
Alert About Missile Bound for Hawaii Was Sent in Error, Officials Say - brandonhall
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/13/us/hawaii-missile.html
======
packetslave
Just watched an interview on CNN with the Governor of Hawaii and their
director of emergency management. Pretty impressed that the director didn't
throw anybody under the bus. He basically said "An employee pushed the wrong
button. It's my responsibility, so this is my fault. We're going to make
procedure and technical changes to make sure this doesn't happen again."

~~~
blantonl
A lot of people are calling for the person who did this to be instantly fired,
but I've always been of the opinion that the guy that pushed that button would
be an outstanding hire - because he'll never, ever do something like that
again and he's learned an important lesson.

~~~
packetslave
BINGO. If someone makes a mistake like this, unless it was deliberate or
negligent (e.g. he/she didn't follow established procedures), you don't fire
them! You fix the technical or procedural failures that allowed them to make
the mistake in the first place. Heck, you should probably THANK them for
making the system better by uncovering a bug!

When I was still mostly a Noogler, I took a large portion of Google completely
down worldwide for 6 minutes. Guess what? We did a postmortem, fixed the
procedural and technical problems that allowed it to happen, and I'm still
here!

~~~
sa46
An interesting variation to this thought is:

When is appropriate to fire someone for making a mistake?

Some ideas:

\- gross negligence / malice

\- ethics

\- publicity damage / internet pitchforks

Additionally, it doesn't seem like the forgive mistakes approach meshes well
with the startup advice of "it's never too early to fire."

~~~
Renaud
Incompetence should probably be number one.

There is a big difference between someone making a mistake due to unclear or
incomplete process and someone doing that mistake because they are not
competent to perform that task.

This then raises the issue that hiring and leaving incompetent people in place
is itself proof of an organisational incompetence...

------
amckinlay
This kind of accident has happened many times in the history of the Emergency
Alert System (EAS)[1] and the earlier Emergency Broadcast System (EBS). The
false alarm of 1971[2] actually revealed a major flaw in the EBS. During the
incident, a legitimate national alert initiation message was erroneously
broadcast instead of the scheduled test message. Many stations did not
propagate the message as required because of confusion caused by receiving it
within the time window of a scheduled test. Interestingly, this revealed a
major flaw in the system in the event of a real emergency: that an adversary
could time its attack with a test broadcast of the EBS, rendering the system
generally ineffective.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Alert_System#Inciden...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Alert_System#Incidents)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Broadcast_System#Fal...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Broadcast_System#False_alarm_of_1971)

------
intopieces
If I were going to erode public trust in emergency broadcast systems in order
to increase the amount of damage I would do by launching an actual missile,
this is how I would do it. A series of false alarms.

A similar, if obviously much smaller and less disastrous example, happens at
my apartment about 4 times a week: the fire alarms for entire floors of my
apartment building are easily triggered by people smoking in the breeze ways
or burning their dinner. The result is that I routinely ignore fire alarms
because the likelihood of a real fire is has been demonstrated to be
exceedingly small.

~~~
dogma1138
A ballistic missile heading for Hawaii would be nuclear, the amount of
additional loss of life that would incur from “damaging the public’s trust” in
the early warning system would be pretty much negligible if the missile hits
any major population center. This is basically not an issue for nuclear
missiles for something more like to the situation in southern Israel with
conventional unguided munitions blindly shot at their general direction it
might work but if a nuke could get you it would do it regardless if you duck
and cover or not.

~~~
Tuna-Fish
> but if a nuke could get you it would do it regardless if you duck and cover
> or not.

This is just not true. The area in which the nuke will get everyone regardless
is less than a tenth of the area where taking precautions would save you.

This is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. People widely laugh at "duck and cover"
as if it was some huge joke. Even at the height of the cold war when the nuke
stocks were at their largest, only a small portion of the population would be
screwed regardless of what they did. While the majority of the population
would be at a distance from the closest explosion where ducking and covering
would save them.

~~~
dfox
Another thing that constantly astonishes me is how the immediate direct damage
caused by any kind of intentional explosion is consistently overestimated by
public at large. I largely blame action movies where C4 block of the size
typically used for initiating industrial explosives in bore holes is often
shown as leveling complete buildings.

~~~
megaman22
Or war movies, where a round from a tank gun or small artillery piece
completely wrecks a house. I have a handful of decommissioned 76mm tank
destroyer rounds, probsbly from an M18 Hellcat - comparable to most WW2 tank
guns. It's about the size of a one-liter soda bottle, and a significant
portion of that is aerodynamic casing, propellant, and fuse.

