Sadly, if you look carefully at the pictures, it's pretty clear it's for a game...and I didn't even need to read that he mentioned that they were game ideas.
No it's not. At all. I mean, a rational person might make the assumption that this guy is not actually whiteboarding an ICBM launch from a rented apartment. But there's nothing about it indicating to a non-technical person that it's a game.
>Rational person might make the assumption that this guy is not actually whiteboarding an ICBM launch from a rented apartment
In my mind the real problem is that there is nothing wrong with "whiteboarding an ICBM launch". Me or me and my friends have every right get wargame 1980 or 2014 global thermonuclear war. Its seems like it would be a fascinating intellectual exercise. For that matter why can't people wargame terrorist plots, apply game theory, etc.
Between first amendment rights and the need for academic freedom, people should and do have every right to do this. In someone saw this can became concerned, they have have every-right to investigate, but in my mind, so long as it doesn't involve anything official or contacting the people involved without tangible evidence.
After all, if I talk about what might happen in a car crash, it doesn't remotely imply I intend to go out and get into one.
Uhhh? The "mouse click" was a dead give away. Also, Occam's Razor. Is this guy programming a game in his apartment or is he programming a ICBM with 0 related hardware plus probably no other corroborating evidence. No reason to act like it takes more than a couple minutes of investigation to figure this shit out.
Edit: for the guy below me, since I can't reply directly, find me a nuclear missile guidance system that is destination controlled by a freaking mouse clicking on a map in the Pentagon and I'll concede the point.
It's not irrational to think that launching an ICBM might involve a computer and therefore a mouse. Hell, I'd be surprised if it didn't. I doubt the Pentagon has posted videos of whatever it is they use on YouTube, so it's silly to ask for proof.
As I said, I agree that it is irrational to think the guy was whiteboarding an ICBM launch. (Not to mention while terrorists could conceivably get a dirty bomb, an ICBM seems well out of the question.) But there is nothing in those photos that would lead an average person to believe it was a game.
I don't need to find a nuclear missile guidance system that is destination controlled by a freaking mouse click, because that is not what is being argued.
What is being argued is that it is not out of the question to expect that such a system may or could exist. It's not unreasonable to think that it could.
Occam's Razor. Are all of our nukes controlled solely by systems that do not involve a mouse, or might there be a computer sophisticated enough somewhere in that launch process that it might make use of a mouse?
I can't even begin to understand how a rational person would think this.
Someone is going to launch a missile from Russia to the United States.. and this person needs a whiteboard with a crudely drawn line to DC and a blast radius drawing to help him do it?
I don't even have to read any of the text to know this is ridiculous.
We are arguing whether it is out of the question to expect that such a system's TARGETING is based on clicking a point on a imprecise map (per the rest of the whiteboard). It is completely out of the question to expect ICBM to be targeted with a mouse. You are (incorrectly) extrapolating the mouse click to mean that there is a mouse click somewhere in the process and NOT at the exact point drawn on the board. If you follow the flow chart, it says mouse click and then gets the target location based on that imprecise click.
"Close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and nuclear war"
When you're dealing with high-yield nuclear warheads, anywhere within a few hundred miles of your desired target is probably going to be plenty good enough.
Actually, that's a pretty horrendous common mistake. The maximum of the blast radius of every nuclear warhead is below 50 miles. The biggest one ever designed, but not tested, by the USSR (larger than the US) was 100 MT which would've had a blast radius (third degree burns) of 46.5 miles, if it was detonated at 50,000ft , less with lower heights. That is a far cry from "within a few hundred miles".
Common sense tells that anyone who has access to Intercontinental Missiles probably does not sketch a trajectory by hand on a whiteboard in a rental apartment. Even if there were no it-technical context, it could be a plan for a novel or a movie script. Than much even non-technical people with common sense should be able to guess.
Honestly I hope that even non-technical people know that the blast radius of a nuclear bomb is somewhere around the size of a city, not several US states. But there goes my optimism again...
Mostly not. Somehow, the general public has been convinced that nuclear war means wiping out all life on the planet (when in reality it would be horrible, and kill an unimaginably large number of people, but wouldn't even wipe out humanity, let alone all life) and accordingly the effects of a nuclear explosion have been vastly exaggerated in the mind of the average Joe.
Part of the problem is probably linear extrapolation from Hiroshima to the Tsar Bomba, not realizing that blast radius scales up very much sub-linearly, practical bombs meant to be used in war are way smaller than Tsar Bomba, and Hiroshima was basically constructed out of paper.
Actually, it's not clear at all. The only clue I found that it's only a virtual plan is one mention of "WebRTC" in the third image. Far from obvious for most non-programers.
I'm going to get downvoted for this but I cannot believe what I'm reading... we're talking about a nuclear attack involving inter-continental missiles. I'm far from an expert on this subject but I'm pretty sure you cannot build one in your garage on your own. (and especially not with a simple schema on a white board).
Of course, which is why the whole thing is ridiculous - but that would be true even if the person was planning an actual nuclear attack - in a free country, the only reasonable course of action would be to "let them try" - obviously there is no chance of success.
If they actually do get anywhere, AFAIK possession of radioactive material is illegal, so that's when you could actually arrest them.
That's the mouse that you put in the nose of a MIRV, and when it starts clicking its teeth because it's damnably chilly in space, it's time to re-enter. Right?
But the computers which control launch and targeting operations predate mice by decades. Launching is usually an affair involving lots of panels coated in blinkenlights and big clicky buttons, switches under panels, and then, finally, two keys, and a button push.
Fun fact: the soviets designed their launch control rooms in such a fashion that one person could turn both keys.
Here's someone's snapshot of the control room I'm thinking of - which was a standardised design. Got to push the button!
Yes, it is clear. The only groups which possess ICBMs are the governments of the USA, Russia, China, India, and possibly North Korea. None of these groups would be doing any planning on a whiteboard located in some random English apartment. Thus, the only clue you need to know that this is not a real plan is the fact that it involves ICBMs and it's on a whiteboard in a random English apartment.
Goes to show how dumb people can be.