False Hawaii Missile Alert Sent After Drill Recording Said 'This Is Not A Drill' (npr.org)

A false ballistic missile alert in Hawaii was sent on January 13 because an emergency worker believed there really was a missile threat, according to a preliminary investigation by The Federal Communications Commission. From a report: The report finds that the false alert was not the result of a worker choosing the wrong alert by accident from a drop-down menu, but rather because the worker misunderstood a drill as a true emergency. The drill incorrectly included the language "This is not a drill."

Comments

So the worker did their job

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, it said it wasn't a drill, so the worker treated the alert as the real deal.

I'm glad we have that person ready to save Hawaii from a missile strike. If anything they deserve a raise for doing such a standup job.

Captcha: grenade

Re:So the worker did their job

[Anonymous Coward]

And of course management immediately blamed the worker for clicking the wrong button when he was just following orders.

Re:So the worker did their job

[thsths]

> Funny, it said it wasn't a drill, so the worker treated the alert as the real deal.

Exactly. The worker did not misunderstand the message - the message *was* wrong.

Re:So the worker did their job

[jellomizer]

For most mistakes made in a professional setting, it is usually a failure in the process vs a mistake of the individual.
Having been the person who had hit the go button to kick off a colossal failure. I can tell you it could happen to anyone. I have gotten approvals and did every step I was suppose to do. However the process had shortcuts because no one wanted to deal with the full complexity or waste their departments resources on looking at it. So they had blanketed approved the data where I was the one who hit the start button.
I didn't get into any trouble, but I had documented all the approvals. However I was the first on the list to be questioned. So I can feel for the guy who is under the public pressure for pushing the button to send.

Re:So the worker did their job

[ShanghaiBill]

And of course management immediately blamed the worker for clicking the wrong button

Indeed. They lied to millions of people about what happened. So will anyone lose their job over this? Or will our emergency response system continue to be managed by irresponsible blame shifting liars?

Re:So the worker did their job

[tripleevenfall]

The message played for the drill said "excercise, exercise, exercise" according to TFA, followed by the real message that would be played, which includes "this is not a drill".

One would presume that someone who was paying attention at the time would at least seek clarification on the mixed message before sending a whole state into a panic.

Re:So the worker did their job

[arth1]

One would presume that someone who was paying attention at the time would at least seek clarification on the mixed message before sending a whole state into a panic.

When there are mere seconds between thousands of lives being saved or lost, I would hope that they do not seek clarification, but err on the side of caution. I would commend this person and fire the idiot who approved the text "This is not a drill" in a drill.

Re:So the worker did their job

[gnick]

One would presume that someone who was paying attention at the time would at least seek clarification...

Even better would be requiring the operator to get confirmation from a second person before issuing such an important alert. I can't even complete a software purchase request without 2 additional signatures.

Re:So the worker did their job

[tinkerton]

to send the missiles?

Re:So the worker did their job

[Cro Magnon]

He was paying attention. He exercised, then he hit the button.

Re:So the worker did their job

[AK Marc]

Played back on a speakerphone with ambient noise, the "exercise, exercise, exercise" was either not heard, or effectively discarded because "this is not a drill" shocked the worker.

Management deliberately violates good human factors practices, then blames humans for errors.

Single pass, audio only, conflicting messages. What kind of idiot devised that system?

Re:So the worker did their job

[hey!]

One of the things every system designer needs to understand is the role of emotion in human cognition. Survival-related reactions like fear or anger have absolute priority over all higher levels of cognition. Once you suspect a tiger in the grass, your perceptions will tend to process only confirmatory data. That's your reptilian brain trying to get you the hell out of Dodge.

So it's a statistical certainty that if you broadcast an emergency announcement that concludes with "exercise, exercise, exercise", a substantial fraction of the recpients will not perceive that concluding disclaimer at all. That inability to process contradictory data will continue until the level of emotional arousal drops. Cognitive psychologists call this the "Emotional Refractory Period", or ERP. Until the ERP is over you can't count on rational judgment, only on rote training.

So from a systems or exercise designer's standpoint, you need to start the drill with the disclaimer. Ending it with a disclaimer is nearly useless. What's more, introducing conflicting signals ("this is not a drill") is a really bad idea, because you risk triggering a higher priority behavior control system.

The refractory nature of emotions is why it's so important to control things like anger, which served us well when we were living in paleolithic hunter-gatherer bands but causes mostly mischief in modern society. If you get angry or fearful because of misinformation, you literally can't fix that until you stop being angry or afraid. That's what makes survival related emotions such potent tools of political manipulation.

Re:So the worker did their job

[Obfuscant]

What kind of idiot devised that system?

The kind of person who believes in "train like you fight, fight like you train", who uses the real message prefixed by a clear statement that it is an exercise so that the "worker" will not be "shocked" when hears the message for real. But the "worker" should not be shocked, this message is part of his job, and the part about not being a drill that might "shock" a casual listener occurs well after the "exercise" part. He's not "shocked" to hear "exercise", so has little reason to forget or get flustered when he hears it.

You can create reasons why you think the "exercise exercise exercise" was not heard, but if you hear the message over the same channel and blame the false alarm on "this is not a drill", then you have to explain why one was heard but the other was not.

It is not "idiot" to do it this way. It is "learning" to realize that "exercise" needs to be at the beginning and the end. It is "learning" for the "worker" to remember the first part of the message, too, and not just the last part.

Can we beat this problem to death any more than it has been? An exercise message triggered a false alarm. We learn from the process and get on with our lives. That's why we have exercises in the first place -- to test the system and learn. Just like we learned from the failed/successful national emergency notification system test a couple of years ago. And like my county learns every time they test the Everbridge telephone alert system locally.

Re:So the worker did their job

[nastyphil]

Stanislav Petrov.

Re:So the worker did their job

[Etcetera]

Funny, it said it wasn't a drill, so the worker treated the alert as the real deal.

I'm glad we have that person ready to save Hawaii from a missile strike. If anything they deserve a raise for doing such a standup job.

Captcha: grenade

It also told the worker to exercise a lot, which apparently they didn't do.

Okay... That was funny.

Re:So the worker did their job

[pesho]

Description of the incident from The Guardian:

"According to the FCC account, the night supervisor started the drill by calling the day shift warning officers, who had not been told their was to be an exercise, and pretending to be US Pacific Command. The supervisor played a recorded message which began and ended with the words “exercise, exercise, exercise”. However, the main text of the message was not the same as that used for a routine drill, and instead followed a script used for an actual alert, including the sentence: “This is not a drill.” Somehow, one of the day shift warning officers heard “this is not a drill”, but not the words “exercise, exercise, exercise”, and “therefore believed that the missile threat was real.” The officer who had misheard was sitting at that terminal used to send out alerts, and chose to send a live alert from a drop-down menu. A prompt appeared on the screen saying: “Are you sure that you want to send this alert?” and at 8.07 am, the officer clicked ‘yes’, sending out an all-capitals text message to mobile phones all over the state, saying: “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.”"

So the guy is not warned about the exercise and is given a recorded message, that states both that this is exercise and that this is not a drill. Even if he heard it correctly, what was he supposed to believe and how was he supposed to act? If I were him I would also send the actual warning, because if there was an actual missile attack sending out a timely alert is critical. It is another question that the Hawaii population is unlikely to know what to do and there may actually be very little they can do but panic.

Re:So the worker did their job

[Obfuscant]

So it's a statistical certainty that if you broadcast an emergency announcement that concludes with "exercise, exercise, exercise",

So that's why they put "exercise" repeated three times at the start of the message. Your reptilian brain should be sound asleep by the time the rest of the message arrives.

So from a systems or exercise designer's standpoint, you need to start the drill with the disclaimer.

So that's what they do.

What's more, introducing conflicting signals ("this is not a drill") is a really bad idea, because you risk triggering a higher priority behavior control system.

You want the recipient to hear the message he'd actually hear if there was an emergency. That way he's used to hearing it and his "reptilian brain" isn't going to go ape-shit panic mode when it comes through for real. He knows the message, he knows what he needs to do because he's practiced it. He also knows what the real one sounds like so when something different comes through he can identify that it is something different.

And if you have two different messages, you risk the mistake of sending the "this is a drill" version when you really needed the "this is not a drill" one.