It's interesting, too, to read historical accounts of sieges in the Napoleonic
and earlier eras; it would take days or weeks of pounding by breaching
batteries of heavy cannon to reduce masonry walls to effect a breach and allow
an assault over the pile of broken rubble remaining, in a bloody, hand-to-hand
melee. And often there would be so much time between firings that the
defenders could rebuild new defenses in depth behind the breach. Unless a
powder magazine was struck, massive damage was relatively rare.

------
makecheck
An interesting Reddit comment described a chaotic traffic situation for 20
minutes (people running lights, wrong-side-of-the-road driving, extreme speed,
etc.). Human nature in these moments is very “Tragedy of the Commons”
apparently.

~~~
smitherfield
Link?

~~~
makecheck
[https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/7q67a1/emergency_aler...](https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/7q67a1/emergency_alert_about_ballistic_missile_sent_to/dsmp325/)

------
nstj
I woke up to this this morning on the island of Oahu. People running around on
the street freaking out and police / fire engine sirens going off.

Everyone cheered when the “False alarm” SMS came through across the phones.

Secure your networks people - this electronic psyops stuff is real.

~~~
craftyguy
Why are people running around in the streets freaking out when they are told
to seek cover because there is an incoming missile?

~~~
nsxwolf
Nobody teaches anyone about cover during a nuclear strike anymore. In fact,
the concept is frequently mocked as cynical Cold War era propaganda.

~~~
djsumdog
The mocking isn't unjustifiable though. I mean the turtle/duck and cover is
quite pointless, at least in the case of a nuclear strike (unless you're maybe
on the far edge of it, in which case a ditch might save you..and that's big
might).

In the documentary "Iraq: The Untold Story", the creator shows civilian air
raid shelters in Baghdad. They were four stories down, with the upper floors
all reinforced concrete. Yet there were powerless against US bunker busting
bombs, and the hundreds of civilians in the shelters that were hit all died.

~~~
Houshalter
Have you ever looked at pictures of the aftermath of Hiroshima? People who
weren't behind cover survived the immediate blast but got horrifying burns.

~~~
namelost
What happened to the people who were behind cover?

~~~
refurb
If I remember correctly, others was a man in a basement only a few hundred
feet from ground zero who survived relatively unscathed.

Don't underestimate the protection cover can offer!.

------
Stratoscope
A lot of comments making fun of the "duck and cover" advice, but consider
this: Many people suffered serious injury from the Chelyabinsk meteor when
they went to a window to see the spectacle, not realizing the shock wave would
follow a few seconds later and shatter the windows into their faces.

If they had gotten away from the windows and ducked and covered, they would
have been fine.

------
runesoerensen
So it took 38 minutes to send out a new message informing this was a false
alert. How is that possible if this was simply a human error during a "shift
change"?

You'd think the people who "pressed the wrong button" would be able to press
the same button again?

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _You 'd think the people who "pressed the wrong button" would be able to
> press the same button again?_

Absolutely not. Once you say “fire” you need official confirmation to say “no
fire”.

That means certification from the military. The official needed being in a
meeting or tending to something of greater importance could easily introduce
delays.

In any case, I presume the system’s designers didn’t build in an “oops, fat
finger” notification. Getting that ready could have easily taken 30 minutes.
This happened on a week-end. The coders could have very well been at home.

~~~
anigbrowl
If you're engaged in a drill that's a completely predictable failure mode
which you should have a standby plan for.

 _This happened on a week-end. The coders could have very well been at home._

Again, why would you perform a drill involving mass emergency mobilization and
not manage that risk? What if this had happened during a morning commute or in
some part of the country where people are more easily panicked?

With great power comes great responsibility, remember?

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _why would you perform a drill_

Was this a drill? I understood it to be an unplanned mistake.

~~~
roywiggins
The White House put out a statement calling it a drill, but that hasn't been
confirmed anywhere else, so.

------
MollyR
So a test drill went wrong.

It makes sense to have drills right now, India (tests with war against China
and Pakistan), China (Telling their soldiers to be prepared to die for China),
Russia(tests against Nato), and North Korea (getting ready for war with the
US) are all having military tests for basically what will quickly become
another world war.

We are really at a big crossroads as a large amount of people are rejecting
globalization in many different countries. And with such major powers willing
to fight hard for resources like Ukraine, South China Sea, Oil Eu pipelines,
and not even mentioning the increasing gulf between various countries on core
ideologies and creeds.

