
I am not planning any nuclear attacks - technicalfault
http://henrysmith.org/blog/2014/08/04/not-planning-any-nuclear-attacks/
======
BrandonMarc
Bruce Schneier calls this the "war on the unexpected". If you take average
people, who aren't experts at security / investigating / etc, and you tell
these people "if you see something, say something", then you're going to get a
ridiculous amount of false positives.

[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/11/the_war_on_th...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/11/the_war_on_the.html)

Everything "unusual" becomes suspicious. See a guy taking photos at an
airport? Must be a terrorist! Can't be a photographer and aviation enthusiast,
no!

As Bruce says, the CYA angle is also horrific. Landlord sees something, thinks
it might be nothing, but just in case, tells the local cops. Cops figure it
might be nothing, but just in case, calls the FBI. Branch office figure it
might be nothing, but just in case, gets regional / national HQ involved.
Somewhere in the chain someone inadvertently gets word to the other 3-letter
agencies, and the effect is magnified.

... and every time it's escalated, people figure "well, the people below me
wouldn't have escalated unless they had reason to" ... while at the same time
thinking, "well, I'm not sure, but I'm also not going to be the scapegoat if I
fail to neutralize a potential attack and something does happen."

Everyone in the chain has plenty to lose and little to gain for _not_
escalating to the next level -- _nobody_ wants to be the guy who missed an
opportunity to stop / neutralize a threat, especially in the unlikely-but-
possible scenario that an attack does occur.

Regarding "if you see something, say something", Rick Moranis had an
intelligent take on that at the beginning of his guest column in the NYTimes:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/opinion/16moranis.html?_r=...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/opinion/16moranis.html?_r=0)

~~~
chimeracoder
This is exactly the problem, as I have myself experienced firsthand.

The 'problem' is that all of us - _everyone_ \- has a number of ways in which
their life is 'unusual'. Aberrant (deviating from the norm) is not inherently
suspicious, because _everyone_ is aberrant in some aspects of their life.
Nobody is truly 'normal'. In fact, if you thoroughly investigated someone and
found nothing that was 'abnormal'[0] in some way, _that_ would be suspicious!

Most people's individual personalities and quirks aren't suspicious if you
look at the whole picture, but when someone's entire job is to find evidence
of 'abnormal' or 'suspicious' things about someone it means that they can
construct a suspicious narrative about _anyone_ , as long as they have the
motivation or interest to[1].

In other words, it simply becomes a game of finding evidence that confirms
one's own (or an organization's own) cognitive or systemic biases.

[0] More than 1 or 2 standard deviations away from the mean, etc.

[1] CYA is a common 'motivation' in this sense.

~~~
BrandonMarc
_In fact, if you thoroughly investigated someone and found nothing that was
'abnormal' in some way, that would be suspicious!_

I've heard spies are sometimes caught this way. Their life-profile is so
deliberately normal that, having no quirks, they actually do stand out as
such.

------
samspot
Devil's Advocate:

You are a nontechnical person and stumble upon what appear to be plans for a
terrorist attack. You talk to the person about it and they say "Don't worry.
is computer game".

A great exploration of this is the 30 Rock episode where Tina Fey reports her
neighbor for what ends up being a plan to get on the show 'The Amazing Race'.

The problem is, not knowing any better, you feel obligated to report the
activity just in case. Let someone much smarter than yourself decide what is
really going on. If you say nothing and someone gets hurt, can you forgive
yourself?

As a hacker, I would understand this is definitely a game. But can I really
expect the same from non-technical people?

~~~
pyre
The problem is that _everyone_ in the chain ends up buying into this. The
police make a record of it 'just in case.' You end up on a no-fly list 'just
in case.' Everyone in the chain is covering their ass 'just in case' this
person really is a terrorist.

No one ends up willing to stick their neck out and say, "this person probably
isn't a terrorist"... just in case.

~~~
dragonwriter
The extreme example of "everyone in the chain" buying into an extreme form of
this thinking came in the form of the "1% doctrine" articulated by then-Vice
President Dick Cheney: "If there's a 1% chance that Pakistani scientists are
helping al-Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a
certainty in terms of our response. It's not about our analysis ... It's about
our response."

~~~
mikeash
Much of the post-9/11 response to terrorism fits it.

"We captured a bunch of people. Some are harmless unfortunate bystanders. Some
are dangerous people who are nevertheless not immune to handcuffs. Still, we'd
better lock them up in harsh conditions without trial _just in case_."

"Iraq probably has no nuclear weapons and no means to deliver one, but we'd
better invade the country _just in case_. We don't want to be wrong and end up
with a mushroom cloud over Manhattan."