I can guess that one take-away the state government got from this is to put the exercise disclaimer at both ends, and to train the operators to listen to the ENTIRE message.

The refractory nature of emotions is why it's so important to control things like anger,

I've just heard an exercise message that began "exercise exercise exercise." I'm so angry I'm going to forget that I heard it. What?

Re:So the worker did their job

[T.E.D.]

Quite. If a human listener cannot trust the phrase "This is not a drill" to be an indicator that this is not a drill, then the phrase itself has no meaning whatsoever and shouldn't be included in either case.

Re:So the worker did their job

[hey!]

There is no purpose to the phrase "this is not a drill" if you use it in drills. Better to omit it.

I've just heard an exercise message that began "exercise exercise exercise." I'm so angry I'm going to forget that I heard it. What?

The relevant emotion here is fear.

Re:So the worker did their job

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Which is the worse outcome? Falsely declaring a real emergency, or delaying a real emergency notice when minutes count?

Don't let the boy who cried wolf's wolf's tail wag the dog.

Re:So the worker did their job

[Obfuscant]

There is no purpose to the phrase "this is not a drill" if you use it in drills. Better to omit it.

If it is part of the real message, then it needs to be in the exercise message. That way you know what the real one sounds like. It's called "training". That way you don't have to wonder why the alert message you just got didn't sound like what you're used to.

The relevant emotion here is fear.

Ok. I just heard a message that began "exercise exercise exercise" and it made me so afraid that I have already forgotten that I heard it. Does that work better for you? Really? You're scared of the words "exercise"? You better not be working in an emergency notification center, then.

Re:So the worker did their job

[hey!]

According to the NPR story the message concluded with "exercise, exercise, exercise". I don't know where you're getting your information.

If it is part of the real message, then it needs to be in the exercise message.

What I'm saying is if that is true, it shouldn't be part of the real message. Otherwise, what purpose do you imagine it serving in a real emergency?

Re:So the worker did their job

[omnichad]

That's a great plan in case of a drill, but a terrible one if it's not. Time is too valuable.

Re:So the worker did their job

[Mal-2]

But I am le tired.

Re:So the worker did their job

[Nidi62]

We clearly need speakers everywhere that will announce " This is not an exercise. This is a Police Control" for when it's not a drill.

Re:So the worker did their job

[Obfuscant]

According to the NPR story the message concluded with "exercise, exercise, exercise". I don't know where you're getting your information.

An earlier comment said that, and it is standard practice to do it that way. NPR has never been wrong, though. Ever.

What I'm saying is if that is true, it shouldn't be part of the real message.

Of course it should. It is isn't a drill you don't want people wasting their time wondering "this can't be right, is it a drill?" You say it isn't a drill. Period.

Otherwise, what purpose do you imagine it serving in a real emergency?

Umm, I don't know. Maybe to emphasize it is a real emergency? That time is critical? That you don't go for coffee before you process the message?

This kind of thing has been done for decades now. Lessons learned from previous exercises need to be continued, not abandoned because people who are not involved in the process in any way don't understand why it is done the way it is when they hear about it for the first time.

Re:So the worker did their job

[Hognoxious]

This may be a drill, or it may not be a drill.

Ask yourself, do you feel lucky?

Re:So the worker did their job

[Obfuscant]

The NPR report says both that the message included it and that it ended with it. That doesn't say that it only ended with it. That could mean it began and ended, which is how it should be done according to standard practices. NPR might be trying to emphasize that the disclaimer came after the real message, as if to assign blame somewhere.

Re:So the worker did their job

[hey!]

How can that phrase emphasize that it's a real emergency if it's also used in drills? And if you want to emphasize that time is critical, why not say that?

The solution seems simple to me: use the phrase "this IS a drill" in drills, and "this is NOT a drill" in real emergencies.

Re:So the worker did their job

[EMN13]

Unfortunately, it's not unthinkable for language to be misused to the point of becoming meaningless. It may well be that the phrase "this is not a drill" is headed that way. This certainly isn't the first time I heard obvious drills begin with "this is not a drill" - usually followed by sheepish announcements immediately thereafter that, eh, sorry, it kind of was a drill.

I don't think you're going to be able to avoid the need for people to simply use common sense, and *not* follow instructions sometimes, if there's reason not to. (No idea if that was the case here!)

Re:So the worker did their job

[Obfuscant]

How can that phrase emphasize that it's a real emergency if it's also used in drills?

Because the exercise messages all say that they are exercise messages, and thus the contents are NOT REAL.

And if you want to emphasize that time is critical, why not say that?

"This is not a drill" is five words. It is the result of decades of experience of people who do this for a living and have done exercises on a regular basis. You're demanding explanations as to why they do it that way as if they had no reason at all.

The solution seems simple to me

We shall discard decades of experience of people who do this for a living and substitute your feelings. We shall create an exercise message that differs from the real alert in just ONE WORD, and creates the potential for mistake in sending the IS message in place of the NOT message. I'm glad you're here to educate us all on how it really ought to be done. Thank you.

Now, what happens when the communications channel has a dropout during that one critical point in time that the word "NOT" is being transmitted? When using HF radio, for example, it is not uncommon for words to be lost. (That's why "EXERCISE" is sent THREE times.) That would turn a critical emergency message into just another (yawn) exercise. And what happens when the originator chooses the wrong one of two messages -- turning a drill into a panic, or a real emergency into a drill? I'm sure you have solutions to both. You're the expert.

Re:So the worker did their job

[EMN13]

Fortunately, Mr. Petrov didn't follow your advice or you may well not have been alive today.

Re:So the worker did their job

[91degrees]

Assuming treating it as a drill or as an exercise are the only two options, it's tricky to decide what the correct choice is when data is contradictory. One one hand, it is probably better to respond to an exercise than to treat an exercise as a drill, but on the other, it's a lot more likely that it is a drill.

Honestly, I think there was a benefit here. It shows that there are problems in the system aside from this particular mistake.

Re:So the worker did their job

[sysrammer]

I blame Hollywood. Yes. How many TV shows and movies blare "THIS IS NOT A DRILL" to make things sound super important and serious? I chuckle every time.

Military folk, back me up here: in any of the drills that you experienced during your service, has the phrase "this is a drill" or "this is not a drill" ever occurred?

Re:So the worker did their job

[Obfuscant]

Military folk, back me up here: in any of the drills that you experienced during your service, has the phrase "this is a drill" or "this is not a drill" ever occurred?

Yes. You want to limit your question to "military folk", but it is not just "military folk" who deal with emergency alert systems.

Re:So the worker did their job

[hey!]

Here's the thing: if you want people to understand "this is NOT a drill" to mean, not what the words plainly say, but to mean "this is time critical", you have to (a) have a policy that states this and (b) train people on that meaning.

In fact there apparently was no such training, so there was apparently no such policy.

In any case if the word count is more paramount than clarity here, you could use an arbitrary phrase like "code black" and train people on what that means.

Re:So the worker did their job

[Megol]

While this update tells a completely different story than was previously told (selecting wrong item in a menu) the problem is the same: bad user interface.

It's obvious that the correct action when having the job of alerting the public of a missile attack and hearing "this is not a drill" is to send the warning message.
Compare the SLBM launch training (as documented in public media - never been on board a submarine) where it the fact that it is an exercise/simulation is always repeated embedded into orders.

Re:So the worker did their job

[sjames]

Well, actually sending out the emergency alert and people actually diving for cover is part of the real emergency too. The similarity to an actual emergency has stop at some point. I suggest that point be before it causes confusion and mass panic.

What TFA ACTUALLY said was that because the alert was on speakerphone, the operator did not here "EXERCISE" but did hear "this is not a drill", and so concluded it was not a drill (DUH).

So no, if it IS a drill, do not claim it is not unless you want a mass panic.

Re:So the worker did their job

[arth1]

Fortunately, Mr. Petrov didn't follow your advice or you may well not have been alive today.

Huh? He did err on the side of caution.

Re:So the worker did their job

[Xylantiel]

You have missed the point of your own argument. By your argument the real message and the test one should be worded mostly differently so that there is NO confusion. The problem here is that the test message contains a message, a moniker that the message is not a test message, and a moniker that it is a test message. That's madness! In order to convert the test message to the real message you remove some extra words, which, as you say, easily causes confusion. The test message should be something like "in place of this message you would hear information about the real emergency". That is sufficient to test the system and will never be confused with an actual emergency message. I hear that sort of thing all the time on government and institutional warning systems. It really appears that whoever is in charge of this warning system in Hawaii really has insufficient expertise in this area.

