If you're engaged in a drill that's a completely predictable failure mode which you should have a standby plan for.
This happened on a week-end. The coders could have very well been at home.
Again, why would you perform a drill involving mass emergency mobilization and not manage that risk? What if this had happened during a morning commute or in some part of the country where people are more easily panicked?
With great power comes great responsibility, remember?
I find that explanation hard to take at face value. There's a button specifically labeled 'ballistic missile emergency'? Is there a different button for every possible emergency, like a tsunami button, a hijacked plane button, an earthquake button, a volcano button?
The text of the warning was “EMERGENCY ALERT BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.” That seems really specific.
Also, the news story we're commenting on describes it as a drill that is conducted every shift change, so yes I think it's a drill because that's how they describe it.
Officials said the alert was the result of human error and not the work of hackers or a foreign government. The mistake occurred during a shift-change drill that takes place three times a day at the emergency command post, according to Richard Rapoza, a spokesman for the agency.
Yes, it is a pre-written message that can be selected from a drop-down list. He was off by one, the "no drill" message was adjacent to the "test" message.
This happened on a week-end. The coders could have very well been at home.
Again, why would you perform a drill involving mass emergency mobilization and not manage that risk? What if this had happened during a morning commute or in some part of the country where people are more easily panicked?
With great power comes great responsibility, remember?