[HN Gopher] Child tweets gibberish from US nuclear-agency account
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Child tweets gibberish from US nuclear-agency account
Author : rustoo
Score : 158 points
Date : 2021-03-30 16:45 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| Causality1 wrote:
| People need to chill out. That a Twitter handle is run by someone
| who gets paid by some important agency is completely irrelevant.
|
| https://xkcd.com/932/
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| I don't see how this is as big a deal as people make it out to
| be. The person in charge of this account probably has nothing to
| do with anything that remotely matters. You wouldn't worry about
| your 401k if the asset manager's twitter account posted some
| gibberish.
| scarecrowbob wrote:
| I do some work for gov website that is more or less a PR blog.
|
| Although you can't do anything to the systems that this agency
| deals with via the back end to this website, the scope of
| abuses that someone could engage in if they had these
| credentials is quite broad, ranging from "Agency XYZ endorses
| PQR" to "Agency XYZ will begin action against LMN".
|
| Or, if you can't see the implications of that ability, consider
| that there's an entire cult of folks in the US that has some
| pretty questionable beliefs based on the mere assertion of
| "clearance" by an anon poster on a chan board... imagine how
| damaging it would be if those assertions could be
| "demonstrated" via an agency account?
| smt88 wrote:
| What if the child were a little older and typed something
| related to launching missiles as a joke?
| de_Selby wrote:
| Is it standard practice to tweet about it when launching a
| nuclear attack?
| ajhurliman wrote:
| It's actually a requirement; nuclear launches are just a
| Twitter webhook
| chris_wot wrote:
| I've heard Twitter being accused of being a nuclear
| wasteland, but never of _causing_ one.
| [deleted]
| sharkweek wrote:
| I think you're drastically underestimating how many people
| would assume it was true
| airhead969 wrote:
| Sunday, October 30, 1938
| msla wrote:
| Ah, the "NEW MEDIA: THREAT OR MENACE?" broadcast:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_(1938
| _ra...
|
| > The response may have reflected newspaper publishers'
| fears that radio, to which they had lost some of the
| advertising revenue that was scarce enough during the
| Great Depression, would render them obsolete. In "The War
| of the Worlds", they saw an opportunity to cast
| aspersions on the newer medium: "The nation as a whole
| continues to face the danger of incomplete, misunderstood
| news over a medium which has yet to prove that it is
| competent to perform the news job," wrote Editor &
| Publisher, the newspaper industry's trade journal.[2][55]
|
| > William Randolph Hearst's papers called on broadcasters
| to police themselves, lest the government step in, as
| Iowa Senator Clyde L. Herring proposed a bill that would
| have required all programming to be reviewed by the FCC
| prior to broadcast (he never actually introduced it).
|
| And we all know Hearst would have no incentive to gin up
| something to make radio look bad and newspapers look
| better.
|
| > Few contemporary accounts exist outside newspaper
| coverage of the mass panic and hysteria supposedly
| induced by the broadcast. Justin Levine, a producer at
| KFI in Los Angeles, wrote in a 2000 history of the FCC's
| response to hoax broadcasts that "the anecdotal nature of
| such reporting makes it difficult to objectively assess
| the true extent and intensity of the panic.[56]
| Bartholomew sees this as yet more evidence that the panic
| was predominantly a creation of the newspaper
| industry.[57]
| pbourke wrote:
| Well it was until January 8th or so.
| de_Selby wrote:
| Fair point.
| asdff wrote:
| Nothing would happen. Hawaii sent out an alert to every
| single cellphone in the state that an ICBM was imminently
| approaching Honolulu a few years back, and no one outside of
| Hawaii remembers that anymore today.
| kiddico wrote:
| That is certainly not true. The absurdity of the situation
| burned the event into my mind at least, and I've never even
| been to Hawaii.
| [deleted]
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| If nothing else, I bet it'd cause a short term panic in the
| stock market.
| csomar wrote:
| Probably because it is the "official" twitter account; and thus
| people will assume the _tweets_ to be official messages. An
| agency responsible for nuclear weapons tweeting some gibberish
| is certainly scary for some.
| xiphias2 wrote:
| Since a long time ago it's clear that social media (and bank)
| accounts need multi signature and 2FA support to allow advanced
| workflows. Of course it can only be achieved securely with an
| open standard that allows any combination of these deployed on
| all platforms (I'm OK with making it payed-only enterprise
| feature as long as the US military and presindent and maybe Elon
| Musk has enough money to pay for the feature).