Re:So the worker did their job

[sjames]

No doubt one of those crappy half duplex speakerphones that rather than doing real feedback control squelches if the ambient sound reaches a trigger level.

The whole Exercise part was probably lost while people realized they needed to be quiet and listen.

Re:So the worker did their job

[hey!]

When the trope got started in the 50s, a lot of people had experience about US ships in WW2. It's not hard to find recordings of things like general quarters from actual where the phrases "This IS a drill" and "This is NOT a drill" are used, or in which neither phrase is used. Apparently the practice varies from ship to ship and situation to situation.

The most famous use of the phrase is from the Pearl Harbor attack, in which radiomen were instructed to say "AIR RAID PEARL HARBOR. THIS IS NO DRILL.” Some present remember hearing it as "THIS IS NO FUCKING DRILL," which would be a good way of removing any doubt.

Re:So the worker did their job

[Obfuscant]

Here's the thing: if you want people to understand "this is NOT a drill" to mean, not what the words plainly say, but to mean "this is time critical", you have to (a) have a policy that states this and (b) train people on that meaning.

They are.

In fact there apparently was no such training, so there was apparently no such policy.

No, not "in fact" there was no training. I've already pointed out that the operator did not claim there was ambiguity in the message, but that he didn't hear part of it. He was trained and knows what "this is not a drill" means. In fact, HE DID IT.

In any case if the word count is more paramount than clarity here,

The clarity is PERFECT, when you know the meaning. YOU haven't had the training because nobody gives a fuck if YOU understand that message. You don't work in an emergency operations center.

you could use an arbitrary phrase like "code black" and train people on what that means.

Once again we are expected to replace decades of experience with your "common sense" shortcuts. "This is not a drill" is a simple, short declarative sentence that means exactly what it says. Plain language.

What decades of experience has taught the people who do this for real (and aren't just nimrods pontificating about what "common sense" tells them how it ought to be done, on slashdot) is that plain language is much better than codes or secret decoder rings. This is embodied in something called the National Incident Management System (NIMS) and the Incident Command System (ICS) which came about in large part as the result of failures during large scale fire fighting in California. FEMA has FREE courses that can give you an orientation to the process. I've linked you to ICS-100b, which is the introduction. Go learn something. Maybe learn how to be useful to your community when a disaster strikes and not be an impediment yammering about how everyone ought to be doing things because you have common sense and know better. Or not.

Re:So the worker did their job

[hey!]

What decades of experience has taught the people who do this for real (and aren't just nimrods pontificating about what "common sense" tells them how it ought to be done, on slashdot) is that plain language is much better than codes or secret decoder rings.

I don't dispute this, but this is exactly what you are recommending -- in fact it's worse than secret decoder ring BS because it contradicts what the language plainly says.

Re:So the worker did their job

[Carewolf]

Quite. If a human listener cannot trust the phrase "This is not a drill" to be an indicator that this is not a drill, then the phrase itself has no meaning whatsoever and shouldn't be included in either case.

The phrase has never had any meaning. It is not used outside of America as far as I know, because it is not just meaningless, it is actively harmful, as people will assume it is a drill if it is not there, and that it isn't a a drill if it is there, both of which are by necessity false assumptions.

Re:So the worker did their job

[Ocker3]

So it's a statistical certainty that if you broadcast an emergency announcement that concludes with "exercise, exercise, exercise",

So that's why they put "exercise" repeated three times at the start of the message. Your reptilian brain should be sound asleep by the time the rest of the message arrives.

Actually the article says the message 'included' "exercise, exercise, exercise", it doesn't say that it Started with that text.

Re:So the worker did their job

[hey!]

I'll make a deal here. I'll admit I'm the nimrod here and you are not if you can show me a single instance of a written government or military procedure which says "this is not a drill" means "Time critical" as you claim.

Re:So the worker did their job

[bickerdyke]

It is the result of decades of experience of people who do this for a living

So was the Titanic. While the arc was build by amateurs....

Re:So the worker did their job

[bickerdyke]

Well, actually sending out the emergency alert and people actually diving for cover is part of the real emergency too. The similarity to an actual emergency has stop at some point. I suggest that point be before it causes confusion and mass panic.

That's why this is so genius: http://chicagotonight.wttw.com...

Re:So the worker did their job

[perpenso]

Stanislav Petrov.

Was the guy asked to launch nuclear missiles as a counterattack, not the guy asked to warn civilians to take shelter. The consequences of these two people acting as if an inbound attack was real were quite different.

Re:So the worker did their job

[ShanghaiBill]

You have to include the phrase "This is not a drill" to get people to take the drill seriously.

Re:So the worker did their job

[rtb61]

Dude the one and only fucking reason this did not cost thousands of lives is because most fucking people ignored it. Instead of panicking and running away as fast as possible no matter who was in the way because they were about to be killed by a thermonuclear device. If the system had worked as intended many people would have died and many, many more would have been injured. Thankfully the system failed to work as most people ignored it.

Warning people about an incoming thermonuclear device, yeah, kind of fucking pointless, you will either live, die or be horribly injured, trying to drive away at maximum speed, to make use of the warning and driving like that will probably die or get horribly injured. Stopping it from happening is the way to go, warning people it is going to happen mere seconds before it happens, kind of fucking pointless. Honestly better all round not to warn people, unless the whole idea is running warning exercises every time defence spending comes up for vote, oh noes, you're all going to die unless you representative votes for more tanks and less roads, more planes and less bridges, more ships and lower quality tap water for citizens who can not afford bottled water.

Re:So the worker did their job

[jaa101]

You want the recipient to hear the message he'd actually hear if there was an emergency.

No. A message that is part of a drill (AKA an excercise) should on no account include anything like "this is not a drill". That makes the message a lie and devalues the phrase. The real emergency message needs to be different so that people take notice. That was the whole point of adding "this is not a drill" in the first place. Even if the message also includes "exercise, exercise, exercise" at the beginning and/or end, that doesn't help because: "Order, counter-order, disorder".

Re:So the worker did their job

[jaa101]

"This is not a drill" is five words. It is the result of decades of experience of people who do this for a living and have done exercises on a regular basis.

Citation required. Who is conducting drills with alert messages that contain the phrase "this is not a drill"?

Re:So the worker did their job

[jaa101]

You have to include the phrase "This is not a drill" to get people to take the drill seriously.

Well then you can't complain when this guy did take it seriously and sent out an alert. Do you think it would have been OK to send out the exact same alert to the population if it had also contained the text "exercise, exercise, exercise"?

Re:So the worker did their job

[jaa101]

Which is the worse outcome? Falsely declaring a real emergency, or delaying a real emergency notice when minutes count?

The answer is by no means clear cut. The more false alerts there are, the less people will pay attention to alerts, meaning that more people will die during a real attack. A balance between speed and caution is required.

Re:So the worker did their job

[ShanghaiBill]

Which is the worse outcome? Falsely declaring a real emergency, or delaying a real emergency notice when minutes count?

Falsely declaring a real emergency is the worse outcome. Because that means almost no one will take the real emergency seriously. Even this time, only 5-10% took it seriously. Most Hawaiians laughed, and figured it was either a screwup or someone got hacked.

Why is a state agency responsible for warning about ballistic missile attacks in the first place? Why isn't this a federal responsibility? Especially in states with particularly incompetent governments, such as Hawaii and Louisiana, where you are much more likely to get a job because the supervisor is your uncle than because you can do the job.

Re:So the worker did their job

[sysrammer]

Yes, somebody else posted a link to the actual PH telegram. I stand corrected.

Re:So the worker did their job

[AK Marc]

Causing the problem is known human factors. The message wasn't clear, and being over a speakerphone in a crowded room, the ability for mishearing is quite high.

That such things weren't though of in the process is proof of their incompetence. I can't understand why you are defending obvious incompetence.

That's why we have exercises in the first place -- to test the system and learn.

Better to have learned from previous mistakes than keep making basic human factors mistakes over and over again. Why do you hate learning from mistakes? They've been made before.

