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Off by one errors affecting geopolitics. That's a scary thought. Any other examples out there? There are things like false missile launch positives during the C

• eudox 12y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov Sunlight reflected on clouds, misidentified as the launch of a nuclear missile.
• Demiurge 12y ago
  This doesn't really affect geopolitics any more than any other conspirology. No fingers changed direction because of this.
  • agf 12y ago
    I agree, but change the context just a little and the same error could have convinced people the evidence was faked. The potential is there.
• cpeterso 12y ago
  It's not quite geopolitics, but I read that Facebook showed that some of the Winklevoss lawsuit's emails were (likely) fake because the email headers specified the wrong daylight savings time zone for the year that were supposedly written. Of course I can't find a reference online now..
• ChuckMcM 12y ago
  Well there was the time when the country was mislabelled and the army invaded accidentally. (http://searchengineland.com/nicaragua-raids-costa-rica-blames-google-maps-54885 http://searchengineland.com/nicaragua-raids-costa-rica-blame...)
• mikeash 12y ago
  People know the Cuban Missile Crisis came close to a nuclear war, but many don't know how close. A human off-by-one error there could have started it all. There was a moment on a Soviet submarine where the captain decided to use a nuclear torpedo. He needed two other men to agree to it, and one refused and resisted their attempts to persuade him. If he had been a little weaker willed, or was in a bad mood that day....
  • Houshalter 12y ago
    Other close calls prevented by a single person: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident