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Fake 'Inbound Missile' Alert Sent To Every Cellphone in Hawaii (chicagotribune.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the aloha dept.

"Somebody sent out a false emergency alert to all cell phones in Hawaii saying, 'BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL'," writes Slashdot reader flopwich, adding "Somebody's had better days at work." The Associated Press reports: In a conciliatory news conference later in the day, Hawaii officials apologized for the mistake and vowed to ensure it will never happen again. Hawaii Emergency Management Agency Administrator Vern Miyagi said the error happened when someone hit the wrong button. "We made a mistake," said Miyagi. For nearly 40 minutes, it seemed like the world was about to end in Hawaii, an island paradise already jittery over the threat of nuclear-tipped missiles from North Korea...

On the H-3, a major highway north of Honolulu, vehicles sat empty after drivers left them to run to a nearby tunnel after the alert showed up, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported. Workers at a golf club huddled in a kitchen fearing the worst... The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency tweeted there was no threat about 10 minutes after the initial alert, but that didn't reach people who aren't on the social media platform. A revised alert informing of the "false alarm" didn't reach cellphones until 38 minutes later, according to the time stamp on images people shared on social media.

21 of 227 comments (clear)

  1. Brown Pants by jwhyche · · Score: 5, Funny

    Bring me my Brown Pants!!

    --
    I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
    1. Re:Brown Pants by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 5, Funny

      From Red Dwarf:

      Kryten: "I suggest we go to red alert."
      Cat: "Forget red alert. I say we go straight to brown alert!"
      Kryten: "But sir, we don't have brown alert."
      Cat: "You won't be saying that in a minute...and don't say I didn't alert you!"

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      #DeleteChrome
  2. Orson Welles was an amateur. by sehlat · · Score: 4, Funny

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  3. Why did it take 40 minutes to correct? by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This message ostensibly was sent to every cell phone in Hawaii - didn't the guy who "pushed the wrong button" get the alert as well?

    And seriously - their first thought when sending out a correction was a Tweet? Don't they have the ability to send an "all clear" over the same channel they sent the "LOOK OUT YOU'RE ABOUT TO DIE!!!" message?

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    1. Re:Why did it take 40 minutes to correct? by Jeremi · · Score: 5, Informative

      Don't they have the ability to send an "all clear" over the same channel they sent the "LOOK OUT YOU'RE ABOUT TO DIE!!!" message?

      No, apparently they do not:

      "[Emergency alerts] aren't like text messages, where a sender can dash off a quick 'sorry my bad' if they mistype. IPAWS notices have a specific format, which must be composed formally and in advance. Audio files for broadcast notices must be recorded or generated and uploaded. Often, this has to be done by special software on special equipment."

      https://www.theatlantic.com/te...

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    2. Re:Why did it take 40 minutes to correct? by Pseudonym · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Given the history of the Cold War, it's a little disturbing that they didn't have a "sorry, that was a false alarm" message already formally prepared.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
  4. . . . and the other buttons . . . ? by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 4, Funny

    So, they have a button programmed to broadcast a missile attack, and the operator "hit it by mistake."

    So what other alert buttons are pre-programmed on the board . . . ?

    "GIANT TUNA DEVOURING BEACH VISITORS!"

    "AI POWERED SLINKY ARMY ATTACKING PASSENGER CARS!"

    And, of course, worst of all:

    "HAWAII DECLARED TO BE A SHITHOLE!"

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    1. Re:. . . and the other buttons . . . ? by PPH · · Score: 5, Funny

      "IMMINENT COVFEFE! STAND BY!"

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      Have gnu, will travel.
  5. Re: State Exercise? by Monster_user · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "Purely a state exercise" is disavowing all knowledge and responsibility at the Federal level. Translation: "We're staying out of this one."

  6. Obligatory... by Pseudonym · · Score: 4, Funny

    From Monsters vs Aliens.

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    sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
  7. In addition.. by Ayano · · Score: 4, Funny

    Funny part is that there was a prompt for "are you sure?"

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    I don't read AC
    1. Re:In addition.. by squiggleslash · · Score: 4, Funny

      "You have stated you are not sure you want this message to go out. Do you want to cancel the message? [OK] [Cancel]"

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      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  8. Real not fake...mistake by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It wasn't a "fake alert" it was a real alert from the real Agency empowered to issue them, that's way worse than a "fake" one.

    It was a mistake... That's not the same as being "fake", words matter. Editor's please take some English classes before posting any more.

    1. Re:Real not fake...mistake by Mal-2 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Agreed, it was a false alert, not a fake one.