We really are at a new and dangerous crossroads.

~~~
Lunar_Lamp
I'd argue it makes sense to have test drills simply because the system exists:
much like backups need testing, so do emergency systems. I'm not sure that the
current state of the world should influence whether or not the systems are
tested.

~~~
major505
tests and training shold be done ever as possible. But in times like now, that
war seens more iminent than ever it would make sense intensifing this tests.

------
r721
"Amid public outcry over the incident, the Hawaiian government also released a
timeline of what transpired after the false alarm:

Approx. 8:05 a.m. – A routine internal test during a shift change was
initiated. This was a test that involved the Emergency Alert System, the
Wireless Emergency Alert, but no warning sirens.

8:07 a.m. – A warning test was triggered statewide by the State Warning Point,
HI-EMA.

8:10 a.m. – State Adjutant Maj. Gen. Joe Logan, validated with the U.S.
Pacific Command that there was no missile launch. Honolulu Police Department
notified of the false alarm by HI-EMA.

8:13 a.m. – State Warning Point issues a cancellation of the Civil Danger
Warning Message. This would have prevented the initial alert from being
rebroadcast to phones that may not have received it yet. For instance, if a
phone was not on at 8:07 a.m., if someone was out of range and has since came
into cell coverage (Hikers, Mariners, etc.) and/or people getting off a plane.

8:20 a.m. – HI-EMA issues public notification of cancellation via their
Facebook and Twitter accounts.

8:24 a.m. – Governor Ige retweets HI-EMA’s cancellation notice.

8:30 a.m. – Governor posts cancellation notification to his Facebook page.

8:45 a.m. – After getting authorization from FEMA Integral Public Alert and
Warning System, HIEMA issued a “Civil Emergency Message” remotely. The
following action was executed by the Emergency Alert System (EAS): 1\. EAS
message over Local TV/Radio Audio Broadcast & Television Crawler Banner.
“False Alarm. There is no missile threat to Hawaii.” “False Alarm. There is no
missile threat or danger to the State of Hawaii. Repeat. There is no missile
threat or danger to the State of Hawaii. False Alarm.” 2\. Wireless Emergency
Alert (WEA) “False Alarm. There is no missile threat or danger to the State of
Hawaii.”

9:30 a.m. – Governor makes initial media notification.

9:34 a.m. – Governor’s message posted to his Facebook and Twitter accounts."

[http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/hawaii-releases-
timeline-o...](http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/hawaii-releases-timeline-of-
what-transpired-after-false-ballistic-missile-warning/article/2645874)

------
downandout
I'm surprised the discussion here hasn't veered toward what actually happened.
Technical glitch/human error? Hacked emergency alert system? Missile actually
was on the way, but being a cheap North Korean one, it fell into the ocean on
the way?

There are lots of potential explanations...whatever happened, there is stuff
to work on in the aftermath of this. Barring the idea that it was an actual
missile that failed to hit its target, if these alert systems are vulnerable,
that's a bad thing. This could have caused serious chaos in a large city like
New York. Techniques like this could be used to cause gridlock before a
terrorist attack, suppress voter turnout on election days, etc.

~~~
anonfunction
The emergency notice was triggered after an “employee pushed the wrong button”
during a shift change at the state’s emergency management agency, Governor
David Ige said at a press conference in Honolulu.

Source: [http://fortune.com/2018/01/13/hawaii-false-missile-
alert/](http://fortune.com/2018/01/13/hawaii-false-missile-alert/)

~~~
downandout
I'm aware that he said that, and that may be the actual explanation (let's
hope so), but even then there is work to be done - maybe adding authentication
or confirmation to it etc. That said, this is a situation where if it were
more serious (someone hacked in, for example), they'd almost certainly lie
about it.

------
euvitudo
Human error or crying wolf aside, it's an interesting exercise from which
residents can learn what is truly lacking in the case of such an emergency.

