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False Alarms in the Nuclear Age (2001)
- bendtheblock 11y agoMore on the training tape incident here, with photos of the hardware and operators: http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb371/ http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb371/ According to press reports, based on Pentagon briefings, a NORAD staffer caused the mistake by mistakenly loading a training/exercise tape into a computer, which simulated an "attack into the live warning system." This was a distortion because it was not a matter of a "wrong tape," but software simulating a Soviet missile attack then testing NORAD's 427M computers "was inexplicably transferred into the regular warning display" at the Command's headquarters. Indeed, NORAD's Commander-in-chief later acknowledged that the "precise mode of failure ? could not be replicated." Fascinating, but frightening.
- iLoch 11y agoif (env == "real" && input.isTest) { // do literally anything other than running a dangerously realistic nuclear launch simulation } Who designs this shit software?
- karmicthreat 11y agoGovernment software contracting companies.
- ablation 11y agoEric Schlosser's 'Command & Control' is a fascinating and very readable look at nuclear accidents and almost-accidents. Recommended if you're interested in this area.
- bendtheblock 11y ago+1 This is where I initially found the story of the tape mishap. Many more terrifying ones in there, especially the one about the B52 disintegrating and dropping a near armed nuclear warhead over North Carolina... http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/20/usaf-atomic-bomb-north-carolina-1961 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/20/usaf-atomic-bom...