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US-Russia Joint Force to Monitor Missiles' Y2K Problems
Hapster sent in the link to a New York Times story (free reg. req. to read) about how the US and Russia are setting up a joint task force to make sure we don't accidently get into a nuclear exchange because of Y2K bugs in missle warning and launch software. According to the article, "The confidence-building operation will use U.S.
early-warning satellites and advanced computers, and
could reassure Moscow if Y2K computer problems in
Russia mistakenly signaled a missile launch somewhere
in the world."
From the beginning, i've always contended that the biggest problem with Y2K is *not* the machines. Its the people who will go and do something retarded or nutty out of the fear that something might happen.. Stockpiling weapons, hoarding food, withdrawing huge sums of money from banks..that sort of thing is the greatest threat here. The redneck factor plays into it way more than anything else.
There will be riots -- but not because of anything computer related. There will be riots because people *expect* rioting to occur. Its completely psychological. It goes hand in hand with "My city's basketball team won a game -- Now I think i'll go turn over a squad car and set my own neighborhood on fire." People will use a simple 4-digit roll of our Gregorian calendar as a reason to steal a television. Why? Because people *expect* it to happen.
If you ask me, Times Square in NY is the absolute worst place you could be on New Years Eve. Given the number of people who will try and pack themselves into such a small space, something bad is bound to happen. Mix in some alcohol into that equation, and the outlook is even worse. Add into it the fact that 20% of the population have serious mental health issues, and greater than 1% of the population is schizophrenic, and you've got yourself a big human fruit-salad of errors ready to propogate. Think about that next time the camera pans the crowd..One out of every 100 faces in that crowd thinks that dogs can send telepathic messages from Satan directly into their minds.
Lets suppose some nutcase has it in his head that the world will be coming to an end at the stroke of midnight. He figures, "Well, since I have to go to hell, i'm going to bring the greatest party in the world with me!"
10 seconds later, 300 people are dead, 1000 are injured, most of them killed by the ensuing stampede.
I'm not worried about the machines. I'm worried about the morons being worried about the machines.
Bowie J. Poag
Bowie J. Poag
I mentioned this sometime earlier on slashdot, the U.S. and Russia have an exchange program for defence analysts to keep an eye on each others silos and command centres.
During the mini-revolution that almost unseated Gorbachev, the russian missile command centre opened all the doors on the silos so the CIA (actually the NRO) could peer into them with the spy satellites and confirm that rogue forces hadn't taken over the government and ordered a launch. They even grabbed a CIA analyst from the moscow embassy and flew him to one of the military bases so he could report back on what was going on. It kept the U.S. in a "peaceful posture".
There were some small announcements in defence magazines more than a year ago that both sides would be monitoring each other, and were working to get the chinese involved as well. Now they also have to worry about India and Pakistan, although only India has orbital technology and isn't currently pissed at anyone other than neighbor Pakistan.
But its nice to see a splashy PR piece to calm Y2K fears.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
It's amazing that the majority of the American populace isn't bracing for the end of the world... Forget Y2K. In 1899, there was a huge dip in the stock market, and there was way more panic by September a century ago than there is today. (The stock market did jump back within a few months in 1900).
:)
I think by focusing everyones attention on Y2K, we're not panicing! A modern day apocolypse myth can be explained away as a technical problem to be solved. "Yes, there is a problem with the end of the century, but our best technicians are working on it and we'll have it fixed just in time!". I bet they couldn't say that in 1899...
It doesn't matter how bad y2k is. It's the end of the millenium! Where are the thousands of doomsday cultists committing suicide? Where is that stock market panic? Why haven't end of the millenium trinkets shown up everywhere?
Well, I guess I could be wrong about the trinkets...