Days After Hawaii's False Missile Alarm, a New One in Japan (nytimes.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Japan's public broadcaster on Tuesday accidentally sent news alerts that North Korea had launched a missile and that citizens should take shelter -- just days after the government of Hawaii had sent a similar warning to its citizens. The broadcaster, NHK, corrected itself five minutes later and apologized for the error on its evening news (Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source). The initial texts cited J-Alert, a system used by the government to issue warnings to its citizens about missiles, tsunamis and other natural disasters. But NHK later said that the system was not to blame for the false alarm. Makoto Sasaki, a spokesman for NHK, apologized, saying that "staff had mistakenly operated the equipment to deliver news alerts over the internet."

Comments

They're seeing what happens

[DNS-and-BIND]

I believe these false alerts are deliberate, and are being used to see what happens when people think there's an attack. These false alerts also act to discredit the real alerts, if God forbid one ever comes. The whole thing is deeply disconcerting, and I hope a patriotic leaker comes forward with the real story to Wikileaks.

Re:They're seeing what happens

[XxtraLarGe]

I believe these false alerts are deliberate, and are being used to see what happens when people think there's an attack.

I've heard a few conspiracies, including that the Hawaii debacle was done on purpose to make Trump look bad. However, since we shouldn't be quick to attribute malice to what can be explained by incompetence, it's easy enough for me to believe a government worker screwed up.

These false alerts also act to discredit the real alerts, if God forbid one ever comes. The whole thing is deeply disconcerting, and I hope a patriotic leaker comes forward with the real story to Wikileaks.

I could see your point if this happened a few times, but I think having it happen once is a good thing. The vast majority of Hawaiians probably had no idea what to do in this case. You could see it in all of the YouTube videos posted out there. I'm sure a lot of them have now taken stock in where they will go & what they should do if the real thing happens, which they hadn't considered before.

Hah

[bruce_the_loon]

Let me guess, the conversation went as follows.

Boss - Show me our system can't make the same mistake what the Hawaii one did.
Operator - It can't boss, look. First you click here, then here and then her.. oh shit, oh shit, shit.
Boss - <running in circles> Make it stop, make it stop.

Re:They're seeing what happens:Vapor Rub.

[Archtech]

Especially if, as apparently in Hawaii, there are no shelters designed to resist thermonuclear attack.

After all, it's not as if they were real Americans.

Re:All part of NK's plan....

[Archtech]

A 10 kiloton warhead in the centre of any city would cause at least 45,000 immediate deaths and about 250,000 injuries. That's a warhead smaller than either of the Hiroshima or Nagasaki bombs.

With a standard 300 kiloton warhead you would have over 600,000 immediate deaths and over 2 million injuries.

How much good is it going to do to "take warnings seriously"?

Re:All part of NK's plan....

[Humbubba]

If Japan and Hawaii's missile alarm systems had been compromised by hacker savvy North Koreans, the respective governments wouldn't tell us. That would cause widespread panic. Telling the public it was 'human error' is their only option. Just sayin'.