpreted a little differently each time [1]. [0] https://time.com/4305507/chernobyl-30-agriculture-disaster/#:~:text=Inundated%2C%20workers%20at,zone%20of%20alienation. https://time.com/4305507/chernobyl-30-agriculture-disaster/#... [1] https://origins.osu.edu/milestones/april-2016-eating-you-food-and-chernobyl#:~:text=In%201990%2C%20KGB%20officers%20unearthed%20four%20refrigerated%20train%20cars%20with%20618%20tons%20of%20radioactive%20meat%20that%20had%20been%20rolling%20around%20the%20southwest%20railroad%20for%20four%20years. https://origins.osu.edu/milestones/april-2016-eating-you-foo...

78 points by indrora 1y ago

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

adzm 1y ago

> Possession of personal Geiger counters was restricted by the Soviet government A tangent, but why was this?

evan_ 1y ago
pretty sure this explains it: > the government plan was to mix the meat from Chernobyl-area cattle with the uncontaminated meat from the rest of the country I wonder if this was posted now as a result of a report of radioactive shrimp being sold at Wal-Mart: https://www.fda.gov/food/alerts-advisories-safety-information/fda-advises-public-not-eat-sell-or-serve-certain-imported-frozen-shrimp-indonesian-firm https://www.fda.gov/food/alerts-advisories-safety-informatio...
Analemma_ 1y ago
I mean, the post itself kinda answers it.
- AnimalMuppet 1y ago
  Not really. But the answer that one would conclude is "so that private citizens can't find out all the shady things we're doing with radioactive stuff". I presume that was the policy even before Chernobyl. The US did not run an entirely clean nuclear program, but the USSR was worse (perhaps because ordinary people in the US could have Geiger counters, and so the powers that be knew that they were less likely to get away with spilling radio emitters).
  - pinewurst 1y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyshtym_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyshtym_disaster
gostsamo 1y ago
there is no problem if nobody knows about it. explain many government decisions both inside and outside the USSR.
y-curious 1y ago
This was news to me too. I did some surface level research and couldn't find any mention of that. That said, my parents are from the former USSR and just because there isn't a law on the books doesn't mean it wasn't de facto banned.
- barbazoo 1y ago
  > just because there isn't a law on the books doesn't mean it wasn't de facto banned Same is true the other way around. Just because someone claims something to have happened, it doesn't mean it actually has. Maybe they were just "impossible" to obtain similar to how a lot of non essential things were hard to obtain in socialist/communist countries at that time.
lb1lf 1y ago
I do not know if this was the rationale, but presumably the powers that be could not see any upside to civilians possessing such equipment - after all, it could be used for purposes like calling the bluff on the official narrative ('During the recent fire at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant, only trace amounts of radioactivity has been detected outside the immediate vicinity...') or espionage ('Hmmm... I wonder why many of the freight cars coming down the track from the alleged paint factory in East Podunkskij are 100x more radioactive than those from other areas?') We are, after all, talking about a system which restricted access to photocopiers.
guga42k 1y ago
It wasn't restricted per se. Just it didn't exist or produced as a civil appliance, so you won't be able to buy it. But civil defense kits usually had the counter, so if you really wanted one you probably could get it. My dad got one right after Chernobyl disaster.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  "restricted by economic circumstance"
cyberax 1y ago
It was not. Moreover, decommissioned Geiger counters from bomb shelters were available. It's more fair to say that Geiger counters were not sold on the open market because they were considered to be specialized equipment. The USSR was strictly controlling radio transmitters and survey equipment but not regular measurement devices.

mlyle 1y ago

Bullshit. There is no way that living things are releasing enough ionizing radiation to interfere with a computer, especially an older one-- attenuated both by the rest of their flesh, the building's walls, the computer's chassis, and at least several feet of free space/inverse square.

