Hawaii Governor Didn't Correct False Missile Alert Sooner Because He Didn't Know His Twitter Password (washingtonpost.com)

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Hawaii Governor Didn't Correct False Missile Alert Sooner Because He Didn't Know His Twitter Password (washingtonpost.com)

Posted by msmash on Tuesday January 23, 2018 @02:46AM from the oops dept.

An anonymous reader shares a WashingtonPost report: Minutes after the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency mistakenly sent a missile alert at 8:07 a.m. on Jan. 13 -- terrifying residents and visitors across the state -- some officials, such as Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, rushed to Twitter to reassure everyone it was a mistake. But one Twitter account was deafeningly silent for 17 minutes: that of Hawaii Gov. David Ige. Though Ige was informed by the state's adjutant general that the alert was false two minutes after it was sent, he waited until 8:24 a.m. to tweet, "There is NO missile threat." On Monday, after he gave the State of the State address in which he avoided the subject of the missile alert fiasco, reporters demanded an explanation for that long silence. Ige's answer: He couldn't log in to Twitter. "I have to confess that I don't know my Twitter account log-ons and the passwords, so certainly that's one of the changes that I've made," Ige said.

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Guess he forgot phone #'s to news media as well by JoeyRox · 2018-01-23 02:48 · Score: 4, Insightful

Why would he rely exclusively on Twitter when there's an entire industry whose job it is to disseminate information?
1. Re:Guess he forgot phone #'s to news media as well by the_skywise · 2018-01-23 02:51 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Hear hear!
  It's astonishing that he thinks a simple "I forgot my password, teacher" is a proper excuse for failing to inform people that they're NOT about to be nuked into oblivion!
2. Re:Guess he forgot phone #'s to news media as well by Baron_Yam · 2018-01-23 03:10 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  At some point, a communications channel becomes 'official' and 'important'. I would say that when that threshold is crossed, it's a really good idea to have a couple of people involved to ensure every t is crossed and every i is dotted.
  And I also think that the fact that Twitter is considered an emergency communications channel AT ALL is disturbing.
3. Re:Guess he forgot phone #'s to news media as well by kelemvor4 · 2018-01-23 03:44 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Hear hear! It's astonishing that he thinks a simple "I forgot my password, teacher" is a proper excuse for failing to inform people that they're NOT about to be nuked into oblivion!
  It's more amazing to me that anyone would expect a governor to use twitter to notify people about anything. Government folks shouldn't be using partisan websites to disseminate information, they should be using acceptable and established channels. In other news, the governor of Hawaii still hasn't posted to Slashdot on the matter. Maybe the misses are still inbound.. sheesh.
  
  He should have issued a quick news conference and or radio broadcast. If it was more important than that, then the Emergency Alert System. That's my opinion.
4. Re:Guess he forgot phone #'s to news media as well by ctilsie242 · 2018-01-23 03:46 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  This boggles me as well. A channel this critical to communication, in previous decades, would be regulated and well funded, similar to 911 centers. Twitter is more suited for what someone talks about breakfast, or how they are mad at a ref's call during a football game, as opposed to mission-critical communication. Especially for the fact that not everyone follows the governor, or state officials.
5. Re:Guess he forgot phone #'s to news media as well by Anonymous Coward · 2018-01-23 03:55 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  You would not be constipated if there was an impending nuclear missile strike.
6. Re:Guess he forgot phone #'s to news media as well by PPH · 2018-01-23 03:59 · Score: 2
  
  old-fashioned signals to boxes that the cord-cutting generation doesn't use anymore?
  SMS messages and the 'old-fashioned' EAS broadcasts serve only to direct the population to tune to news sources for further information and instructions. It boggles my mind that the people conducting the system test would not have contact information at hand with which they could have announced the mistake. And that people receiving what appeared to be a real alert would not tune to the local news as instructed.
  