~~~
dragonwriter
> Much of the post-9/11 response to terrorism fits it.

Naturally; the "1% Doctrine" was formulated very shortly after 9/11 and, while
the _quote_ articulating it addresses Pakistani scientists aiding al-Qaeda,
the significance is that it was a critical framing mindset from the highest
levels for the Bush Administration policy on terrorism.

------
madaxe_again
Ah, letting agents.

I got evicted from a property years ago because they did a surprise inspection
while I was out (which is, of course, totally illegal), and decided they'd
found "mountains of cocaine" on the kitchen counters.

It was fucking Ajax kitchen cleaning powder. Still, they didn't care. The
police (who they contacted) thought it was laughable, but couldn't do anything
about the fact they were evicting me.

~~~
citricsquid
For the sake of clarity it's worth noting that in England tenant rights are
quite good. For an eviction to take place it must be ordered by the courts and
a landlord can only apply to the courts for possession after providing a
tenant with 2 months notice. A quick eviction in England takes 3 months, an
average eviction is closer to 5 and in some cases it can take much _much_
longer. The only situation in which someone can be evicted with no notice is
if they are a lodger (renting a room with a resident landlord), which wouldn't
involve letting agents or inspections. The confusion over evictions in England
comes from tenants not understanding their rights, a notice to quit (Section
21) is NOT an eviction.

A tenant can only be evicted for rent arrears if they have over 2 months rent
due (and bringing the arrears under 2 months at any time invalidates any court
action), landlords cannot evict if they have not legally protected the tenants
deposit and landlords have no rights to enter a tenanted property unless it is
an emergency.

~~~
kjjw
And then you'll never be able to rent again. At least through a letting agent,
which is how most rentals occur.

~~~
kjjw
I'd love to know why this is down voted, because it is unequivocally true.

Nearly all letting agents (probably all?) in the UK vet potential tenants and
will run various forms of check, including credit checks. They will also ask
for previous addresses, and if previously renting, will demand a reference
from the previous agency and landlord.

~~~
AlyssaRowan
(Not legal advice.)

Someone giving you a bad reference, or refusing to give a reference, because
you won a legal case against them is generally the kind of thing that could
get _another_ legal case started.

~~~
vsl
On what grounds? If the previous landlord gives truthful reference (i.e. no
slander and nothing illegal) when asked, including the trouble they had to go
through to evict you, there's nothing to sue them over.

But that information alone would be very useful input for my decision on
whether to lent to you or not.

------
stevebot
This reminds me so much of an awesome 30 Rock episode where Fred Armisen plays
the middle eastern neighbor of Tina Fey's character. She ultimately gets him
turned in for planning an attack, when he was just preparing for The Amazing
Race with his friend.

Its sad how sensationalist and afraid we have become.

~~~
aroman
I think "cautious" is a better word. What aspect of this story was
sensationalist?

~~~
angersock
The part where a game design document on a whiteboard resulted in referral to
the police?

I think "cautious" is white-washing of the highest caliber.

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downandout
What are the odds that someone leasing a house has control of an ICBM and is
making plans to use it on his home whiteboard? People, especially stupid
people, that can't mind their own business, are both dangerous and endlessly
frustrating. Personally, I hope this guy tries to get the letting agent fired.

------
smcl
Henry I'm not sure if you are checking this thread, and I can't find a way to
contact you on your site but...

I wanted to see more of your posts, so trimmed the URL down to
"[http://henrysmith.org/blog/"](http://henrysmith.org/blog/") and got an error
message "Included file 'navbar.html' not found in _includes directory" at the
top of your page. Clicking your name in the left directs me to henrysmith.org
which doesn't have this problem.

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artumi-richard
I'm doing work with a drug testing company, that generates a lot of stuff you
wouldn't want taken out of context. This kind of stuff: "How's the meth goin?"
\- "Oh great. We're getting loads this week" "And the Steroids" \- " Ah, not
so well. Bob's lab is running behind, they're really busy"

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bencollier49
I'd be livid if something like this happened. I think it's worth this chap
getting the details of the police report, and speaking to someone on the force
directly. He needs to be assured that he won't end up on any "lists".

I'm not sure whether he has any legal recourse over this. I doubt it, but he
has potentially been materially disadvantaged (if indeed, it goes "up the
chain" and he finds visas being denied).

At the very least, he needs to enumerate to his landlord the various ways in
which this could seriously affect him, and ask for a rent reduction.

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kjjw
Par for the course with letting agents in the UK. I'm surprised they didn't
begin evicting the renter. Using a property for work is often prohibited in
the boilerplate rental agreements they charge £100 a time to change the name
on.

