ARMS-D-Request@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU (Moderator) (09/01/86)
Arms-Discussion Digest Monday, September 1, 1986 8:13AM
Volume 7, Issue 10
Today's Topics:
Administrivia
Duel Phenomenology - Conned Fusion?
Launch on warning lawsuit - Weinberger's Answer
Why Stockpile?
F-16 Tales
F-16 software
[mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!mtuxo!mtfmt!root: Moderated newsgroup]
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Date: Sat, 30 Aug 1986 11:47 EDT
From: LIN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Subject: Administrivia
Someone please tell these guys about the following problems:
==> CSNET-relay
Delivery attempts are still pending for the following address(es):
dietz@SLB-DOLL.CSNET (host: slb-doll.csnet) (queue: slb-doll)
Problems usually are due to service interruptions at the receiving
machine. Less often, they are caused by the communication system.
==> I got back a digest from some mail demon somewhere that I don't
understand. Someone please explain it to me.
Date: Sunday, 31 August 1986 00:14-EDT
From: mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!mtuxo!mtfmt!root at seismo.CSS.GOV
To: ARMS-D-Request
Re: Moderated newsgroup
Responding-System: mtfmt.UUCP
This newsgroup is moderated, and cannot be posted to directly.
Please mail your article to the moderator for posting.
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From: ARMS-D-Request@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU (Moderator)
Newsgroups: mod.politics.arms-d
Subject: Arms-Discussion Digest V7 #9
Message-ID: <8608291848.AA29199@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Fri, 29-Aug-86 10:37:00 EDT
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[And then an issue of Arms-d (vol 7 #9) appears below]
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Date: Fri, 29 Aug 86 12:42:00 PDT
From: Clifford Johnson <GA.CJJ@Forsythe.Stanford.Edu>
Subject: Duel Phenomenology - Conned Fusion?
> > if satellite warning or radar warning, then attack warning
>
> Forgive me if I'm missing something, but surely you would expect a logical
> AND in the above construction rather than an OR. I wouldn't expect a to
> sound a warning of attack if one of my sensors went dead unless the other
> one also said there was something happening. In that case there is still
> an element of duality in the detection and the warning level stays at
> 'likely' rather than 'certain'.
I agree, one would expect an "AND," that's why it's called "dual
phenomenonology" (or is it called that to impress Congress and
half-mislead?) I suggest you write and ask General Herres just what
he means by putting to use the "information" provided by loss of
one kind of signal (e.g. in "confirming" a positive warning from the
other kind?)
> In real life you would obviously want
> something much more complex than this anyway.
Again, I agree, and observe further that complexity exacerbates
many of the difficulties of (con)fusion, and scrunches all possibility
of real-time uncomputerized verification.
To: ARMS-D@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
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Date: Fri, 29 Aug 86 18:21:14 PDT
From: Clifford Johnson <GA.CJJ@Forsythe.Stanford.Edu>
Subject: Launch on warning lawsuit - Weinberger's Answer
> Re: Could computers launch a nuclear attack?
>
> [Cliff - is this article roughly correct?]
Dave Kadlecek's article is great! Here's an update.
The judge in the previous suit, Spenser Williams, ruled that the
new action "is not related to" the previous action. This means he
doesn't take the case. More significantly, it means the first
hurdle is crossed - the case is so different as to require a
determination separate from the last case, i.e. it's not booted out
on the grounds that it's the same thing for a second time.
The randomly assigned judge is Justice Lynch.
Weinberger's attorney of record is Russoniello - the case is being
handled by Christopher Stoll, an assistant. As required, on August
18 he filed an Answer, reporduced here in its entirety:
> The defendant by and through his undersigned attorneys hereby
> answers the Complaint in this action as follows;
>
> All of the allegations of the complaint are DENIED.
> [N.B. Since the allegations included such facts as my residency in
> San Francisco, this translates to "We don't think we need to
> answer the paragraphs of the Complaint separately."]
>
> SEPARATE DEFENSES
>
> 1. The court lacks jurisdiction over this complaint.
> [N.B. A threat of harm to the plaintiff doesn't give him standing
> to sue is the implicit contention.]
>
> 2. The complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief may be
> granted.
> [N.B. This is a catch-all rebuttal.]
>
> 3. The case is a non-justiciable case or controversy.
> [N.B. It raises a political, not a legal, question.]
>
> 4. The relief sought cannot be obtained from the named defendant.
> [N.B. I don't understand this - I'm asking the court for
> declaratory relief, not Weinberger; and manifestly, Weinberger
> is responsible for the alleged operation of a LOWC.]