Re:So the worker did their job

[AK Marc]

Right, the first 2 seconds lost to ambient noise, the last 3 "exercise" not heard because of the shock of "this is not a drill". Simple mistake. The process was broken, and any thought before the exercise would have discovered that. Much like airline safety, the reason everything is "pilot error" is that human factors is always the last thought of engineers. 99% of "pilot error" is due to process or engineering encouraging error.

Re:So the worker did their job

[SuperDre]

Yep, but instead he got fired! I'm curious if they will reinstate them now it's clear he just did was he was supposed to do.

Re:So the worker did their job

[Obfuscant]

I don't dispute this, but this is exactly what you are recommending

You are not recommending what I am talking about. You think it is good to replace a simple, declarative sentence with code words. That's wrong. You think the test message should not be the same as the real one because YOU can't understand the difference. That's ridiculous.

in fact it's worse than secret decoder ring BS because it contradicts what the language plainly says.

NO IT DOES NOT. You simply cannot accept that the word "EXERCISE" repeated three times means the message is an EXERCISE MESSAGE. That means that the contents ARE NOT REAL. It is PLAIN LANGUAGE. How many times do I have to repeat that? There is no contradiction. "This is not a drill" is not REAL when the entire message is an exercise message.

You have no clue how the systems work because you've never been trained on them, and it doesn't matter that you don't know. YOU ARE NOT THE INTENDED RECIPIENT OF THE MESSAGE. Nobody cares that you don't understand, and nobody cares what you think ought to be done.

And so a new inquiry is launched...

[skids]

...wherein they now try to figure out why the message said "this was not a drill" ... and determine it was because that message was accidentally selected from a drop-down menu.

Re:And so a new inquiry is launched...

[Anonymous Coward]

And they will find the select list is broken and it always revers to "this is not a drill" no mater what is selected. Programmers fault.

Re:And so a new inquiry is launched...

[DontBeAMoran]

http://www.welovedosgames.net/...

false alert, just higher up the chain

[networkBoy]

Still a false alert, just that level of the alert chain wasn't to blame. Whomever put "This is not a drill" in the drill message was to blame.

Re:false alert, just higher up the chain

[rhazz]

It was still a failure of the officer, but it might also be a small failure of someone higher up. A message that begins and ends with "EXERCISE EXERCISE EXERCISE" is pretty likely not a real event regardless of what is said in between. The officer said he didn't hear the exercise part - so why didn't he hear both the beginning and end of the message?

Re:false alert, just higher up the chain

[hey!]

Let's imagine we weren't arguing this in hindsight. Instead, let's imagine we've just received contradictory information: this is a drill, this is NOT a drill. On what basis should we decide how to act?

If you say, "choose which option is mostly likely to be true," then the result is you treat this as a drill spuriously identified as a real situation.

If you say, "choose the action which results in the least potential harm," the course of action isn't altogether clear. A false alarm causes emotional distress, and resulting panic can result in real injuries and death. On the other hand it is physically possible for a real attack to occur, in fact that is the whole reason you're holding drills. Treating a real attack as a drill could result in thousands of unnecessary deaths.

Now I've heard some argue that there is actually nothing anyone can do to help people survive a nuclear attack. I don't believe that's true, but let's suppose it is. Then the rational course of action is not to prepare for a nuclear attack at all. The benefit you gain from holding drills is zero, and the potential harm created by the drills themselves is greater than zero.

Re:false alert, just higher up the chain

[bickerdyke]

And a message that contains the words "This is not a drill" is clearly a real event no matter what someone might be able to broadcast befor or after the recorded non-drill alert message.

Re:false alert, just higher up the chain

[rhazz]

On what basis should we decide how to act?

You are making the presumption that there are only two courses of action - assume it is real or assume it is a drill. There are other actions, like taking 10 seconds and speaking to one of the other people who is within 20 feet of you. Based on the information so far, there were numerous people involved and only 1 of them thought it was real.

If you say, "choose which option is mostly likely to be true," then the result is...

... it's a drill. 100% of all times they previously received any message, it was a drill.

Re:false alert, just higher up the chain

[JesseMcDonald]

If you say, "choose which option is mostly likely to be true," then the result is...

... it's a drill. 100% of all times they previously received any message, it was a drill.

"Past performance is no guarantee of future results." The probability that the current situation is a drill is not determined solely by the ratio of drills among previous similar situations. If it were, this would prove that true missile alerts are impossible (0% probability), which would imply that the drills serve no purpose.

It's still more likely to be a drill, of course—just not a 100% probability. There are many factors which affect the probability aside from the history of drills, including enemy capabilities, the level of diplomatic tension, and ongoing current events. In the end you can't even completely eliminate the possibility that the odds of a real missile alert have always been high, and you've just been very lucky to only experience drills thus far.

The worker didn't misunderstand anything

[enriquevagu]

the worker misunderstood a drill as a true emergency. The drill incorrectly included the language "This is not a drill."
If "This is not a drill" was included, the worker didn't misunderstand anything. He correctly understood the message and performed as expected. Dont' blame him, blame the person who sent the drill.

Re:The worker didn't misunderstand anything

[tquasar]

Warning! This is Dashslot. Make a cat video....

Re:The worker didn't misunderstand anything

[Rakarra]

If "This is not a drill" was included, the worker didn't misunderstand anything. He correctly understood the message and performed as expected. Dont' blame him, blame the person who sent the drill.

If you're told in the same message that it's a drill and it's not a drill, then there is a misunderstanding. The misunderstanding came because he claimed he didn't hear the "exercise" disclaimer like the other folks got.

Re:The worker didn't misunderstand anything

[Obfuscant]

If you're told in the same message that it's a drill and it's not a drill, then there is a misunderstanding.

No. It is STANDARD PRACTICE to use the phrase "exercise exercise exercise" to indicate that no matter what follows, this is an exercise message. This is not something new.

Do you believe that an exercise message that reads "exercise exercise exercise please send 500 gallons of potable water to the Waimea rescue shelter" should actually result in 500 gallons of water being sent? Of course not. "Exercise exercise exercise", words repeated three times so they are not missed, means the rest of the message is not real life and should be treated like, umm, what's the right word for it, oh yeah, an EXERCISE.

But why use the real message in an exercise? So people get used to knowing what it says and so you don't accidentally send the wrong version in a crisis.

Horse is dead. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Re:The worker didn't misunderstand anything

[RobinH]

Really? "Exercise" is a little vague to me. "This is not a drill" is definitely clear. To me, "exercise" means move. The opposite of "This is NOT a drill" is "This is a drill," not "Exercise."

Re:The worker didn't misunderstand anything

[Hognoxious]

Thing is, if you say "exercise" at the beginning and then say "this is not a drill" it's quite reasonable to assume that the later one countermands the earlier one.

A drill should never say "this is not a drill". That should be obvious to anyone with an ounce of common sense.

Re:The worker didn't misunderstand anything

[Obfuscant]

Really? "Exercise" is a little vague to me. "This is not a drill" is definitely clear.

Nobody cares what is clear to you, you don't work in an emergency operations center. It is PERFECTLY clear to anyone who does, and who has ever had any training on how to do this kind of thing. The excuse being given by the alert operator is not that the message was vague, it is that he didn't hear part of it. Had he heard it, he would have known immediately and without doubt that the message was not a real alert, it was an exercise.

Re:The worker didn't misunderstand anything

[Obfuscant]

Thing is, if you say "exercise" at the beginning and then say "this is not a drill" it's quite reasonable to assume that the later one countermands the earlier one.

No. It is not reasonable to assume that. The people who do this, and to whom these messages are sent and processed, understand the system a LOT better than you do, and aren't supposed to make assumptions. "EXERCISE" three times means it is an exercise, no matter what the message contains, because knowing what the REAL message says is important even if you are conducting an exercise.

Re:The worker didn't misunderstand anything

[bickerdyke]

If you're told in the same message that it's a drill and it's not a drill, then there is a misunderstanding.

No. It is STANDARD PRACTICE to use the phrase "exercise exercise exercise" to indicate that no matter what follows, this is an exercise message. This is not something new.