~~~
jon-wood
You're doing well to be charged £100. We just renewed our tenancy, and got
charged £120 by the letting agents to process us signing the same agreement we
signed 12 months ago, and update their records to show we're not due to do so
again for another year.

~~~
danparsonson
For anyone else in this situation who is not aware, by default an Assured
Shorthold Tenancy (which you probably have if you're renting all of a self-
contained dwelling) becomes a statutory periodic tenancy (i.e., usually,
rolling monthly on the same terms) at the end of the initial contract period -
this requires no action on the part of anyone involved so you can politely
tell the agents where to stick their £100+ bill, assuming you don't mind being
on a rolling monthly contract. You can of course do this next time you're due
to renew even if you've paid for it before.

I've done this in four out of the five places I've rented over the years (the
fifth being a special case as the landlord wanted to sell) and had no problems
- although I had to argue the point with one agent who initially insisted I
had no choice but to cough up. Pays to know your rights :-)

Sources: This guide is great and used to be on the UK government website:

[http://www.leeds.gov.uk/docs/Tenants%27%20Tenancy%20guide.pd...](http://www.leeds.gov.uk/docs/Tenants%27%20Tenancy%20guide.pdf)

Since superseded by:

[https://www.gov.uk/private-renting](https://www.gov.uk/private-renting)

which sadly doesn't seem to cover as much detail.

~~~
kjjw
This is interesting. I've always been given, along with an initial rental
agreement, a letter dated for the end of the tenancy that asks me to leave the
property. It was my understanding that this is enough for the agent to easily
eject you at the end of the agreement period unless you follow what they want.

~~~
danparsonson
Serving you notice before you've even moved in sounds like a pretty shady
practise to me, and one that I'd be inclined to challenge before I signed
anything.

If they attempt that sorts of trick before you've even paid them a penny, that
doesn't bode well for the rest of the tenancy in my opinion!

------
Bahamut
Sadly, if you look carefully at the pictures, it's pretty clear it's for a
game...and I didn't even need to read that he mentioned that they were game
ideas.

Goes to show how dumb people can be.

~~~
mattmaroon
No it's not. At all. I mean, a rational person might make the assumption that
this guy is not actually whiteboarding an ICBM launch from a rented apartment.
But there's nothing about it indicating to a non-technical person that it's a
game.

~~~
crazypyro
Uhhh? The "mouse click" was a dead give away. Also, Occam's Razor. Is this guy
programming a game in his apartment or is he programming a ICBM with 0 related
hardware plus probably no other corroborating evidence. No reason to act like
it takes more than a couple minutes of investigation to figure this shit out.

Edit: for the guy below me, since I can't reply directly, find me a nuclear
missile guidance system that is destination controlled by a freaking mouse
clicking on a map in the Pentagon and I'll concede the point.

~~~
Zikes
I don't need to find a nuclear missile guidance system that is destination
controlled by a freaking mouse click, because that is not what is being
argued.

What is being argued is that it is not out of the question to expect that such
a system may or could exist. It's not unreasonable to think that it could.

Occam's Razor. Are all of our nukes controlled solely by systems that do not
involve a mouse, or might there be a computer sophisticated enough somewhere
in that launch process that it might make use of a mouse?

~~~
piptastic
I can't even begin to understand how a rational person would think this.

Someone is going to launch a missile from Russia to the United States.. and
this person needs a whiteboard with a crudely drawn line to DC and a blast
radius drawing to help him do it?

I don't even have to read any of the text to know this is ridiculous.

~~~
ForHackernews
Plenty of people designing complicated things do crude whiteboard sketches to
help them discuss or reason at a high level.

