Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.UUCP> (08/11/83)
Gee, it's pretty lucky that I even saw the "Wargames Flame Flame" message, since I've only been getting this newsgroup for a couple of days! I thought I had successfully restricted my comments on this issue to the SF-L digest over on ARPA, but... My comments on "Wargames" were, of course, only addressing the issues of the U.S. control systems and the "misrepresentation" carried forth by the film. It is certainly true that there have been false alerts in our actual systems (and presumably in Soviet systems as well). However, in actuality, none of the alerts got past preliminary stages, because the human element is very firmly entrenched in the system. I would rather have a few "controlled" false alerts than have a real attack be too easily dismissed as a false one. Outside of the intelligence community, a lot less is known about the Soviet missile control system framework. However, there are a couple of factors to keep in mind. First of all, I do *not* believe that the Soviets are suicidal! As such, I believe that the human element will remain firmly entrenched in their defense systems, just as it has in all other elements of their economy and military. This leads to the second point, namely that this "lauch on warning" crap is simply that. Both sides throw such "threats" at each other when it seems useful to do so, but neither side wants to blot themselves out of existence. Such threats are really not to be taken as more than the usual political diddling. In any case, a "launch on warning" policy does not imply full automation. All it implies is that when your sensors detect a real attack, you order your attack. This can be done manually (and almost certainly would be if such a policy were to be implemented, since the decision as to what constitutes a "real attack" is not one about to be delegated to the machines). Somehow I get the feeling that this message doesn't belong in net.movies, but the message to which I'm responding was there, so ... --Lauren--
larry@grkermit.UUCP (Larry Kolodney) (08/11/83)
From: Lauren Weinstein:
I would rather have a few "controlled" false alerts than have a
real attack be too easily dismissed as a false one.
~~~~~~~~~``
Why do you care if we too easily dismiss a real attack, there's nothing
we can do about it anyway. All that matters is that the Russians think
we won't. I don't think there's any way that the Russians would take
that chance, thus the 'quality' of our NORAD systems should be
determined by least number of false alarms, not most number of
successes.
--
Larry Kolodney
{linus decvax}!genrad!grkermit!larry
(ARPA) rms.g.lkk@mit-aieric@aplvax.UUCP (08/12/83)
Hate to keep flogging a dead horse, but how many of you heard about the students who broke into Lawrence Livermore's system? Maybe "Wargames" wasn't as far-fetched as we would have liked to believe. eric ...!seismo!umcp-cs!aplvax!eric