y-curious 1y ago
You're right. This and the "banned Geiger counters" are both implausible. Shame, I already sent this to my coworkers. Time to retract this cool story.
reillyse 1y ago
but don't you see, Communism is so bad that it changes the laws of fundamental physics! But of course you are right, this is a total nonsense story but it is interesting to reflect on why somebody would feel compelled to tell such a lie and spread such propaganda. Also interesting to reflect on what the capitalist analog of this story might be - do we trust that American food corporations would never knowingly ship unhealthy meat?
- krapp 1y ago
  >do we trust that American food corporations would never knowingly ship unhealthy meat? We know for a fact that many American businesses knowingly allow faulty and dangerous products on the market (see the Ford Pinto,) and that American food corporations have allow tainted meat onto the market. But for some reason we don't fault capitalism for that the way we would fault communism for this, if it were true. If anything, the most likely reaction this happening in the US would be to deregulate industries so capitalism could capitalize even harder.
- flohofwoe 1y ago
  Calm down Igor, it's probably just a tall tale the seniors told the juniors and the juniors took it in as the truth. Also didn't you have sarcastic Chornobyl jokes in the 80s if you lived anywhere near East or Central Europe? We certainly did have a lot of them in East Germany.

xenonite 1y ago

Original post: https://www.jakepoz.com/debugging-behind-the-iron-curtain/ https://www.jakepoz.com/debugging-behind-the-iron-curtain/

dang 1y ago
Ah thanks! We've changed to that from https://beza1e1.tuxen.de/lore/crash_cows.html https://beza1e1.tuxen.de/lore/crash_cows.html now. Submitters: "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

imzadi 1y ago

Company antivirus blocked this page and said it contains malware

dang 1y ago
We've since changed the URL (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44964232 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44964232)
- jannyfer 1y ago
  My company blocked the new URL as "games" but the old link works.
_def 1y ago
time wasting activity detected, deducting estimated cost from salary BEEP

dang 1y ago

Related. Others? Debugging Behind the Iron Curtain (2010) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41586836 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41586836 - Sept 2024 (21 comments) Debugging Behind the Iron Curtain - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24208014 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24208014 - Aug 2020 (1 comment) Debugging Behind the Iron Curtain (2010) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16628877 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16628877 - March 2018 (19 comments)

vzaliva 1y ago

I was living in Kyiv at the time of the accident, and later I worked for the Ministry of Chernobyl (a special government ministry created to deal with the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster). I assisted groups of international researchers in analysing data on the consequences of the accident, including radioactive contamination distribution through food chains. This article is complete rubbish. Everything was tightly measured and controlled. The radiation levels required to trigger memory bits (ferrite memory!) in a building next to the train station, through the walls and metal panels enclosing computer blocks and at such a distance, would probably make a cow glow in the dark :) Geiger counters weren’t restricted - they just weren’t sold to the general public. But somehow, after Chernobyl, every one of my friends managed to procure one (I had three). Even the final part about "filling in immigration papers with any country" is implausible. It wasn’t possible to simply emigrate from the Soviet Union to any country. There was a limited Jewish emigration path, but it was far from easy.

wojciii 1y ago
Also I remember reading the exact same "story" on the daily WTF website .. ~20 years ago. It surfaces regularly. :)
indrora 1y ago
All fair. This is likely also related to the (likely stretched) story about a train full of radioactive meat that floated around for a while [0] that seems to get interpreted a little differently each time [1]. [0] https://time.com/4305507/chernobyl-30-agriculture-disaster/#:~:text=Inundated%2C%20workers%20at,zone%20of%20alienation. https://time.com/4305507/chernobyl-30-agriculture-disaster/#... [1] https://origins.osu.edu/milestones/april-2016-eating-you-food-and-chernobyl#:~:text=In%201990%2C%20KGB%20officers%20unearthed%20four%20refrigerated%20train%20cars%20with%20618%20tons%20of%20radioactive%20meat%20that%20had%20been%20rolling%20around%20the%20southwest%20railroad%20for%20four%20years. https://origins.osu.edu/milestones/april-2016-eating-you-foo...