| vlovich123 wrote:
| How does any of that solve the "child types jibberish on an
| unlocked laptop"?
|
| A better feature would be for laptop cameras to auto logout the
| user when they step away and let them log back in without
| authentication within 15 min. I think that better solves the
| unattended laptop problem than anything else. You can kind of
| get there with BLE keys but face authentication would work much
| better for presence detection (maybe do both BLE + face).
| xiphias2 wrote:
| Important accounts shouldn't be handled by 1 person, there
| should always be another one who can approve it.
| apetresc wrote:
| Do you consider the Twitter account an "important account"
| that needs multi-party approval?
| hpkuarg wrote:
| I'm 100% fine with STRATCOM not having a Twitter presence
| at all.
| kirubakaran wrote:
| We could have another https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_be
| gin_bombing_in_five_minut... situation
| cwmma wrote:
| on the other hand, see the Hawaiian missile alert fiasco where
| excessive friction prolonged the issues.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| http://catb.org/jargon/html/M/molly-guard.html
| airhead969 wrote:
| Cool!
|
| Back in the early 00's, there was a Linux kernel module or
| program to detect and eliminate feline keyboard input.
| latenightcoding wrote:
| reminds me of the "Almost my bday!!" tweet from House of
| Representatives of the Philippines.
|
| Best link I could find:
| https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1347310/house-tweets-birthday-...
| tamaharbor wrote:
| Luckily, that was more than one character away from the actual
| nuclear launch code.
| bombcar wrote:
| Highly unlikely any kid would ever guess 00000000
| whack wrote:
| The responsible agency is rightfully embarrassed by this
| oversight, and has now taken stringent measures to ensure
| something like this never happens again
|
| - Henceforth, all tweets can only ever be sent from a remote-
| desktop server that has to be hosted in a security-clearance-5
| site
|
| - In order to access the remote-desktop, 2 government employees,
| who both have 10+ years of government experience, will need to
| jointly log into the server together. The 2 users will need to
| alternate keypresses and mouse-clicks, in order to prevent either
| one from abusing their power
|
| - Both employees will need to be using a computer that comes
| equipped with a built-in webcam, that has been security cleared
| by the NSA. This webcam should be running NSA custom-built
| software that continuously monitors the faces of both employees,
| and locks the computer if it detects anything suspicious or
| anomalous
|
| - To prevent the possibility of misuse or bias, all tweets will
| need to be pre-cleared by the CIA's department of information
| warfare
|
| In other news, why does it cost the government so much money, and
| take so long, to get anything done!? Stay tuned for more.
| olodus wrote:
| Non-Parenthood and celebacy are now a requirements for any
| governmental position. Never will this proud nation be scarred
| by something this embarrassing again.
| [deleted]
| rspoerri wrote:
| nothing to see here, it's just nuclear that went home office as
| well...
| dathinab wrote:
| TL;DR: Parent forgot to lock computer child typed gibberish.
|
| But then it's just a twitter account, sure from the US nuclear-
| agency, but so what. Social media accounts get hacked all the
| time so this is IMHO not really that serious...
|
| ...if the computer isn't also used for more "high-security"
| applications, in which case I'm worried because of non
| appropriate screen locking setups might imply non appropriate
| security in other parts of the setup, too.
| whereis wrote:
| Twitter expects users to control their own editorial process.
| There are apps to manage this. If none are suitable for
| government agencies such as US Strategic Command (!), this is low
| hanging fruit for a small startup to build suitable twitter
| publishing infra
| idownvoted wrote:
| The real story is how delusional the world has become, to
| consider Tweets important
| riffic wrote:
| It'd be nice if government agencies moved to self-hosting their
| own official social media systems by way of interoperable web
| standards (ActivityPub for example).
| joosters wrote:
| Does this stop their kids from typing on their keyboard?
|
| (And anyway, surely viewing a web page counts as an
| interoperable web standard already?)
| zzzeek wrote:
| they would implement the system such that two toddlers no
| less than 15 feet apart would need to type the identical
| gibberish characters into two terminals simultaneously in
| order for the tweet to be published.
| riffic wrote:
| Twitter is a walled garden service and is hostile to both
| their users and to people in the developer ecosystem. It does
| not even pretend to interoperate.
|
| While this doesn't address the number one issue (the kid on
| the keyboard) it does provide a certain amount of
| accountability and transparency into how a public sector
| agency pushes their communications out into the world /
| digital commons.
| briangerman wrote:
| I still don't see how it prevents children from accessing
| their parents computer.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Build clients for it that mandate biometric access following
| already-existing government data security standards.