Hopefully instead of seeking to cast blame or personnel firings, etc., folks
will learn what it is they lack in emergency response.

~~~
ilaksh
I am sure that I will also get buried here, but if someone intentionally
pressed that 'button' then I believe they are the actual emergency response
leader and should be put in charge of the effort statewide.

A drill is supposed to tell you how close or far away you are from being
prepared. A surprise drill is going to be much more effective. The threat is
so great, if there haven't been serious drills in a long time then they were
overdue.

------
Flammy
Well, it will be interesting if any researchers look into people's actual
behavior within the first few minutes of the notification before the 'false
alarm, never mind' message went out to see how effective this was as an
emergency alert, even if unplanned.

------
jmadsen
Not a terrible thing to have happened, tbh

Now we get to see & analyze the "real life" reaction to this dress rehearsal.
I'm sure everyone knew without this that a real alert would be full of SNAFUs,
but you don't usually get a chance to see what they would really be if
everyone actually believed the alert was real.

Hopefully (and I think they will ) they'll be smart enough to use this rare
opportunity.

------
f-
So I posted something along these lines in another, now-duped thread... but I
know that many folks were caught completely off guard and started wondering
what they would have done in case of a real threat. Many just cracked Twitter
jokes about dying in a blaze of glory.

For folks who want to understand the actual dangers and survivability of an
ICBM strike, I strongly suggest a book from the 1960s written by one of the
folks involved in the US nuclear program during the Cold War:

[http://www.madisoncountyema.com/nwss.pdf](http://www.madisoncountyema.com/nwss.pdf)

It cuts through many of the Hollywood-perpetuated myths - the certain and
painful death in case of a nuclear strike, or the 10,000-year radioactive
wasteland that's going to be left behind.

For example, it discusses why the oft-ridiculed duck-and-cover strategy is
actually surprisingly effective. The primary threat from an air burst is very
conventional - a shockwave and an intense burst of thermal radiation. Shelter
- any shelter - greatly improves your survival odds.

The fallout from air bursts is comparatively modest (i.e., tends to be far
lower than from an event such as Chernobyl) and while lethal, it decays very
rapidly - dropping to reasonably safe levels in a matter of days, not
centuries. Staying sheltered for 2-10 days greatly improves your odds, and the
thickness of material between you and any surfaces that gather dust (roofs,
ground) matters more than anything else. Here's a handy chart:

[http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/58cc34b9112f7043268...](http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/58cc34b9112f7043268b4bb4-1151)

In other words, having enough food and water in your home to weather out a
nasty stowstorm also makes you well-prepared for the nuclear apocalypse.
Mattresses and bulky furniture provide decent shielding when all other options
fail.

The long-term effect of fallout tend to be exaggerated, too; water from
streams, deep lakes, or wells should be safe or get safe very quickly.
Removing a layer of topsoil allows relatively safe crops to be grown. Mild
radiation sickness, at the levels where people start experiencing vomiting and
hair loss, is actually pretty survivable and has a relatively modest impact on
your odds of developing cancer later in life.

(Plus, keep in mind that more than 2,000 nuclear tests have been conducted so
far, including around 900 in Nevada alone; while they had some statistically
observable negative effects, they have not turned the world into a nuclear
wasteland.)

Of course, don't get me wrong - even a single nuclear strike would be awful,
and a large-scale confrontation would mean untold damages and loss of life.
But the important point is that a lot of people would survive and would be
able to do well in the aftermath - more so if we teach them about some common-
sense preparedness steps.

The main reason why our understanding of the nuclear risk is so lopsided is
because for decades, many nuclear disarmament activists (including many
prominent screenwriters, celebrities, and pundits) had a vested interested in
portraying the already-awful outcomes of a potential nuclear war as far less
survivable and far more hopeless than in reality; the mockery of duck-and-
cover, the "barren wasteland" imagery in the movies, and the largely-
discredited scientific theories like the "nuclear winter"... all helped to
advance (otherwise noble) goals, but at the expense of teaching people that
there's nothing they can do save themselves.

Plus, of course, after Cold War, we have fewer reasons to worry. It's hard to
top the Cuban Missile Crisis. There's plenty of politicized hyperbole around
nuclear tensions right now, but the reality is that a large-scale strike on
the US is a lot less likely than throughout a good part of the 20th century.

PS. I have a short summary of NWSS and some other points about this topic (and
other, more mundane but plausible hazards) in my "Doomsday Prepping for Less
Crazy Folk" \-
[http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/prep/](http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/prep/)

~~~
snowpanda
>[http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/prep](http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/prep)

Did you write this? This is great!

~~~
rocqua
It was discusson on HN 5 months ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15110850](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15110850)

------
nodesocket
This should not happen, yet time after time we see that critical American
infrastructure and systems are run worse than a pre-revenue bay area chat
startup. American infrastructure needs to invest and hire/pay for the same
quality that bay area startups do. Let four people go that are inept and less
qualified and pay a single solid person market salary.

Besides the fear and chaos potentially caused to people in Hawaii there are
financial implications if the stock market were open.