  --
  Have gnu, will travel.
7. Re:Guess he forgot phone #'s to news media as well by rnturn · 2018-01-23 04:10 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  BINGO!
  I'm not on Twitter. Neither is anyone else in my family. Because state government wrongly assumes that all its citizens are willing to be interrupted by tweets all day long, those that aren't are just acceptable losses?
  One might assume that DHS and FEMA would have drawn up suggestions for state and local officials on how to deal with emergency notifications like this. But it appears that neither of those organizations seem to be able to do their jobs.
  When we lived in S. OH (many years ago), the entire southern half of the state was paralyzed for almost two weeks due to an ice storm that knocked out power. How did local government inform citizens on the progress of the repairs and when areas might expect power to be restored? They freakin' didn't. The idiots in the public safety department had no plan in place. None. Did they think to pass information along to the local radio stations? Hell no. It was like living a scene out of "Airplane!": "No... that's just what they'd be expecting us to do."
  
  --
  CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
8. Re:Guess he forgot phone #'s to news media as well by skids · 2018-01-23 04:20 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Besides, what self respecting nuclear aggressor wouldn't simultaneously hack or at least DoS local official's twitter accounts? You think social media is going to stay up in a real war waged by a competent adversary? Nerp. It'll crash at the most critical moment. It isn't defense-hardened, folks.
  
  --
  Someone had to do it.
9. Re:Guess he forgot phone #'s to news media as well by kenh · 2018-01-23 05:27 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Why couldn't his "no attack" message have gone out over the very same system that issued the "not a test" nuke warning?
  Does the alert system rely on twitter for updates?
  Why can a message that says "this is not a test" go out based on a single button push?
  
  --
  Ken
10. Re:Guess he forgot phone #'s to news media as well by clodney · 2018-01-23 05:41 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I don't find it odd that he would use Twitter to correct a bad announcement - in situations like that you want to get on as many channels as you can, and lots of people will get Twitter with more immediacy than radio or TV. Nor can I get too worked up about him not knowing his password. I have seldom used accounts where I don't know the password, and would need access to my primary machine to get at my password file.
  This seems like the textbook example of a learning experience. A brand new system encountered a failure mode they hadn't anticipated, and they are going through lessons learned to correct for the future.
fair enough ... by cascadingstylesheet · 2018-01-23 02:51 · Score: 2

Fair enough ... I would consider not knowing your Twitter password a badge of honor (not having an account even more so).
Alerting broadcast media might have been a better use of time (if he wasn't already doing that) though.
NATIONALIZE TWITTER by NicknameUnavailable · 2018-01-23 03:05 · Score: 2

Only politicians and celebrities (CIA agents) use it anyway, so just nationalize it. That would also take care of the whole notion they get to censor people.
Re:Hoax? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-01-23 03:29 · Score: 2, Interesting

What are the chances that these two independent errors happened near the same times?
Very good actually.
You climb down stairs everyday whithout problem. Yet, if you hear that someone has hurt him/herself falling down stairs, you can't help but think about it the next time you end up at the top of a flight of stairs, thus greatly increasing the risk of a misstep and a fall.
The guy in Japan had heard of the incident in Hawaii, and the stress of not wanting to make the same mistake, even if completely unconscious, greatly increased the risk of actually repeating the same mistake.
It's a very well known flaw of the human psyche. Never attribute to a conspiracy what can be perfectly explained by human nature.
Re:Twitter? by ScentCone · 2018-01-23 03:31 · Score: 2

You're using social media right now. Right now.

--
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Governor What? by avandesande · 2018-01-23 04:10 · Score: 2

Unless he has a personal assistant with him at all times why is he supposed to respond faster than 17 minutes? Hell I've taken craps that were longer than that!

--
love is just extroverted narcissism
Umn .. Did his phone work? by jwhyche · 2018-01-23 04:18 · Score: 2

Did his god damn phone work? Does he know that he can push buttons on it and when done in the correct order he can talk to someone? Wait, he probably didn't know the phone number.

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I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Re: Guess he forgot phone #'s to news media as wel by Salgak1 · 2018-01-23 04:57 · Score: 2

You just noticed that ? As Heinlein foretold, Welcome to the Crazy Years. . .