| kube-system wrote:
| Should they self-host TV stations, newspapers, and radio
| stations? Why should internet media be any different?
| freebuju wrote:
| Simple. They can control TV stations & newspapers. Facebook &
| Twitter, not so much. At least, not yet.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| Agree. The dependency on private services is not appropriate
| for officials or agencies communicating with the public. This
| is especially problematic when you consider that the public's
| responses will be subject to content moderation and censorship
| based on Twitter's whims.
| ljm wrote:
| I question why social media is a requirement in the first
| place?
| ada1981 wrote:
| Covfefe.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| Your the URL in your profile responds with: _This site is
| temporarily unavailable_
| fireeyed wrote:
| Why does every US Government agency needs a Twatter account ?
| There is a whole agency with in these agencies called Public
| Relations that have been in existence since WWII. They have
| websites that cost million of $$ to build and maintain. The
| imbeciles who man the US Military playing with their twatter
| accounts. I could only arrive at one conclusion: Too much tax
| payer money wasted on hiring extra imbeciles to run these
| government twatter accounts.
| thelean12 wrote:
| I'm sure plenty of people would/did complain about the website
| as well.
|
| "They have news conferences and can release memos. Why would
| you need a website!? What a waste of money!"
|
| Considering you also mockingly call it "twatter", I'm guessing
| you might just be out of touch.
| sp332 wrote:
| Yeah, the Twitter account manager made the tweet.
| malwarebytess wrote:
| Qanon people thinks it was a message from the military, lol.
|
| Because of this which provides a solution as "Q ACQUITTED":
|
| ;l;;gmlxzssaw
|
| http://rumkin.com/tools/cipher/cryptogram-solver.php
| argvargc wrote:
| Delete the semicolons and note the second solution... O_O
| raunak wrote:
| That is honestly quite funny. I just can't imagine being that
| delusional in real life. What a Q believer's day-to-day life
| must look like is a wonder to me.
| mcguire wrote:
| Every day is probably a journey of adventure and discovery.
| Leparamour wrote:
| Interestingly, the infamous "covfefe" tweet using the
| cryptogram-solver dissolves to "IMPEDED".
| airhead969 wrote:
| Isn't the automatic reaction of a Windows desktop/laptop user to
| lock their workstation (Ctrl-Alt-Del, Enter, Enter) if they leave
| for any reason?
|
| Edit: that was a great Chaos Monkey to reiterate security
| hygiene. Or was it a Mini Chaos Monkey?
| https://netflix.github.io/chaosmonkey/
| bentcorner wrote:
| I do that "in the office" but at home I usually leave my PC
| unlocked if I'm stepping away and trust my family not to mess
| around with my computer. It'll lock in a few minutes by itself
| anyways. While I probably would be more careful with younger
| children around I could easily see this happening for someone
| working from home.
|
| Also - in the office if you leave your computer unlocked you
| may find that you have emailed the team and promised to bring
| everybody doughnuts tomorrow.
| jcadam wrote:
| Back in the good 'ol days of the 1990s, if you left your
| computer unlocked you were liable to return to your desk and
| find somebody replaced your desktop wallpaper with
| something... pornographic and/or you sent an email to your
| boss (with the entire office on CC) professing your undying
| love for him.
| airhead969 wrote:
| I guess it's like outlet protections for little ones who
| don't know any better, or mischievous little devils.
|
| Hahah, nice! That's an awesome office. :D
| throwanem wrote:
| That's an old-school shortcut! Windows+L is faster, fwiw.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Isn't win+L easier?
| airhead969 wrote:
| I haven't used Windows in a loong time, so I guess it is. ;)
| amenod wrote:
| Tux + L then. :)
| airhead969 wrote:
| Oh nice. Or Ctrl-Command-Q on my last mac, a mini from
| 2012. (It does have an upgraded fast SSD, big HDD, and 16
| GiB.)
| BalinKing wrote:
| Ctrl-Cmd-Q works on my (relatively recent) MBP as well--I
| always used the Touch Bar instead... TIL!