      --
      How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
  9. I was there... by bobcardone · · Score: 5, Interesting

    On the 24th floor of a Waikiki Beach condo balcony having coffee when the alert came on my cell. First reaction...WTF?? Second reaction... went straight to the roof. If it's gonna go down, I want to see it (if only for a few milliseconds).

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    What, me worry?
    1. Re: I was there... by hey! · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The closest Hiroshima survivor was in a cellar only 300 m from ground zero -- which is very close when you consider that the bomb was detonated at 500 m altitude.

      Now the device North Korea tested back in September was 10x to 20x more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb, but still if a bomb were detonated over Pearl Harbor and you were standing on the beach in Waikiki, you'd almost certainly survive, albeit possibly with thermal burns.

      Here's the thing about all that Duck and Cover stuff from the 50s: when you're talking about a handful of bombs distributed over the entire country, diving under a picnic blanket actually makes sense. It wont' help you if you're at ground zero, but if you're five miles away or so it could make the difference between surviving uninjured or requiring hospital treatment. Multiply that by tens of thousands of people, and duck and cover type education is a sensible defensive strategy.

      There is, however, a simple counter: attack with a lot more warheads. By the early 70s the Soviets had something like 25,000 of them. An all-out attack would not only result in multiple bombs falling on every city, it would guarantee the collapse of American society and a short and hellish existence for anyone unlucky enough to survive. Fatalism makes sense in that scenario. You might as well enjoy the show for a few hundred milliseconds and then die.

      That's not where we are with a North Korean nuclear attack, not by a long shot. North Korea's arsenal is not large enough yet to cause the collapse of American society, or even to kill the majority of people in a city like Honolulu. So maybe we should be dusting off those old civil defense films.

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    2. Re: I was there... by hey! · · Score: 4, Informative

      Nope. The radius of destructive effect rises as the 2/3 power of yield. That's because the energy is dissipated in a three dimensional volume, and you're calculating the radius of intersection of that volume with a two dimensional surface. TL;DR: 20x the yield equals 7x the destructive radius.

      Anyhow you can look up on the expected fatal radius by bomb type and yield, and the immediately fatal thermal effects of the warhead NK tested for an unprotected individual would be less than 5 miles, although many closer would survive because of shelter. Honolulu is about 12 miles across. If you put the warhead in the geographic center of the city to maximize casualties a lot of people on either end will survive. A lot of them will be uninjured too. The 5 psi blast radius is only three miles, outside that radius even residential buildings will still stand and people shaded by them will likely escape uninjured if they can get inside before the fallout.

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  10. Re:Inquiring minds want to know by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I grew up in the 60s and 70s. I remember some of the cold war films they showed us in school. According to them:

    Stay indoors. If you’re close enough to the blast, you’re probably dead anyway (that was mostly just implied). For many more people, though, fallout is going to be the main worry - so stay inside. And even if you still have running water... you probably shouldn’t drink it. Use what’s already in the back of the toilet and in your hot water heater.

    Of course nowadays, post 9/11, most reservoirs are supposedly covered - so I have no idea if that’s as important.

    In any case, water is probably going to be the main short term issue. If you have some pre-blast warning, filling up as many containers as possible with water is a good idea.

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  11. Re:State Exercise? by cold+fjord · · Score: 5, Informative

    Scaring the crap out of everyone is considered "a state exercise?"

    It was a mistake by state officials, plain and simple.

    Hawaii officials give timeline of events surrounding 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 was erroneously triggered statewide by an employee at the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency (HI-EMA).

    8.10 a.m.: State Adjutant Maj. Gen. Joe Logan validated with the US 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 8.07am, it would not receive the alert later on.

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  12. Re: The government shouldn't have everyone's numbe by kenh · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why do you imagine that the only way the message could be sent to every phone is to have a list of all phone numbers? I suspect the system relies on beacon signals broadcast from cell towers that every cellphone within range picks up, displays the message, then stores a record of the alert for a pre determined period of time (24 hours), after which the alert is ignored.

    Do you really imagine the system sends out several million simultaneous text messages? Why just send a message to every device within range?

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    Ken
  13. Re: Trump is trying to create... by kenh · · Score: 4, Informative

    Trump is trying to create... a problem in Korea where there has never been one before?

    You can't be that stupid.

    Ever heard of the Korean War? They made a tv show about it called M.A.S.H., it was quite popular.

    There was also a movie, called Team America, that explored some of the issues involved with North Korea.

    Every president since Eisenhower has had to deal with a "North Korea Problem", even Obama, the difference is Trump isn't trying to bribe North Korea to get them to pretend to suspend their nuclear weapons efforts...

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    Ken