~~~
sehugg
_American infrastructure needs to invest and hire /pay for the same quality
that bay area startups do._

Looking through the Github and Slack system status pages for this month so far
... I don't know that's exactly the model to follow.

~~~
Deimorz
20 minutes after everyone has already figured out that they've been hit by a
missile, you'd get an alert: "We are currently investigating reports of
increased explosion rates."

~~~
FLUX-YOU
>"We are currently investigating reports of increased explosion rates."

Status lights will still all be green

~~~
user5994461
All status lights were hosted on S3 and the AWS datacenters were hit first.

------
vtail
I’m in Hawaii and received it this morning. First thought: there is probably
no shelter close by anyway, and if they would send a missile they would
probably target Honolulu (I’m in Kauai).

~~~
davidp
I know this isn't a comforting thought, but: Missiles from the most likely
source (North Korea) are not thought to have very good accuracy. They may be
as likely to hit Kauai or the big island (or the ocean nearby) as Honolulu.

I hope this event wasn't too stressful for you and your family.

~~~
ju-st
They would probably send multiple warheads to increase the odds...

~~~
justin66
That's trickier than you'd think. You either have to send the warheads one
_well_ after the other, or you have to set them up so they detonate at
_precisely_ the same time, so as to avoid the first warhead to detonate
destroying all the others. (This is why, at one time, missile silos were
placed relatively close together. The enemy could presumably get one of them
in a preemptive strike, but not all of them.)

At Korea's level of technology, for example, you'd probably just pick a
secondary target in some other place entirely.

------
Simulacra
I've read that it was a human error when someone pushed the wrong button. I
feel bad for that person.

~~~
haeric
I'm sure the UI looked like this:

[clear] [send and cause panic in 1.4 million people]

~~~
jschwartzi
But it was on a Windows CE device with a resistive screen and the user lost
the stylus.

------
napsterbr
Any reason why it would take 30+ minutes to rectify the mistake?

~~~
JumpCrisscross
Civilian governments would have had to get clarity from a military caught off
guard. Something as simple as the appropriate official being in a meeting
could introduce delays.

~~~
charlesdm
You'd assume a potential strike by an incoming missile is important enough to
interrupt said meeting?

~~~
JumpCrisscross
If NORAD said “incoming missile strike,” sure. That isn’t what happened.

The civilian notification system sent out a false positive. Saying “false
alarm” would require, at that point, asking the military for affirmative
confirmation nothing is wrong. That is a lower priority than responding to an
active threat.

~~~
anigbrowl
This is irrational. If you know a false alarm has occurred then you are
endangering people by allowing them to believe the existence of an active
threat. I feel like I'm stuck in a car with someone driving off a cliff
because the GPS said so even though the edge of the cliff is perfectly visible
though the windscreen.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
You’re bickering over a thirteen minute delay between a mistake and a
correction.

~~~
anigbrowl
A mistake that could easily have caused mass public panic and which there was
no contingency in place for. That's not OK.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _could easily have caused mass public panic_

Could. It didn’t. This was a mistake. You’re being irrational.

~~~
anigbrowl
No I'm not. Imagine the same mistake happening in New York at 9 in the morning
on a workday (remind you of anything?), or during some large public event
where there was the potential for a stampede - hardly uncommon. Just because
you get away with something without serious consequences once doesn't mean
it's not problematic.

------
exabrial
Hopefully, THAAD and Aegis work in real life as they have practice. I guess
the other comfort is that North Korea is likely a one-trick pony with a
nuclear device (if they _have_ managed to miniaturize it). What is scarier is
the anthrax antibodies found in the North Korean defector :/

I'm hoping the withdrawal of exercises of the USA and peace talks actually get
us somewhere, but we've been to the table 100 times, I don't see much
changing.

------
dboreham
Pro tip: if you are conducting a drill, refrain from using the words "THIS IS
NOT A DRILL".

~~~
Johnny555
Now that they've already said that, next time they have to add "WE REALLY MEAN
IT THIS TIME".

~~~
quadcore
Do we really use capital letters for an alarm?

------
leothekim
Serious question: where would one seek shelter if that notification were true?

~~~
subcosmos
The more underground you are, the better. Shield from those gamma photons!

If that ain't an option, jumping into the ocean doesn't seem like such a
terrible idea.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _jumping into the ocean doesn 't seem like such a terrible idea_

That’s a terrible idea. You’d be directly exposed when at the surface and end
up inhaling fall-out.