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Wasn't it Windows+L?
| kbelder wrote:
| I still always do CTRL-ALT-DEL and enter, enter, like the op.
| Might be age related; I guess we really need to do a poll.
|
| This may be because I've always hated the windows key, and
| would sometimes seek out keyboards that didn't have one.
| astura wrote:
| At work, yes, always, because it's company policy and I can be
| officially reprimanded for leaving the computer unlocked and
| people actively look for this violation. At home, never, ever.
| This person was working from home.
|
| Though, I admit, if I'm working late and I'm the only one left
| in the building then I don't lock the computer.
|
| I'd imagine many computer uses don't know how to lock their
| computers if they weren't taught by IT - many "obvious" things
| to a tech savvy person are unknown by your average office
| worker (you can't imagine how many people I've taught to use
| CTRL+F)
|
| Also, the shortcut is Windows Key+L.
| mcguire wrote:
| Once upon a time, there were manuals and stuff that might
| have taught this sort of thing. Now, it's assumed to be
| intuitively obvious.
| ziddoap wrote:
| >Isn't the automatic reaction of a Windows desktop/laptop user
| to lock their workstation
|
| Having attempted to encourage this as a habit for my users for
| about a year, and not a single one doing it, I've had to come
| up with other solutions that takes it out of their hands. (It's
| not business-critical for us, however we try to encourage good
| security habits all around).
|
| So no, I don't think it is an automatic reaction for the
| majority of people. Although, this is government - so I would
| have expected a bit more rigor. Perhaps working in a home
| environment contributed to relaxing of security habits.
|
| Side note: Windows + L was a bit easier to remember than
| Ctrl+Alt+Del -> Enter -> Enter for the users who made good
| faith efforts at making it a habit
| asveikau wrote:
| > I've had to come up with other solutions that takes it out
| of their hands.
|
| I guess this means setting the timer really low, so that it
| auto locks after a very short time?
| airhead969 wrote:
| It would happen at the wrong time, IMO.
| Leparamour wrote:
| >I guess this means setting the timer really low, so that
| it auto locks after a very short time?
|
| The IT department at my former employer tried this out
| company-wide and it almost led to them getting attacked
| physically. When every simple distraction leads to you
| getting locked out of the desktop (phonecall, boss or
| coworker having a question) it builds frustration quickly.
| Pair this with frequently changing (company-mandated)
| complex passwords and permanent lockut after a few mistypes
| and you have a recipe for disaster: Even some of my
| technologically less-inclined co-workers researched how to
| bypass Windows security with hacking tools.
| chc wrote:
| I think the problem there is the password policies more
| than the screen-locking policy. The locking policy is
| just shining a spotlight on the password policy issues.
| Leparamour wrote:
| On top of that, the IT department was unavailable on
| Fridays after 3 PM.
| metiscus wrote:
| I've seen a usb hid mouse jiggler used in exactly this
| set of circumstances.
| airhead969 wrote:
| Haha.
|
| I used to work at a nuclear energy services consultancy.
| I heard a story about how an energy think-tank had
| particular rooms with power-saving motion occupancy
| sensors for the lights. The problem was sitting still at
| a computer would result in the lights suddenly going off.
| An engineer solved this problem with a drinking bird toy
| with a warm bowl of water right at the level of the
| sensor.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_bird
| airhead969 wrote:
| IIRC, the trick is practical jokes! Change desktop
| backgrounds, move icons around, leave goofy/giant text Word
| documents, etc.
| gregmac wrote:
| Some more:
|
| Change their profile photo (github/slack/etc).
|
| Flip their monitor orientation.
|
| Swap to left-handed mouse buttons (or vice-versa).
|
| Go on Amazon and add some "interesting" things to their
| wishlist/cart.
|
| Go on Youtube and "like" a bunch of random videos.
| edrxty wrote:
| I miss the good old days of Vista where there was a
| straight keyboard command to change monitor orientation.
| It was something like win+shift+arrow so everyone would
| prank each other with it until it was removed.
| duck wrote:
| Or Slack everyone with "I'm a noob!"...
| airhead969 wrote:
| Muhaha.
|
| I can think of other broadcast communications that would
| get people fired.
| znpy wrote:
| Uh, back in high school a schoolmate found a huuge
| genitalia as desktop background on their laptop since they
| left it unattended and unlocked.
|
| I can tell you, that person never left that thing unlocked
| ever again.
| saghm wrote:
| I installed this app on my roommate's laptop in college one
| time when he left it unlocked and would run it every time
| he left it unlocked after that:
| https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/26793/ipanic
|
| It took several months for him to catch on; for a while I
| had him convinced that his hardware must have an issue
| where the laptop being left idle for too long caused it to
| mess up somehow.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| alias ls=echo "Segmentation Fault"
| airhead969 wrote:
| Hahaha. source ~/.bashrc
| greenshackle2 wrote:
| At my old job the tradition was to send an e-mail promising
| to bring pastries for the team the next day.