Do you believe that an exercise message that reads "exercise exercise exercise please send 500 gallons of potable water to the Waimea rescue shelter" should actually result in 500 gallons of water being sent? Of course not. "Exercise exercise exercise", words repeated three times so they are not missed, means the rest of the message is not real life and should be treated like, umm, what's the right word for it, oh yeah, an EXERCISE.

Meeep. Wrong example. Or rather an example done right, because it

a) contains indication that is an excercise AND
b) does NOT contain a confirmation that it is a real order.

Let's turn your example into an example that followed tha Hawaii-missile pattern:
a) contains indication that is an excercise AND
b) DOES contain a confirmation that it is a real order.
but use your wording and we get: ""exercise exercise exercise please send 500 gallons of potable water to the Waimea rescue shelter. This IS NOT an excercise. I repeat: This is NOT an excercise"

Re:The worker didn't misunderstand anything

[Rakarra]

Really? "Exercise" is a little vague to me. "This is not a drill" is definitely clear.

Nobody cares what is clear to you, you don't work in an emergency operations center. It is PERFECTLY clear to anyone who does, and who has ever had any training on how to do this kind of thing. The excuse being given by the alert operator is not that the message was vague, it is that he didn't hear part of it. Had he heard it, he would have known immediately and without doubt that the message was not a real alert, it was an exercise.

The problem is hearing "this is not a drill" all the time then desensitizes you to the actual phrase "this is not a drill" in an emergency. If people get used to mixed messages, then they stop questioning mistakes and malfunctions.

Re:The worker didn't misunderstand anything

[Obfuscant]

Meeep. Wrong example.

It is an example of an exercise message that instructs the recipient to do something EXCEPT for the fact that it is an exercise message. Same as the missile alert.

Or rather an example done right, because it a) contains indication that is an excercise AND

Just like the missile alert.

b) does NOT contain a confirmation that it is a real order.

Pay attention. "EXERCISE EXERCISE EXERCISE" means it is not a real message. An exercise message cannot tell someone it is real, because any wording in the exercise message that says it is real IS NOT REAL.

Let's turn your example into an example that followed tha Hawaii-missile pattern: a) contains indication that is an excercise AND b) DOES contain a confirmation that it is a real order.

You can try, but my example was accurate.

but use your wording and we get: ""exercise exercise exercise please send 500 gallons of potable water to the Waimea rescue shelter. This IS NOT an excercise. I repeat: This is NOT an excercise"

Fail. You use the words "this is not an exercise" twice. The missile alert message says "this is not a drill" once. And it says that AFTER IT CLEARLY AND IN PLAIN LANGUAGE SAYS THAT IT IS AN EXERCISE.

Here's what you really don't understand. Any real request for supplies will be signed by an official that can authorize that request. That signature implies it is real. EXCEPT when the message is an exercise message. Then EVERYONE WHO KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE DOING knows it is an exercise message and should not be acted upon except as an exercise message.

YOU don't know that, and that's fine. YOU are not the intended recipient of such messages. YOU don't get to tell the experts how you would do it based on your ignorance of the process.

Does that make it clear now?

Re:The worker didn't misunderstand anything

[Obfuscant]

The problem is hearing "this is not a drill" all the time then desensitizes you to the actual phrase "this is not a drill" in an emergency.

No. It is part of the real message, it needs to be there in the exercise message so there can be no question about what the message means. Sending different messages means you train differently than you fight. That's bad. That leads to confusion and errors. Standard terminology is used ALL THE TIME because using non-standard terminology requires the recipient to interpret and study and consider and likely come to the wrong conclusion. (That is NOT what happened here.) You use the real message in a drill because that gets the recipients used to seeing what the real message looks like. You don't use something different and then hope they properly identify the message when the time is critical and the emergency is real.

If people get used to mixed messages,

IT IS NOT A MIXED MESSAGE. You just don't understand the system, you are not trained on how the system works, and we really don't care that you don't understand. Just stop pretending your guesses as to how things ought to work are more important than decades of experience and practice.

Re:The worker didn't misunderstand anything

[bickerdyke]

Pay attention. "EXERCISE EXERCISE EXERCISE" means it is not a real message.

Except for that part that said "This is not a drill" that means exactly the opposite.

OK, I can see now where you're coming from. You're saying that the "Excercise"-intro should put the user into excercise mode and process the following instructions depending on that "mode"

Word of advice from a software developer: Don't.

Yes, it works, but every programmer can tell you that functions that behave differently based on some external state are prone to bugs. That's why functional programming was invented.

Here's what you really don't understand. Any real request for supplies will be signed by an official that can authorize that request.

We're talking about a phone call on speakerphone here... Your whole "excercise header" may get lost.

YOU don't know that, and that's fine. YOU are not the intended recipient of such messages. YOU don't get to tell the experts how you would do it based on your ignorance of the process.

Does that make it clear now?

Yes. It's absolutely clear to me what kind of "experts" were designing that process. Probably they do need a clue on how to do their job.

Re:The worker didn't misunderstand anything

[Rakarra]

IT IS NOT A MIXED MESSAGE. You just don't understand the system, you are not trained on how the system works, and we really don't care that you don't understand. Just stop pretending your guesses as to how things ought to work are more important than decades of experience and practice.

Oh well, far be it for me to second guess the guy who claims so much incredible experience.
I guess it's the perfect system that can't possibly be improved upon, and no one ever fucks up. Good to know.

Re:Fear Mongering

[MightyYar]

I'm curious to know what big failure you are referring to? Russia annexing some bordering territory? Oh, wait, that was the last two administrations. North Korea developing advanced missile and nuclear technology? Oops, it was those last two administrations. Oh, you mean that quagmire in the Middle East! ...That he inherited from the last two administrations.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think he has any clue what he's doing, but lets not pretend he's straying far off the recent track record of US foreign policy.

The Moderators are gonna have a good time...

[SigIO]

..with this thread. This is not a drill.

Re:The Moderators are gonna have a good time...

[Quirkz]

Ironically, this *is* a pipe.

irony

[NikeHerc]

The drill incorrectly included the language "This is not a drill."

Here's some irony for you: see http://memory.loc.gov/mss/mcc/002/0001.jpg and note the date sent.

Re:irony

[MobyDisk]

Not sure how that's irony.

Re:irony

[NikeHerc]

Not sure how that's irony.

Same message ("this is not [a] drill"), same geographic area (Hawaii), polar opposite outcomes. Under the definition of irony ("an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected"), I claim irony.

No such thing as a computer error

[sjbe]

It sounds to me like they didn't want to spend resources improving/replacing their existing system, so they decided to say it's a human's fault instead of a system's fault.

At some level it is essentially always a human's fault if there was a human decision involved at any point. It might be the human(s) who designed the system or the one(s) who built the system or the one(s) who operated the system but at some level it is a human failure. That's why when someone tells you "the computer failed" they are saying a false statement because while it might not have been their fault, it almost certainly wasn't the fault of the machine - it was the fault of some person somewhere. The machine is simply doing exactly what it was designed and instructed to do. If something bad happens and you trace back why far enough the answer almost always is that some person made a mistake.

Now I'm not talking about blame here. That's different. It rarely is a productive exercise to seek out the person who failed and (figuratively) execute them. Most mistakes are unintentional and caused by putting a person in a situation where they were set up to fail. It's more useful to figure out how to design the system so that the failure mode cannot recur. Fix the problem, not the blame.

(Yes I'm aware that technically computers can actually make mistakes but this is so rare as to be inconsequential to my point - and even then those errors are typically errors made by the designer of the machine making it insufficiently robust)

Re:No such thing as a computer error

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

Yes, procedures that require humans to never make mistakes are doomed to failure. Too many people design processes where they assume each operation is performed flawlessly 100% of the time instead of asking themselves what happens if X does Y instead of Z.

I'm not sure why they do this. My best guess is that a lot of people just don't have the experience to know how to anticipate things before they actually occur.

Hawaii takes "this is not a drill" seriously ...

[perpenso]

Funny, it said it wasn't a drill, so the worker treated the alert as the real deal.

For some reason people in Hawaii take the phrase "this is not a drill" seriously.
https://www.archives.gov/bosto...

And it was completely accurate

[mykepredko]

It wasn't a drill - it was a mistake.

Re:And it was completely accurate

[freeze128]

Aren't drills usually *scheduled*? I know when there is a fire drill at the office, we usually get an email at least a day in advance. This prevents everyone from panicking because they know there is no real danger. In this case, it would prevent a Statewide alert from being sent.