~~~
subcosmos
Of course I was sarcastically implying that you would immediately swim to the
mainland

------
chki
I actually wonder why this warning can be send in the first place. As this
unwanted "test" has shown, people have absolutely no idea what to/where to go
in that situation. Instead there was a lot of panic. If there is the
possibility that you will send out such a message it would be a good idea to
give some advice on what to do.

~~~
vilhelm_s
When they reinstated the alert system, they also put out a bunch of campaigns
about how you should take shelter. [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-
america/hawaii-reinstates...](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-
america/hawaii-reinstates-attack-warning-siren-prepare-possible-north-korean-
missile-n823821)

------
subcosmos
[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/08/us/dallas-emergency-
siren...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/08/us/dallas-emergency-sirens-
hacking.html)

~~~
subcosmos
[https://twitter.com/DEFCONWSALERTS/status/952248265260634112](https://twitter.com/DEFCONWSALERTS/status/952248265260634112)

------
baxtr
There you again: it is useful to have a testing environment.

[https://nwschat.weather.gov/p.php?pid=201801131825-PHFO-
NOHW...](https://nwschat.weather.gov/p.php?pid=201801131825-PHFO-
NOHW40-PNSHFO)

------
djsumdog
So either this was a security breach, a human mistake or a psyops/test on a
small isolated American population.

In the first case, we'll probably only be told about it if they actually make
an arrest and the system is patched.

The second is an interesting case, we'll come back to.

The final one: it was intentional and used to track what happened on the
islands, and to also watch that information propagate back to the mainland. I
feel like all of America has forgotten about PRISM/the NSA. With their immense
data collection architectures and ties to large tech companies, they could
easily filter the keywords and images they want, and get measurements of how
quickly this information propagates and how people react.

Even more freaky, they can use language processing to even get numbers about
what people might be feeling! I think we've all forgotten about this and it
should be a chilling affect.

In the final case, we will, of course, never know. Anyone who suggests it will
be called a conspiracy theorist (even though there is evidence the US
government has preformed operations like this in the past, e.g. COINTELPRO)
and the official line will be either reason 1 or 2 .. possibly with a patsy to
arrest if need be. The truth will be declassified in 30~40 years so some
people will be able to say "I told you so," but long beyond the time period
anyone will actually care.

~~~
uabstraction
I'll go right ahead and call you a conspiracy theorist. If you think The US
intelligence community would go out of their way to stir up a panic like this
just because CoIntelPro was a thing 50 years ago, with no other evidence or
reasonable motives, you must be a UFO chasing loon.

If there is anything nefarious here (seems like it), this is the work of a
foreign state actor probing our infrastructure for exploitable weaknesses and
sizing up our response. I'll put my money on Russia, who has already been
attacking our elections¹, energy infrastructure², social media, and
spearphishing candidates and elected officials³.

They have conducted similar attacks in the past, sending out tweets and text
message alerts to hundreds of people for nonexistent emergencies⁴.

[1]
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-13/russian-b...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-13/russian-
breach-of-39-states-threatens-future-u-s-elections)

[2] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/russi...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/russian-hackers-penetrated-us-electricity-grid-through-a-utility-in-
vermont/2016/12/30/8fc90cc4-ceec-11e6-b8a2-8c2a61b0436f_story.html)

[3] [https://www.secureworks.com/research/threat-
group-4127-targe...](https://www.secureworks.com/research/threat-
group-4127-targets-hillary-clinton-presidential-campaign)

[4] [https://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-
agency.ht...](https://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-
agency.html?_r=0&referer=https://duckduckgo.com/)

~~~
tensor
You say he's a conspiracy theorist and then jump to Russia gaining access to
the emergency alert system? Seriously? Both these scenarios sound equally
probably or improbable to me.

~~~
maxerickson
Pranksters hack the emergency alert system on a semi-regular basis.

So the plausibility of Russia doing it would be based on whether they would
bother or not.

~~~
tambienben
Pranksters=/=Russia.

~~~
maxerickson
I didn't say otherwise. I implied that if pranksters can pull off a hack it is
likely that Russia also can.

~~~
tambienben
So why implicate Russia at all, if its so easy? Sounds like a red herring to
me, and also just as conspiratorial as the parent comment.

~~~
FLUX-YOU
Both Russia and NK have obvious motives and capability to do it.

It doesn't mean you stop looking for causes or eliminate human error though.

The viability of Russia/NK depends on how the EAS network is set up in Hawaii.
If they have internet-facing servers, it's completely possible.

~~~
tambienben
Still, implicating other countries so soon seems premature and reactonary to
me. Its like corporate news jumping to 'terrorism' immediately after any
domestic tragedy. Our threat models need to include more than just nation
states. Otherwise, we end up contributing to escalation through untethered
fear.