How much you want to bet there are whiteboards at NASA with cartoon squiggles
of "Earth" \--> "Mars" on them?

------
Someone1234
Common sense isn't quite as "common" anymore. If you actually read those
diagrams it is pretty obvious (to me) that that is a game, and not some
missile design or "plan" (although who plans a state missile attack from their
apartment?).

~~~
burkaman
From his previous blog post, they could tell it was a game:

“Except… the person who did the inspection did have some concerns about one
thing. There were some… whiteboards? And some… drawings on them?”

“Ah shit! Yeah I totally forgot about those! You mean the nuclear attack
thing, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Yeeeeeah…. Sorry! You see…. It’s for this game I was making! It’s like, a web
thing and it uses Google Maps to simulate a nuclear war.”

“Ahhh, okay! We kind of thought it had something to do with gaming!”

Apparently somebody was still worried about the idea of a realistic nuclear
attack simulation game. Reminds me of the time some kid was arrested for
making a Counterstrike map based on his high school.

~~~
mirkules
> Reminds me of the time some kid was arrested for making a Counterstrike map
> based on his high school.

Nobody seemed to mention this, and I feel quite old saying its, but "Global
Thermonuclear War" was the name of the simulation Matthew Broderick's
character played in "War Games", which should have been another clue to the
authorities or whoever that it's just a game.

~~~
readerrrr
That is the exact name an actual terrorist would use to cleverly hide his real
purpose and thwart the authorities.

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e40
This seems relevant:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc)

Title is "Dont Talk to Police" from 2008. Henry Smith should probably watch
it.

~~~
ckrailo
I love this video so much, a while back I made a Bitly link to make it easy to
remember and share to my friends when out-and-about.

bit.ly/dont_talk_to_police

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apple314159
Wow, sounds like 1990 over again i.e. Steve Jackson Games.

~~~
ryan-c
For those not familiar, Steve Jackson Games makes RPGs and were nearly driven
out of business due to a secret service raid[1] done in response to the "GURPS
Cyberpunk" book (described by the secret service as "a manual for computer
crime") they were working on.

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sundevil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sundevil)

~~~
hyyypr
"This raid is often wrongly attributed to Operation Sundevil, a nation-wide
crackdown on ‘illegal computer hacking activities’ that was occurring about
this time."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GURPS_Cyberpunk#.E2.80.9CThe_b...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GURPS_Cyberpunk#.E2.80.9CThe_book_that_was_seized_by_the_U.S._Secret_Service.E2.80.9D)

~~~
ryan-c
I actually saw that and forgot to update the link to
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_Games,_Inc._v._U...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_Games,_Inc._v._United_States_Secret_Service)

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danneu
Planning a missile strike by drawing a crude world map with an explosion
(labeled "explosion") is like planning a killing spree by drawing a stick
figure with an uzi in each hand mowing down other stick figures.

~~~
readerrrr
Funny/Scary. Imagine that instead of the nuclear war map, the landlords
encountered the image you described. OP would be in detention/questioning
right now.

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smacktoward
Wondering if Introversion Software had to deal with this when they made Defcon
([http://www.introversion.co.uk/defcon/](http://www.introversion.co.uk/defcon/))...

------
murbard2
Shall we play a game? How about Global Thermonuclear War.

~~~
ProAm
The only thing missing from those photos was a telephone and and old school
desktop modem.[1]

[1] [http://pc-museum.com/046-imsai8080/wargames-02.jpg](http://pc-
museum.com/046-imsai8080/wargames-02.jpg)

------
lamontcg
"I am not planning any nuclear attacks as my centrifuges are on the fritz and
I have been unable to procure switches accurate enough to get a good implosion
out of my C4 detonators. Also, it turns out that my ICBM designs are
prohibitively expensive, and the Russians will not let me have access to their
launch sites for some reason."

------
mcguire
That's a hell of a blast radius.

~~~
gone35
Yup it seems off by at least an order of magnitude -- _ie_ even for a
theoretical maximum of 100 megatons.

------
reinier_s4g
hahahaha, awesome!

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notastartup
Law enforcement is full of retarded psycopaths? What's new?

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CalRobert
Something weird-looking about France and Germany there...

~~~
CalRobert
Ah, you guys are no fun. Sheesh. HN is no place for lighthearted banter
apparently. I wear my downvotes with pride.

