Ballistic missile emergency alert mistakenly sent to people in Hawaii

[Slartibartfast]

LOL. What should scare the hell out of everyone is that this "system" was not the design work of one person. Some group of "intellectuals" came up this this, took a final look at their brilliant work and gave the thumbs up. Yep, put that ONE button right there, real close to the done for the day button, so close ONE fat finger could trigger a missile alert. Do we need something in place in case that ONE button accidently gets hit? Maybe some kinda" backup? Na, that'll never happen, our work is done here. Mai Tai anyone.

Before trading I had a lengthy IT career. Something like this is surprising however it is rarely as simple as only a fat finger. But of course it could be, the system was rushed in, perhaps the initially signed off version was very basic. This is all part of the joys if bureaucracy backed projects.

Even in complex vetted (genius designed) systems it is stunning how many things can go wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls

This is really worth a look if interested to see how a string of events just happens leading to near disaster in a very vetted system.

 

[Cuddles]

LOL. What should scare the hell out of everyone is that this "system" was not the design work of one person. Some group of "intellectuals" came up this this, took a final look at their brilliant work and gave the thumbs up. Yep, put that ONE button right there, real close to the done for the day button, so close ONE fat finger could trigger a missile alert. Do we need something in place in case that ONE button accidently gets hit? Maybe some kinda" backup? Na, that'll never happen, our work is done here. Mai Tai anyone.

Not even a "are you sure we're getting nuked?" Prompt?

 

[CaptainObvious]

Before trading I had a lengthy IT career. Something like this is surprising however it is rarely as simple as only a fat finger. But of course it could be, the system was rushed in, perhaps the initially signed off version was very basic. This is all part of the joys if bureaucracy backed projects.

Even in complex vetted (genius designed) systems it is stunning how many things can go wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls

This is really worth a look if interested to see how a string of events just happens leading to near disaster in a very vetted system.

Biggest issue I have with government bureaucracy is that there is seldom any accountability for screw ups. Just a shoulder shrug, we'll fix it and move on. A string of events can certainly happen. Sometimes the stars all line up, the dominos begin to tumble, then a tipping point gets passed and things start going south in a big way.