| lemmsjid wrote:
| That is so true. I struggled to develop the habit and then
| ended up on a team that did this (mainly send silly emails
| from the victim's account). It's over a decade later and I
| still hit the lock combo every time I get up.
| amenod wrote:
| ...or invite the whole team for a beer via e-mail. :)
| lostmsu wrote:
| Windows had "Dynamic lock" for a while now, which would
| automatically lock PC when a Bluetooth device goes out of
| range (e.g. typically smartphone or smartwatch).
|
| Can't it be required by a group policy?
| whoisthemachine wrote:
| It also has a timed lock, which I have seen applied as a
| group policy.
| airhead969 wrote:
| Probably. IIRC, GPOs can include arbitrary registry keys
| and can have custom policies. I maybe dated in this area,
| though.
| TheAceOfHearts wrote:
| People don't like having to type in their password each time
| they come back to the computer. Especially if their password
| is required to be fairly long and complex, which can become
| tedious to have to type in constantly during the day.
|
| If you want users to adopt secure practices then you have to
| lower the amount of friction. Adding a fingerprint reader or
| some other kind of biometrick unlocking capability would
| probably help.
|
| A better example: I think on macOS the system can be setup to
| automatically lock and unlock by wearing an Apple Watch.
|
| The users aren't the ones that have to be trained, it's the
| flawed security practices that need to be fixed.
| c0nsumer wrote:
| Look into Windows Hello for Business. It's very nice in the
| enterprise for all of this. Native facial recognition or
| fingerprint, and various other factors can be added.
| bombcar wrote:
| Causes all sorts of hell with Remote Desktop, however.
| But it's the right direction.
|
| For those with a Mac and an Apple Watch you can make the
| watch automatically lock and unlock based on Bluetooth
| distance.
| c0nsumer wrote:
| How so? In my experience you are prompted to use it, and
| you can click and use standard credentials if desired.
|
| I deployed WHfB at our $LARGE_ENTERPRISE and opted
| against using BT RSSI as a trusted signal because it's
| just too unpredictable. Probably because the Windows
| space is much more varied, but an RSSI that'd work for
| one device at ~8' away would fail to lock another when
| two cube rows away. Meaning, we knew users would start to
| depend on it, but it wouldn't work as they thought.
|
| Thus, still policies of locking machines, it's now just
| easier to unlock. (And arguably more secure because now
| less password typing means far fewer chances for
| keyloggers to get network-usable credentials.)
| bombcar wrote:
| I enabled Hello on my VM Windows 10 Enterprise and then
| was unable to connect via Remote Desktop from my Mac - so
| it didn't have single sign-on but it wouldn't fall back
| to anything I could use. So I disabled it and now it's
| happy.
| panzagl wrote:
| So what you do is take a screenshot of whatever's open on
| their computer, close it, then set the screenshot as their
| desktop wallpaper. Also hide their icons for good measure.
| This should start a cycle of escalation and retaliation that
| eventually gets the whole office locking their PCs.
| ziddoap wrote:
| In the past, for me, this has caused needless friction and
| fostered an adversarial relationship between IT/security
| staff and everyone else.
|
| We weighed our options and decided that it was a battle we
| would rather not waste our effort and risk staff animosity
| with. When a more serious security incident occurs, or when
| we decide to implement something else that may require
| staff effort, we believe that our staff will be more
| willing to work with us towards a solution.
|
| Sometimes with security policy, a little give (proportional
| to risk analysis) can go a long way with non-technical
| staff. I'd rather work with staff to come up with processes
| that work for both the security staff and all other staff
| members than become so rigid in my security policy that I
| may inadvertently alienate the security staff - which has
| many risks itself.
| filoleg wrote:
| It can be done in a bit less adversarial and nicer way
| than making them deal with an annoyance of
| "troubleshooting" their desktop. Which, I found, makes
| things much easier and more frictionless.
|
| In my old office, we had this team "tradition" that was
| supposed to encourage people to lock their desktops. If
| they left their office for whatever reason and left their
| desktop unlocked, anyone from the team jumps up to the
| machine. Then they send an email to the rest of the team
| on behalf of the person who left their desktop unlocked,
| saying that they are bringing cookies to share with the
| team tomorrow.
|
| It worked out well for quite a few years, with people
| being more mindful about locking their machines. And
| their "punishment" for not doing so was just sharing
| cookies with the rest of the team the day after and
| hearing a couple of jokes about the situation. Overall,
| very positive experience, no one got upset about
| anything, because their machines themselves weren't
| screwed with, their work productivity wasn't lost due to
| it, and everyone shared a moment and baked goods.
