

False Alarms in the Nuclear Age (2001) - bendtheblock
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/military/nuclear-false-alarms.html

======
bendtheblock
More 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

        if (env == "real" && input.isTest) {
          // do literally anything other than running a dangerously realistic nuclear launch simulation
        }
    

Who designs this shit software?

~~~
karmicthreat
Government software contracting companies.

------
ablation
Eric 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
+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-
bom...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/20/usaf-atomic-bomb-north-
carolina-1961)