------
Simulacra
Serious question: for those of you reading this, how would you have responded
in those 30 minutes?

~~~
matt4077
I would seek shelter in a subway station. It’s not perfect in terms of
protection, because the ventilation system would pump in radioactivity as long
as there’s still power. But it would allow me to get to any place 20km away
from city center without going above ground once.

Or, you know, a vodka soda.

~~~
seba_dos1
Some lines, like part of the M1 metro line in Warsaw, are somewhat prepared to
serve as a shelter.

------
sumoboy
Every public warning system processes will be under scrutiny Monday morning. I
wonder what the military was thinking when they saw that message, like "what
dumbass sent this out"?

------
nfread
Why was ‘test’ button even attempted only to worker ‘hitting’ wrong button,
it’s not the 1st of the month ( usual test day for alert siren test)?

------
m3kw9
I was just thinking they are testing the network on one of the smallest areas
in the US. You know with NK threatening to press the button

------
jordache
damn man.. we have a more robust process in place for releasing our CRUD web
app than they have to triggering a nuclear alert. That entire vertical branch
of gov agency needs a heavy dose of slap in the face

------
brerlapn
A number of folks have asked if anyone knows more details on how a false alert
could have been issued. I had some exposure to conversations about these
alerts a few years ago, so a few thoughts. This isn't based on extensive
experience, but provides a bit more background than you'll get from the news
stories I've seen, and if you're burning with curiosity this should give you
some jumping off points to research it further.

Although FEMA is actively developing more robust controls for their IPAWS
system, the controls on user behavior and what functions can be triggered in
the system have limited capabilities to enforce restrictions (one would be the
requirement for a digital signature to accept a CAP message as valid). If you
listen to the press conference [2] Hawaii says they will now be using a 'two
person rule' which indicates that the most significant controls they have are
manual/behavioral (not automated in the system by user roles or automated
workflows based on state policies). Few information systems do much more than
have a few coarsely-permissioned user roles, though, so it's not like FEMA or
Hawaii has tried to cheap out on the functionality - it's just not a very
common capability and emergency alerts isn't a mission where you want to be
using 'interesting new tools' that aren't well tested.

There are several alerting systems - the Emergency Alert System (EAS), the
Wireless Alert System (WEA), and Non-Weather Emergency Alerts (NWEM). States
use FEMA's IPAWS system for sending alerts, which [1] this one seems to have
been sent through (localities don't necessarily participate in IPAWS, which is
voluntary, but the Hawaii EMA was the one that sent this). Some questions I
would have about this would be: \- IPAWS messages must have a digital
signature to be accepted by the system, however based the Hawaii EMA press
conference and articles which say 'an employee made an error' I would guess
that the digital signature is not used in a way that is actually tied to the
official authorized to declare the alert but to is accessible to their whole
emergency Operations Group. \- Are they sending test messages with that
signature? With a 'two-person rule', it sounds from the press conference that
it isn't enforced by the machine (not like having two keys which both have to
be turned to send the message) but by the first person stepping away from the
machine and letting the other person push the "are you sure you want to send
this?" button. That doesn't seem much better, but changing the system to do
that gets away from the basic CAP architecture and isn't likely to happen
soon.

The FCC is currently working on a proceeding regarding updating WEA to allow
more geographic targeting of alerts, the way the other alerts can be targeted
at specific locales. The current system dates back to 2011 or 2012, and is
pretty coarsely-targeted, which is probably why you're getting Amber Alerts on
your phone for a town that is 6 hours away just because it's in your state.
You can find it at Proceeding Numbers 15-91 and 15-94 [3].

[1] You can see the message here, which archives messages sent via IPAWS:
[http://ipawsnonweather.alertblogger.com/?p=18764](http://ipawsnonweather.alertblogger.com/?p=18764)
[2] [http://dod.hawaii.gov/hiema/press-conference-missile-
alarm-l...](http://dod.hawaii.gov/hiema/press-conference-missile-alarm-live-
stream/) [3] [https://www.fcc.gov/fcc-announces-comment-dates-
rulemaking-s...](https://www.fcc.gov/fcc-announces-comment-dates-rulemaking-
strengthen-wireless-emergency-alerts-public-safety-tool)

This gives some more technical details on IPAWS and the Common Access Protocol
that these messages use:
[https://www.fema.gov/pdf/emergency/ipaws/ipaws_cap_mg.pdf](https://www.fema.gov/pdf/emergency/ipaws/ipaws_cap_mg.pdf)