Re:And it was completely accurate

[Chris Mattern]

Depends on how serious you are about your drills. After all, the real thing isn't going to be scheduled a day in advance, so a drill that is doesn't really tell you how well prepared you are for the real thing.

Re:And it was completely accurate

[macxcool]

It wasn't a drill - it was a missile.

Re:And it was completely accurate

[Rakarra]

Aren't drills usually *scheduled*? I know when there is a fire drill at the office, we usually get an email at least a day in advance. This prevents everyone from panicking because they know there is no real danger. In this case, it would prevent a Statewide alert from being sent.

Yeah, it sounds like the supervisors knew, but the workers did not. Also according to the story: "The supervisor specifically decided to run a drill during a shift change to train officers for a challenging situation." Sounds like they found out what would happen!

Re:And it was completely accurate

[Ichijo]

It would also tell our enemies when the best time to push the button would be!

Re:And it was completely accurate

[Archimonde]

Scheduled drills are relatively bad in my opinion. When I worked on cruise ships you always knew at least day in advance when the drill is going to be held. We even had meetings on the Bridge just before the drill to discuss where the fire is going to be, what fire parties are going to respond and how. A lot of crew didn't know where the fire is, but usually it didn't matter to them. Everything was completely staged and in my opionion, and a lot of other people, not very effective. The drill had to look good and it was just rehearsed like a stage play.

The consequence was that crew just get used to it and prepare for it in advance. They take their lifejackets to the muster stations, start gathering in front of fire lockers etc even without signals given. All of this is bad and was discouraged though.

We had a good opportunity when we were sailing for a few days without passengers to do a drill at sea during the night. I've suggested this to the Master, but he just shrugged and was worried that someone might fall over the ship and drown in panic as they never had a drill during the night (or at sea for that matter...).

But still, if you want to be prepared for an emergency, your drills have to reflect that emergency. So they are not announced and made as real as possible. People learn fast, don't underestimate them.

Re:And it was completely accurate

[Chris Mattern]

Drills are not meant to tell you how prepared you are for the real thing. They are there to prepare you for the real thing.

Acutally, they're usually meant for both. And part of being prepared for the real thing is being rehearsed in reacting properly without warning, although it is true planned rehearsals are good for building proper muscle memory. So both announced and unannounced drills are useful.

Re:And it was completely accurate

[JesseMcDonald]

I've suggested this to the Master, but he just shrugged and was worried that someone might fall over the ship and drown in panic as they never had a drill during the night (or at sea for that matter...).

I hope you pointed out to the Master that this is exactly why you need to do a drill at sea during the night. Let everyone know that from now on you're going to run more realistic drills, if you must, but this is no reason to avoid the drill. What would happen if there was a real emergency under those conditions?

Re:And it was completely accurate

[Archimonde]

I agree. The thing is, nobody wants to do an extra mile for anything. People there are overworked as it is. But if you make it a part of company policy (or safety policy, SMS or whatever) then it would be done. And for that to be included it usually has to come from IMO or some bad stuff has to happen.

Re:Fear Mongering

[tinkerton]

In fact I've heard a lot of people in the CIA as well as military families voted for Trump because he threatened to stray off the US track record with anti-interventionist promises.
Unfortunately those claims quickly were overturned and now he even digs in in Afghanistan.

Missile flight time to Hawaii is 20 minutes

[perpenso]

The message played for the drill said "excercise, exercise, exercise" according to TFA, followed by the real message that would be played, which includes "this is not a drill".

One would presume that someone who was paying attention at the time would at least seek clarification on the mixed message before sending a whole state into a panic.

That is pre-12/7 thinking.

More seriously, missile flight time from North Korea to Hawaii is 20 minutes. How many minutes did military detection and verification consume? How many more minutes to notifying Hawaii Emergency Services? How many for the information to propagate to the worker? How many minutes does it take civilians to take shelter?

Each minute of delay will cost lives in a real attack. In a false alarm people suffered some temporary stress and the government embarrassment. If this is a one off as the government debugs the alert process and procedures there is no real problem here. If its recurring and the public begins to ignore alerts assuming its another false alarm, then there is a problem.

Re:Fear Mongering

[Rakarra]

Don't ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence. Doesn't mean it's not malice, but this whole thing exposes some flaws in the system.
The biggest flaw being that they had no way to send a retraction for 38 minutes because the system only allowed for a pre-programmed list of responses, and they had to figure out how to hack it/reprogram it to send a custom alert.

When did Americans become so INSANELY afraid??

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a trend I have noticed for the last 10 years: Americans have become so ridiculously afraid of literally everything... Constantly on the edge, flipping by a hair trigger. Everything is OMG this, and creepy that, and don't dare or try anything that could even remotely make one imagine it might possibly cause dreams where one might dream of dreaming of imagining that there might be a chance it might be imaginable that there might be a risk.

It's mad, to see it from the outside.

Is it the fearmongering? Is it psychotropic drugs given to livestock and then in the meat? Is it the constant fearmongering of the news? Is it because intelligence has actually gone up and everyone now being better at coming up with possible ways it could go wrong?

I just know, this won't end well.
Or maybe I'm just affected by it too.

Re:When did Americans become so INSANELY afraid??

[k6mfw]

This is both yes and no. In some ways dramatic headline news gets more viewers and clicks, news is a money making business. Fearmongering is used as a distraction, ask typical American what threat are they worried about, many will think of terrorism, nuclear explosion or exposure. But most lives and property are lost due to fires, floods, and other natural disasters. I see a missile attack warning as completely useless info for me because there is nothing I can do, and also with all these false alarms... well I get alarm fatigue like everyone else and typically ignore it. Except whine on the forums or get a frist psot prize.

Re:When did Americans become so INSANELY afraid??

[Cro Magnon]

But most lives and property are lost due to fires, floods, and other natural disasters.

Actually, no. Statistically, I'll probably get killed by an old woman driving while texting, applying makeup, and eating a Big Mac.

Re:When did Americans become so INSANELY afraid??

[Anonymous Coward]

"Is it the fearmongering?"

Yes.

The media has been hyping sensational news for decades because it sells newspapers and attracts viewers. This makes people paranoid that there are thieves, kidnappers, rapists, and and drive-by shooters around every corner, when in fact 99% of the people had no problems at all that day. But saying "All was well for almost everybody today" doesn't attract viewers.

The past few years there has been an even bigger problem of fearmongering by politicians. This started in the reaction to 9/11, went into overdrive to discredit Obama, and is now in hyperdrive. The early Cold War and McCarthy era may have been similar, but I was born in the late 1960s so I have only secondhand knowledge of those.

Re:When did Americans become so INSANELY afraid??

[angel'o'sphere]

The only thing you could do is getting into an underground parking space. Or a real anti missile/anti nuclear shelter. A standard basement would help if you are far away enough from ground zero.

However if you nock at the door of a random house, showing the missile alert, I wonder if the inhabitants would let you hide in thier basement :)

Re:When did Americans become so INSANELY afraid??

[dpidcoe]

This is a trend I have noticed for the last 10 years: Americans have become so ridiculously afraid of literally everything... Constantly on the edge, flipping by a hair trigger. Everything is OMG this, and creepy that, and don't dare or try anything that could even remotely make one imagine it might possibly cause dreams where one might dream of dreaming of imagining that there might be a chance it might be imaginable that there might be a risk.

Is it actual americans you're noticing, or american news reporting about americans?

Granted I may just live in a bubble, but with the exception of one guy who has a legitimate anxiety disorder everyone I know is generally the exact opposite of what you describe.

I think what you may be seeing is a combination of media reporting sensationalist headlines riling people up, then reporting on those riled up people in a sensationalist way. e.g. the media goes out and says "omg worst flu epidemic evar!!11one", then interviews someone (who has been watching the news) who says "I decided not to visit the doctor for this trivial thing because I could treat it at home and didn't to be exposed to sick people in the waiting room" and then reports that as "omg people are afraid to go to the doctor because of the flu epidemic!111oneone". If your only visibility into it is those two news reports, all you're going to see is this circlejerk of click-catching headlines. But if you talk to the actual people most of them aren't really accurately represented by that news cycle.