| bartread wrote:
| Here's the thing: sometimes the lock screen on Windows 10
| _doesn 't work_ and you can get back to the desktop simply by
| swiping up even when you think you should have to re-enter your
| password or PIN.
|
| Note that I have face ID disabled because I got really fed up
| of my computer unlocking itself just because I'd gone back to
| my desk to pick up something I'd forgotten when I locked it and
| walked away. This always seemed incredibly insecure to me, not
| to mention very annoying.
| Leparamour wrote:
| >you can get back to the desktop simply by swiping
|
| What exactly do you mean by "swiping up"? Are you using Win10
| on a tablet?
| bartread wrote:
| I have a Dell XPS laptop equipped with a touchscreen.
| gregmac wrote:
| Having used Windows 10 basically since it came out, on many
| different devices, I've never experienced this, and I lock my
| PC every time I step away (or at least I did when I was
| working in an office). I also can't find anyone discussing
| it, though admittedly the search terms for this are difficult
| (mostly all I can find is people complaining their screen
| doesn't auto-lock after timeout).
|
| Can you provide anything else on this, rather than just
| casually claiming one of the most popular OSes has a massive
| security bug?
| bartread wrote:
| Not really, only to say that it's happened to me several
| times, and isn't something I've been able to reproduce.
|
| It happens infrequently enough that the first handful of
| times I thought I must have just forgotten to lock the
| machine. Eventually I realised that wasn't so and I wasn't
| just imagining it because, of course, by this time I'd
| become ultra-paranoid about locking the thing.
|
| I'm running a ~2 year old Dell XPS equipped with a
| touchscreen. It's a decent machine for my needs but nothing
| special or exotic, and certainly I can't see any reason why
| this would be an issue.
|
| I don't know what else to tell you other than I wish I was
| making it up.
| iudqnolq wrote:
| By default it locks five minutes after the screen goes black.
| Is that what you're talking about?
| bartread wrote:
| No, not at all. I've had it happen after leaving the
| machine much longer than that. The thing is it happens
| quite infrequently, and isn't behaviour I can reproduce on
| demand, so I've not been able to reliably isolate the set
| of conditions that cause the problem.
|
| As I said in another comment, the first few times I thought
| I must simply have forgotten to lock the machine. But of
| course then I became paranoid about locking the machine and
| so when it continued to happen from time to time I realised
| something really wasn't quite right.
|
| Like I say though, it's just not behaviour I can reproduce
| on demand - super annoying.
|
| It's most likely some quirk of my machine configuration, or
| possibly a driver issue (though I tend to like to keep
| things up to date), but I have a super-unadventurous Dell
| XPS so it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
| julienreszka wrote:
| Seems like no it's not automatic for everyone.
| https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13672231/pelosi-office-trump-s...
|
| Even experienced people have issues with this (bit less after a
| few rm -rf *)
| InitialLastName wrote:
| WIN+L is faster and can be done with just one (stretched) hand.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| I'm pretty sure I'm the only person in my 200 person office
| that presses Win+L when leaving my computer
| airhead969 wrote:
| Would they include accountants, IT people, managers, and
| insiders? If so -> D:
| ahepp wrote:
| Most computers I've seen on government networks use a smart
| card to sign in (I'm sure it depends on which government
| network).
|
| Pull the smart card out, and the device locks. Most people do a
| good job of taking the card with them, from what I've seen.
| Although it can be a pain in the ass when you have to resize
| windows or enter the card pin ~3 times to get logged back in.
| fy20 wrote:
| Definitely not. In my co-working space people regularly leave
| laptops unattended and unlocked when they go for lunch.
| bombcar wrote:
| My Mac takes so long to come back to a usable state after sleep
| that I only lock when I'll be away for a long period of time.
| saghm wrote:
| Is there a power setting that makes it not suspend when it's
| idle? I'm not sure about MacOS, but on my Linux desktop
| there's a toggle in the power settings to make turn that
| behavior off, so I can lock my screen without having to worry
| about suddenly losing the ability to ssh into it.
| bombcar wrote:
| I've done that - but even coming from just "display sleep"
| seems to cause it to go "HOLY SHIT I HAVE A DISPLAY! AND
| ANOTHER ONE! AND ANOTHER ONE! OH MY GOSH THERE'S A
| FOURTH?!? AND A FIFTH!?!?"
|
| And then it calms down and all is well unless the cable
| decides not to connect at full speed, and I get to cycle
| it.