>
> WHEREFORE, the undersigned attorneys urge dismissal with prejudice,
> costs of litigation, and such further relief as may be appropriate.
A formal motion to dismiss will likely ensue in the next weeks, Mr.
Stoll hasn't had time to get it together yet. He said the
government would likely refuse to answer any request for admissions
I might serve in the interim.
P.S. [Read on if interested in numerical SNAFUs.] The answer was
mailed to an attorney in another case by mistake. When I called the
US attorney find out why I had not received an answer, the
receptionist's computer gave the wrong attorney. When I called
back I was told to call back again because the computer was down.
When I called the court, the court said no answer had been filed.
Half a dozen phone calls, two weeks, and a visit to the court were
necessary to establish that:
The court had a record of the answer having been filed, but it was
not in the file, and the original is inexplicably lost. The court
mistakenly filed a notice of change of attorney for case 3444 (1986)
in my case file, the number being "similar" - 3334 (1986). (However,
said answer was not found in the file of 3444.) Curiously, I WAS
given a copy of an order which turned out to be for a third case,
namely 3334 (1985). In accordance with the erroneous notice of
change of attorney, my name had been crossed out on the court's
docket-list and replaced by the attorney of case 3444, to whom
Weinberger's answer had been sent.
To: ARMS-D@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
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Date: Friday, 29 August 1986 12:31-EDT
From: allegra!uw-beaver!tikal!sigma!bill at ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (William Swan)
To: tikal!XX.LCS.MIT.EDU!ARMS-D at ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU
Re: Why Stockpile?
Newsgroups: mod.politics.arms-d
In article <8608271936.AA04630@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>:
>Arms-Discussion Digest Wednesday, August 27, 1986 1:50PM
>Volume 7, Issue 7
> Why Stockpile?
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1986 13:55 EDT
>From: Rob Austein <SRA@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
>Subject: Why Stockpile?
>
>[...] The number of warheads posessed
>by both sides is, you should pardon the expression, extreme overkill.
>[...]
I keep hearing this statement, usually associated with statements like
"enough capacity to make the rubble bounce 100 times over" or some such.
Is it perhaps that the excess capacity is perceived as being a reserve, a
guarantee that that side will still have an offensive capability remaining
after being damaged by a first strike? Could it be that the decisionmakers
see it as not being able to blow "them" into tiny bits 100 times, but rather
of being still able to blow them to bits for the first time after being hit?
This would seem to me to be the reason for a lot of excess capacity. Also,
if "first-strike" weapons are defined as those aimed at knocking out the
opposing side's military capability, why are they not also "second-strike",
with the goal of destroying the opposer's reserves (you think they would
really launch *everything* on the first strike?)?
Sorry for the naive questions, but my energies have been devoted elsewhere,
I've not devoted much time to this topic..
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Date: Friday, 29 August 1986 11:51-EDT
From: Boebert at HI-MULTICS.ARPA
To: Arms-d@xx.lcs.mit.edu
Re: F-16 Tales
ReSent-From: RISKS@CSL.SRI.COM
Weight on wheels is a basic sensor input that tells the flight program
whether or not the aircraft is airborne. In advanced systems like the
F-16 its is probably confirmed by air data computer and inertial
platform inputs; in older systems, where the computer does just nav and
weapons delivery, it is the prime indicator. It is therefore unlikely
in the extreme that this would be overlooked in a design or an ordnance
safety analysis ((weight_on_wheels = TRUE) & (master_arm = TRUE) &
(weapon_release = TRUE) is clearly an undesired state). I am also
skeptical that the gear would be controlled by the flight computer, but
I am not familiar with the F-16 so cannot comment further.
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Date: Friday, 29 August 1986 22:57-EDT
From: amdcad!phil at decwrl.DEC.COM (Phil Ngai)
To: Arms-d@xx.lcs.mit.edu, risks at csl.sri.com
Re: F-16 software
It sounds very funny that the software would let you drop a bomb on the wing
while in inverted flight but is it really important to prevent this? Is it
worth the chance of introducing a new bug to fix this very minor problem? Is
it worth the chance of making the code too big to fit in memory? What is the
chance that a pilot would really make this mistake?
[The probability is clearly NONZERO. It is very dangerous to start
making assumptions in programming about being able to leave out an
exception condition simply because you think it cannot arise. Such
assumptions have a nasty habit of interacting with other assumptions
or propagating. PGN]
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End of Arms-Discussion Digest
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