------
jogundas
Hackers?

~~~
packetslave
no

------
e0m
ENV=prod is never a good default…

------
gtcode
I received a second alert just over an hour ago.
[https://i.imgur.com/Rc8cfO7.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/Rc8cfO7.jpg)

~~~
gtcode
Nobody else besides me has received a second alert, that I know of, I've
posted it like 30 times on twitter under #Hawaii and #MissileAlert etc

Context: I tweeted to someone who was upset about it all, "All your alert are
belong to us", then immediately received the second false alarm:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXGnAMp9Nvk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXGnAMp9Nvk)

------
jacksmith21006
Not to sound crude but if a nuclear bomb what can people on an island really
do?

~~~
BjoernKW
It doesn't matter if you're on an island or not.

An ICBM (which is what you're usually talking about with nuclear bombs) takes
about 30 minutes to reach its destination, which will be a large population
centre.

So, you have less than 30 minutes to get out of a large city. Because you
won't be the only one to try this there will be major congestion on top of the
usual city traffic. Public transport could be an option but I wouldn't be so
sure that trains keep running either once such an alert has been issued.

~~~
PeterisP
The total destruction radius of current ICBM warheads is much smaller than
large population centres - if you live in one, and a single 2-5 megaton nuke
would hit it, you likely won't die even if you stayed where you are (but
duck&cover'ed, preferably in a basement, to avoid the secondary effects)
because that nuke would hit some other district of your city; for any major
population center the expected casualties from a single hit are just a small
portion of the total population.

------
Feniks
Nice going fools. Next time people will just ignore it. Hope somebody gets
fired for this.

------
inlined
Superfluous but still somehow angering part of the article:

"Per White House pool reports, Trump was out on a golf course when the alert
was sent."

------
mozumder
Meanwhile, Trump went ahead and finished his 18 holes of golf while 1.5
million Americans were told a ballistic missile was headed their way.

~~~
azernik
Finished his 18 holes when the US military had issued no warning of missile
attack, and the proper bureaucratic processes were dealing with the situation.

I don't like the guy, but it's not on him to immediately and personally react
to this kind of situation. Maybe a nice reassuring speech after the fact
(which I doubt will be forthcoming or satisfying).

~~~
mozumder
It actually is his responsibility, since it's a Federally designed system by
the FCC. All the faults and benefits of the federal government ends on his
desk. The buck stops with him, and we need to hold his feet to the fire on
this issue.

"Why did this happen? What are you doing to make sure it doesn't happen
again?"

Right now there are way too many people apologizing for his complacency (I
guess people have normalized his uselessness at this point?), when it needs to
be clear that he's responsible for this shit, too.

------
_Codemonkeyism
Classic destabilization tactics.

~~~
jstanley
On whose part?

------
paulie_a
I will go out on a limb and say someone hacked the system and decided to prank
an entire state.

Fun fact, in my small hometown you could and possibly still activate the
tornado warning system using DTMF and a transmitter on some frequency in the
149mhz range.

To clarify, I never actually attempted it but I had a uniden radio scanner in
my teens and noticed the pattern for the 12:00 test.

~~~
Overtonwindow
Perhaps similar to that town in Texas where hackers set off the air raid siren
nonstop in the middle of the night.

------
rumcajz
Ok, I hope that the people who got scared shitless by this emergency start
doing something against nuclear weapons. It's ludicrous: We can all die any
day and ICAN, the people who helped to pass the ban on nuclear weapons and got
Nobel prize for it are raising money at a rate of $50 a day.

~~~
Houshalter
What do you want to do about it? Go to war with North Korea?

------
mxuribe
Doesn't everyone know that the best defense against such an attack is: "duck
and cover"? Further, the desks of school children could be used as
shelter/cover since everyone knows that these desks are made of the most
powerful adamantium/vibranium alloy.

~~~
iends
I also keep an old refrigerator in my house to climb into.

~~~
coldtea
[https://www.quora.com/How-did-people-survived-the-impact-
of-...](https://www.quora.com/How-did-people-survived-the-impact-of-the-
Hiroshima-atomic-bomb)

That refrigerator would have been very handy here too:

"DŌ-OH WAS ABOUT THREE-FOURTHS OF A MILE FROM THE HYPOCENTER, INSIDE A
MITSUBISHI TORPEDO FACTORY. THE MASSIVE...FACTORY COLLAPSED ON TOP OF HER AND
THOUSANDS OF OTHERS".

[https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/08/150809-atomic-
bo...](https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/08/150809-atomic-bomb-
hiroshima-nagasaki-radiation-world-war-II-ngbooktalk/)