| unclemase wrote:
| I love Canada now more than ever. https://ibb.co/TWnNdGJ
| echelon wrote:
| What a wholesome response!
|
| For most companies and organizations, this is absolutely
| understandable. WFH is challenging, and balancing childcare
| even more so.
|
| In this case, though, it begs the question - why does US
| Strategic Command even have a Twitter account? Are they going
| to post fun and engaging tweets about the nuclear football?
| Twitter seems like something this agency _should not_ be doing.
| Arrath wrote:
| I can see orgs like this making social media accounts just to
| claim the space/username and prevent squatters or false
| messaging.
|
| As for why would e.g. US Strategic Command ever need to
| actually post something? I'm at a loss to be honest.
| klyrs wrote:
| If they collaborated with Russian Strategic Command to re-
| enact the Zero Wing meme, it would be comedy gold. Beyond
| that, no clue
| kube-system wrote:
| I think the culture of being engaged with the public is more
| of a good thing than a bad thing, regardless of how 'useful'
| it is.
| Guest42 wrote:
| Personally, I think my brain gets tired of having to filter
| non-stop PR. Actual engagement would be fantastic though so
| as much as that exists I'd claim provides a good potential.
| maxnoe wrote:
| Relevant xkcd (from the what if book)
|
| https://i.imgur.com/WIoNgYS.jpg
| meetups323 wrote:
| Why not just look at the account? Recent posts include...
|
| Link to a reasonably informative description of a research
| project on some sort of advanced ramjet being developed in
| partnership with Norway
|
| Retweet of a paper detailing recent developments in China's
| plutonium production capability
|
| Video interview with some Lt about life aboard a submarine
| and the general submarine career field
|
| Photos of some sort of training exercise using very large
| bombs and a link with more info
|
| Info on how air force bases operate with covid
|
| Etc...
|
| All seems pretty interesting to the types of folks who would
| follow the US Strategic Command twitter
| pbourke wrote:
| > What a wholesome response!
|
| FWIW the @CAFinUS account is a good follow, with a mix of
| history, humor, etc. Pretty good for a government account.
| airhead969 wrote:
| Canadians are generally sensible, chill folks. Remember the
| Michael Moore thing about testing whether people locked
| their front doors?
| Scoundreller wrote:
| It's fine to have one, but I dislike how corp/gov accounts
| inevitably become about their new CEO (don't care) or Bob
| from accounting celebrating 30y on the job (don't care).
|
| Canada's border agency account likes to tweet pics of them
| "expediting" vaccine clearances while border holdups are
| their fault in the first place.
|
| Like, thanks for circumventing your slow process, but let's
| not celebrate your on-tarmac releases as an unusual practice.
|
| Meanwhile when they reduce their hours of operation (useful),
| they bury it on their website because people might
| (rightfully) complain too directly.
| xwdv wrote:
| Canada didn't write that, it was their social media account
| manager, which might be outsourced to a firm.
|
| It might even be the same person who manages the United States
| account.
| whatshisface wrote:
| The Canadian government has a culture, which is related to
| Canadian culture, and both of them have a lot of influence
| over what is considered acceptable to post on their twitter
| account. Therefore, a tweet on an account publicly associated
| with them reveals information about the culture of Canada.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Leave US Strategic Command Twitter account open for child to
| tweet from:
|
| "Canada: Totally okay, these things happen."
|
| Leave US Strategic Command Launch Portal open for child to
| launch missiles against Ontario, Canada:
|
| "United States: Totally okay, these things happen."
| whoisthemachine wrote:
| I think you mis-stated that last line:
|
| > Leave US Strategic Command Launch Portal open for child to
| launch missiles against Ontario, Canada:
|
| "Canada: Totally okay, these things happen."
| salawat wrote:
| I was 50/49.9/.1 the correction would be Canada being okay
| with Ontario being nuked, or the target changing to Quebec
| and Canada still being okay with it.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_sovereignty_movement
|
| Quebec is the Texas of Canada, if I recall correctly.
|
| There was a third, though unlikely option of the target
| switching to Alberta, but it turning out to be okay,
| because it just happened to coincide with a sudden invasion
| of hyper-intelligent rats, and the human population had
| already evac'd.
|
| That being said, thank you. You genuinely brightened my
| day.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Haha, well I'm not sure how Canada feels about Ontario. I'm
| sure there a few places they wouldn't mind. However, they
| would probably still say sorry regardless.
| airhead969 wrote:
| How about a nice game of chess?
| gnulinux wrote:
| For those who don't know, this is a reference to the movie
| _WarGames_ (1983).