On the other hand, I think there may be a little bit of accuracy to what you see just due to the way our legal system is. The general perception is (possibly thanks to a hysterical media?) that if something that's not a slam dunk case goes to court, everyone but the lawyers lose. As a result, there's a tendency towards being safe rather than sorry, and taking actions such that liability is shifted onto someone else. e.g. in some safety training I had to go through for work, the catch-all for pretty much every scenario that came up was "alert your manager to the issue and they'll take care of it". I can only assume that in the managers version of the training it was also "contact your manager and they'll take care of it" all the way up to the president of the company, who probably has "contact HR about it". And then I'd expect that HR has "contact legal about it" and legal probably will get them a noncommittal answer in a few days time.

Re:When did Americans become so INSANELY afraid??

[Proudrooster]

People aren't afraid. The news media needs to make us afraid so we consume their product.

How often have you heard this just before a cut to 5 minutes of commercials on the local news,

"There is a common household item in your house which could be endangering you and your family, stay tuned to find out what and where they are.."

Newspapers typically use the most inflammatory headlines and publish "hit pieces" filled with weasel words like allegedly.

The news wants us to need them so they rachet up everything to dare I say, "fake news level 11" just to keep people tuned into the noise. There is no nuance and there is little in-depth reporting. Their question is how can we scare/shock viewers into listening to us. The most valuable commodity in America is your attention.

I believe America as a whole is becoming weary with the talking head that cried wolf, and is tuning them out.

However, America is a too violent, too many killings, too much gun violence, too many school shootings. Unfortunately, because of the scary story of the day, we can't stop and have intelligent, reasoned discussions on how to fix some of the real problems.

Just my opinion.

Re:When did Americans become so INSANELY afraid??

[david_thornley]

This is a trend I have noticed for the last 10 years: Americans have become so ridiculously afraid of literally everything.

The trend dates back at least to September 11, 2001, after which a large number of Americans became afraid of anything that might be terrorism or something like that, to the point of asking that civil rights be suspended to guard against a very unlikely threat.

Re:When did Americans become so INSANELY afraid??

[vandamme]

In Hawai'i, the nervousness dates back to December 7, 1941. But now there's no way of intercepting Dear Leader's bomb.

Re:When did Americans become so INSANELY afraid??

[NikeHerc]

This is a trend I have noticed for the last 10 years: Americans have become so ridiculously afraid of literally everything...

I'm afraid you are misinformed. Born and raised in the U.S.A., I am concerned about tornadoes and earthquakes where I live (both are endemic to this area) and it's somewhat disturbing that you have little warning of one and none of the other. I have no fear of terrorists (they should actually be scared shitless of us, especially in this area) or really much of anything else.

My only real fear is that when the democrats eventually regain the White House, they will finish the previous president's work of destroying the country from within.

Re:When did Americans become so INSANELY afraid??

[SixMinutes]

Your post is actually a good example of undue fear stoked in the US.

Kim Jong Un is not actually crazy. He understands clearly that if he actually drops a nuke on someone, he and his country will be blasted to matchsticks. Kim's only concern is survival, and he has seen the way dictators on the outs with the US tend to go: Saddam, Gadaffi, etc, and he wants a deterrent. Obviously it's not a good thing for North Korea to have nukes, but short of a regime-ending invasion of NK the weapons will never actually be used.

The hysteria that NYC or another US city might wake up in flames tomorrow is just that. But that fear glues eyeballs to the news, and fear makes for compliant citizens, so newsmakers and politicians have seen fit to feed that fear. It's manipulative and dangerous, and something we should each personally resist.

Except... Software project was rushed

[presidenteloco]

and the management decided it was finished and "ship it" after the first iteration whereas the programmers assumed that was just an initial prototype, to be refined and tested in the second iteration.

Re:Fear Mongering

[Comrade Ogilvy]

Some voters choose to be very easy to manipulate.

Re:Fear Mongering

[AK Marc]

Oh, wait, that was the last two administrations.

Is that code for "started under Bush?"

Oops, it was those last two administrations.

Is that code for "started under Bush?"

That he inherited from the last two administrations.

Is that code for "started under Bush?"

You can see the Republican apologists. It's like for Vietnam, where the Republicans still blame JFK, when the first American boots on the ground in Vietnam and first American losses were under Eisenhower. And it was Eisenhower who explicitly interrupted the elections that was the proximate cause of the "civil war" that became a proxy war. But that's forgotten and "continuing a failed policy by a Republican" is somehow turned into "started by a Democrat."

I'm not a Democrat, but I do believe in telling the truth.

This is not a drill

[DontBeAMoran]

The english language is imprecise.

Re:Fear Mongering

[MightyYar]

OK? Not sure how this answers my question about Trump's big foreign policy flop. I think my post was pretty damning of Bush's foreign policy - and Obama's for that matter. I think you are preaching to the converted.

Re:Fear Mongering

[MightyYar]

So let me get this thesis straight... the Hawaii botched drill was an elaborate ruse in a solid blue state to distract from Trump's failure to significantly change US foreign policy from it's historic course? Alrighty then.

Re:Fear Mongering

[tinkerton]

What, no lizards in tin foil hats?

Re:Fear Mongering

[tinkerton]

That's easy to say but do you expect these people to vote Clinton instead?
http://www.theamericanconserva...
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/new...

more of an fire system test vs an fire drill at sc

[Joe_Dragon]

more of an fire system test vs an fire drill at schools.

Re:Fear Mongering

[CrashNBrn]

If you paid attention to the news (which I don't recommend, it's depressing as fuck) You would know the answer to some of those questions. For a more recent run-down of how Trump and the Republicans are single-handedly dismantling the FBI to cover their respective asses and distract the public -- watch Rachel Maddow's most recent Jan.29th episode, or even last weeks Jan 24th or 25th episode.

Re:Fear Mongering

[MightyYar]

So, no answer about foreign policy failures, then?

Re:Fear Mongering

[MightyYar]

Tad Cooper.

Re:Fear Mongering

[tinkerton]

Close enough.

Re: Fear Mongering

[MightyYar]

How's that worldview working out for you?

Re:Fear Mongering

[Gavagai80]

I'll only believe someone a politician who claims not to be less interventionist if they promise to cut the military budget. In the USA, the only argument is over how much to raise it by, with each party competing to promise a bigger raise, and Trump promising the bigliest of all. You don't expand the most bloated military in the history of the planet without coming up with uses for it.

Re:Fear Mongering

[Gavagai80]

There's plenty of blame to go around. Bush and Ike deserve criticism for starting wars, but their successors equally deserve criticism for committing the nation to a course of perpetual unending war because they were too chicken to acknowledge the unwinnable situation and risk being called a chicken.

Taken from the FCC Open meeting

[mandark1967]

...At 8:05 a.m., the midnight shift supervisor initiated the drill by placing a call to the day
shift warning officers, pretending to be U.S. Pacific Command. The supervisor played a
recorded message over the phone. The recording began by saying “exercise, exercise, exercise,”
language that is consistent with the beginning of the script for the drill. After that, however, the
recording did not follow the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency’s standard operating
procedures for this drill. Instead, the recording included language scripted for use in an
Emergency Alert System message for an actual live ballistic missile alert. It thus included the
sentence “this is not a drill.” The recording ended by saying again, “exercise, exercise,
exercise.” Three on-duty warning officers in the agency’s watch center received this message,
simulating a call from U.S. Pacific Command on speakerphone.

According to a written statement from the day shift warning officer who initiated the
alert, as relayed to the Bureau by the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, the day shift
warning officer heard “this is not a drill” but did not hear “exercise, exercise, exercise.”
According to the written statement, this day shift warning officer therefore believed that the
missile threat was real. At 8:07 a.m., this officer responded by transmitting a live incoming
ballistic missile alert to the State of Hawaii. The day shift warning officer used software to send
the alert. Specifically, they selected the template for a live alert from a drop-down menu
containing various live- and test- alert templates. The alert origination software then prompted
the warning officer to confirm whether they wanted to send the message. The prompt read, “Are
you sure that you want to send this Alert?” Other warning officers who heard the recording in
the watch center report that they knew that the erroneous incoming message did not indicate a
real missile threat, but was supposed to indicate the beginning of an exercise. Specifically, they
heard the words: “exercise, exercise, exercise.” The day shift warning officer seated at the alert
origination terminal, however, reported to the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency after the
event their belief that this was a real emergency, so they clicked “yes” to transmit the alert.

Re:thsths = fake name massive human fail

[sysrammer]

I have read about your hosts file program elsewhere on the net, along with some bizarre comments about your weird behavior on Slashdot. I was on the edge of purchasing your software, but reading this comment has made me reconsider. Thank you, I guess. You saved me some money.

No, no, no! That comment was simply a drill. See the part at the end, "all talk & no action"? That signifies that this was a practice comment. In the event of a real hosts file anomaly, you would be directed to your nearest governmental DNS resolver.

Re:Lives Cost?

[crunchygranola]

I want to focus a moment on the idea that, "Each minute of delay will cost lives in a real attack."

Are we sure we can do enough in 20 minutes, to make much difference? I don't mean that Hawaiians are expendable, or that more warning isn't better. However this isn't the 1950's anymore; civil defense measures have mostly been dismantled. It has been fashionable for decades to suggest that "nuclear war isn't survivable, bomb shelters are useless."

You surely have heard of "duck and cover"? There are steps that civilians can take in a matter of minutes that will reduce casualties in large areas affected by the attack. "Duck and cover" is the fastest and most basic, but it can prevent serious flash burns, injury by flying glass and other objects. Getting under cover, behind cover, and so forth take longer and likely needs minutes to accomplish in many cases.

Of course, all this depends on civilians who know what to do. How many is that, at present? But this can be fixed quickly with education.

Uneasy sleeps the head that wears the crown

[Headw1nd]

America is, in terms of wealth, power, and influence, the undisputed head of the world right now. With that honor comes the knowledge that the rest of the world dreams of dethroning us, some through peaceful means, some violent. Nothing lasts forever.

Gutting and undercutting American diplomacy

[CrashNBrn]

Trumps National Security & Foreign Policy Failures - Year One

Trump and [Rex] Tillerson seem determined to tear down the U.S. Department of State, an irreplaceable pillar of American influence around the world, saving a few dollars in the short run at the cost of a more dangerous world.

Downgrading diplomacy: The secretary of state is deconstructing and downsizing the State Department. Secretary Tillerson has pursued a “reorganization” that has delivered little and lost the trust of U.S. diplomats, while pledging to cut the department’s budget by nearly a third even before his initial review of the department’s missions was complete.

Diplomats racing for the exits: Senior career officers have been forced out, numerous senior jobs remain vacant, the incoming class of new officers has been cut back, and the department’s influence on foreign policy in Washington is the lowest in modern memory.

Simply put, American diplomacy is weaker under Trump and Tillerson, and it will take many years to recover after they are gone.

I don't know about "AmericanProgress" as a source, but most of the content of the article in question meshes with the news that I have watched and read over the last year from Axios, NYT, WSJ, WashPo, Reuters and others.

Now I doubt you actually want facts, as it's easy enough to look this state of affairs up.

Re:Gutting and undercutting American diplomacy

[MightyYar]

Let's assume that I buy into the AmericanProgress agenda and agree that Trump's moves represent a failure. Back to the original thesis I replied to, you think it seems reasonable that Trump would stage a botched alert in Hawaii to "cover up" what amounts to him basically fulfilling a campaign promise?

Re:Gutting and undercutting American diplomacy

[CrashNBrn]

Unlikely, I'm pretty sure the Big T has more pressing concerns.

Re:Fear Mongering

[tinkerton]

That does look like a good criterium though with such a frontal assault one wonders what counteractions would have followed. And now look whose protection Trump can count on for his survival: the Pentagon. Without it he'd never be able to hang on. He manages without the CIA but they only started mobilizing after the election.

Trump did say things that were definitely anti-interventionist: he said it was possible to get along with North Korea and with Russia and he wanted to get out of Afghanistan. I don't think those were lies. Totally unreliable but real opinions that fit a certain strain of conservative isolationist thinking.

Re:Fear Mongering

[MightyYar]

Jerusalem is a reasonable critique, though I'd point out that a peace agreement has been elusive since partition... I'm not sure Trump taking us out of that, ahem, "negotiation" has any meaningful impact.

As to the ascent of China, they are on the way to being the largest economy in the world. We will eventually cede "leadership" to them no matter what. Maybe a more astute president could delay the inevitable a bit, but every one since George I has done everything right to accelerate their growth.

Wut?

[bigmacx]

Seriously, wut? Can we trust or believe anything the gov't says or does anymore? I'm going to end every post I make anywhere now with

THIS IS NOT A DRILL

Update: Figurative Fallout

[mentil]

Seems a top official resigned, and a few workers, including the one who issued the alert, were fired today as a result of the FCC investigation. Details here.

Magritte warning

[Traf-O-Data-Hater]

This is not a drill.
This is a picture of a drill.

No, the message was not wrong

[dcooper_db9]

The procedure was broken but the text of the message was correct. The emergency response center should be prepared to receive a false instruction. There was no procedure to verify the message before issuing the alert and that's where the procedure broke down. Nobody should be fired over this. We do drills in order to learn from our mistakes before a crisis.

Mistake vs. Human Error

[Dr.Who]

It is a mistake to not account for human error. Human error is what the system lets someone do in spite of their best intentions. This places blame on system design, not the people with good intention who interact with the system.

so many fails

[sad_]

this whole incident contains so many fails, it's hard to keep track;

* doing a test where the order contains the text 'this is not a drill'
* horrible user interface that invites mistakes to send alert message (even though it appears now this was not to blame, it's just an accident waiting to happen, checkout the leaked screenshots)
* only informing people through twitter it is a false alert
* having picture taken that includes post-it with password to alert message system ...

Re:Fear Mongering

[MightyYar]

Well, there's his tireless work to persuade the Iranians to accelerate their nuclear program. That's a bit of an own goal.

So far he's held the status quo. The jury is still out on how much Obama was able to slow them down. Certainly they made a lot of progress under both Bush and Obama, so I don't really understand how it's a failure of Trump in particular.

There's his support for a ruthless strongman who's trying to seize power in Saudi Arabia, which is also having the effect of strengthening Iranian influence.

I don't really understand what makes Salman more ruthless than the monarchs who we've supported there for decades.

He's converted "support for Israel" into a partisan issue in the USA.

No he hasn't. He picked up on it and used it - don't give the man too much credit. In any case, if Jews end up leaving the Democratic party over Israel it won't be Israel that rues the day.

starting with pulling out of the TPP

People finally woke up to the negative side of "free" trade agreements, and even Clinton would have needed to pull out of TPP. This has nothing to do with Trump.

Re:Fear Mongering

[david_thornley]

The French were handling it (it had been their colony) until Dien Bien Phu, which was well into the Eisenhower administration.

Re:Fear Mongering

[Comrade Ogilvy]

"Expect" would be too strong a word. But being completely inflexible as a voter has consequences. Obama tacked foreign policy into a very slightly less militaristic direction and was relentlessly hounded by the GOP for "weakness". The GOP primary was wall-to-wall testosterone and militarism. The Pentagon is pushing for indefinite deployments into the Levant for our eternal war against ISIS/alQaeda, and Trump seems to be agreeing. What is there to be surprised about? I think it is fair to guess that Clinton would have been reluctant to commit troops in that manner, even she is still uncomfortably militaristic. The very reason this situation is so bad is that GOP leaders believe their core voters are too emotionally weak to cross over and vote for a Dem, even when their loved ones lives are literally on the line.

Re:Fear Mongering

[tinkerton]

I suppose that is more an answer to 'what would you do' while I was talking about 'what would a lot of these people do' and if they're conservative and they know Clinton's warmongering then it's reasonable that a lot of people would gamble on Trump.
I do think it's not an easy choice and your argument is reasonable. I'm more pessimistic in general I think. Obama in his interview talks about the Washington Playbook ( https://www.theatlantic.com/ma... ) and it indicates the militarism runs all through the system. It even runs so much through the system that the people I take seriously are absent from the mainstream.
I think Clinton is a very bad case but she's predictable and competent and that has value in avoiding disasters. You hope she will step back from the abyss if it comes that far. And avoiding disasters is at the moment what bothers me most. I don't see how we're going to last to the end of the century like this.