| Finnucane wrote:
| Good thing it was a kid and not his cat; a cat would have
| declared war.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Maybe it was his cat, but it denied being such, and instead
| claimed to be his very young child?
| Razengan wrote:
| Maybe the cat was his child?
| zomg wrote:
| hilarious -- i came here to defend our feline friends too! :)
| meaning, it was definitely not a cat...
| HenryBemis wrote:
| Now then.. a cat would have sat/lied down on the warm
| keyboard (assuming laptop) and the keypresses would have
| exceeded the allowed maximum number of characters, and thus
| the tweet wouldn't have been possible.
|
| Another 'analysis' of the key presses:
|
| Right hand first: ;l;;
|
| then left hand: g
|
| right hand again: lm
|
| then wrap up with left hand: xzssaw
| HenryBemis wrote:
| (only because I was watching it again last night - and you are
| getting downvoted)
|
| _Gentlemen, you can 't fight in here. This is the war room!_
| airhead969 wrote:
| _Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously
| conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to
| face?_
| mcguire wrote:
| Note: These are references to the classic movie Dr.
| Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love
| the Bomb. As is my own,
|
| Animals vill BE BRED UND SCHLAUTERED!
| airhead969 wrote:
| Catbert would've gone full Chemical Brothers:
|
| https://youtu.be/6b9ci_z4v7M
| astura wrote:
| Here's their response to the FIOA request requesting
| documents/communication about this tweet:
|
| https://www.scribd.com/document/500831873/FOIA-U-S-Strategic...
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| "Nuclear agency" makes it sound like the NRC or DoE. This was
| U.S. Strategic Command, i.e. the nuclear _weapons_ agency.
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| ... who left their computers unlocked?! Shouldn't someone be
| raked over the coals for leaving a computer unlocked at an
| agency like that, even if it was just their marketing
| department?
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| Oh please.
|
| This is a social media manager who's working from home that
| we're talking about here.
|
| On the basis of these facts alone I can be relatively
| confident that the U.S. nuclear posture wasn't seriously in
| jeopardy.
| jonas21 wrote:
| On the other hand, if the child had been a little bit older
| and thought it would be funny to tweet, "we have launched a
| nuclear strike on North Korea," or something, I'd imagine
| that we might be looking at this differently.
|
| I don't blame the social media person, but I am pretty
| surprised that the US Strategic Command allows their
| Twitter account to be operated from an insecure location.
| peddling-brink wrote:
| There is a significant difference in decision making by a
| parent in regards to what they leave out for their
| children to touch based on the child's age.
|
| The things you can leave out at age 1 are different than
| age 2, or 5, or 10, or 15.
|
| Also, significant American politics are not being run
| from twitter anymore.
| gnulinux wrote:
| This is a genuine question, I'm really curious. What if the
| kid typed something that implies "US is firing nukes to
| {insert random non-Western country}". What is the
| probability of something like that escalating?
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| Escalating in a 'national security relevant' way?
| Basically none, I would think.
|
| Bear in mind we're talking about the same Twitter that
| only last year lost control of an administrator account
| resulting in a Bitcoin scam tweeted from one former U.S.
| President and one future one.
|
| It would be embarrassing, but yeah that's it.
| taejo wrote:
| It wouldn't be completely unprecedented: https://en.wikip
| edia.org/wiki/We_begin_bombing_in_five_minut...
| notyourday wrote:
| Oh, we don't do that. That's assigning individual
| responsibility and that's frowned upon.
| sporkologist wrote:
| There are toddlers running amok in government! At least this
| time we're not talking about the President
| knorker wrote:
| This is the same agency that had "00000000" as the code for
| US nukes, with it pre-set, too?
| beaconstudios wrote:
| presumably the social media manager is working from home.
| advisedwang wrote:
| The DoE is also a nuclear weapons agency. Don't let the
| friendly name fool you. It's the DoE that designs and builds
| the US' bombs.
| mudetroit wrote:
| I keep wondering why the US Strategic Command needs a social
| media presence. Is that just me?
| mzkply wrote:
| They're a large organization like any other and need HR,
| finance... and comms teams to announce decisions, policy
| changes, etc.
| lmilcin wrote:
| But how is access to twitter account in any way connected with
| oversight duties?
|
| Most likely there is somebody hired to post to the twitter
| account from time to time, who has absolutely no oversight
| responsibilities or access to anything more substantial, they
| work from home and they forgot to lock their computer.
|
| How is that a story for BBC? Nothing really more interesting
| happening?
| lamontcg wrote:
| dup: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26632837
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