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Comment by RachelF | Hacker News Reader

After nuclear weapons were first invented, the big powers spent a lot of effort in non-proliferation, to stop smaller countries building them.

Cyber weapons are not as dangerous as nukes, but much easier to copy, and much harder to know who attacked you.

The NSA/CIA has been very lax in allowing their weapons to be copied.

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Cyber weapons mean that during a crisis, nuclear militaries have to consider whether their chain of command has been compromised.

WHich means they are, in fact, as dangerous as nukes.

Only if cyber weapons are built to target the military. I'd wager they're built to wage economic warfare rather than any military role, the corporate/commercial world is a much softer target. Imagine doing the economic/industrial damage of carpet bombing cities but without firing a shot.

>Cyber weapons mean that during a crisis, nuclear militaries have to consider whether their chain of command has been compromised.

Good luck compromising nuclear arms C&C. There's a reason a lot of it runs on systems from the 70s.

Maybe in the US and Russia. I wonder if it could be pirated Windows XP in North Korea, OTOH ;)

Well, the UK has what is pejoratively called "Windows for Warships: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_Command_System#SMC...

Reminds me of this classic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Yorktown_%28CG-48%29#Smart...

On 21 September 1997, while on maneuvers off the coast of Cape Charles, Virginia, a crew member entered a zero into a database field causing an attempted division by zero in the ship's Remote Data Base Manager, resulting in a buffer overflow which brought down all the machines on the network, causing the ship's propulsion system to fail.

Launching a pile of nukes can kill tens to hundreds of millions of people. People have been launching cyberweapons since they were invented with death toll low enough that folks still reference THERAC in software deaths. Don't play: the two are barely comparable in how many they kill.

Past performance is no guarantee of future returns.

Global systemic risk is increasing. Masssive infrastructure and response disruption can be devastating.

What was the worst powerplant disaster in history? What was the primary kill mechanism?

I totally agree. I think the root of the disagreement is subjective word "scariest." Apparently, a nuclear disaster happening in a random place is the scariest thing for the rest of you. For me and possibly majority of Americans, the scariest thing is what might happen to us. Especially if the odds are high with us seeing reminders in the media.

Rogue, nuclear weapon doesn't scare me. Increasingly automated cars, unpatched cellphones, legal ID's hard go fix when stolen, or bank/medical/government/databases compromised all worry me more since they can impact me and happen a lot. SCADA, too, if non-nuclear given it might be my power plant or utility.

Hint: it wasn't nuclear.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam

Though I also make the argument that the book hasn't been closed on our nuclear disasters, and won't be. For tens of thousands of years.

Banqiao, however, has been fully resolved. (It occurred in 1975.)

I think the point was that cyber weapons are effectively as dangerous as nukes because they could cause nukes to be launched.

That's a better point but nukes run on a combo of ancient hardware using dedicated lines and physical presence. They're still reaching if that's the argument.

Read up if you can afford to lose sleep tonight:

https://theamericanscholar.org/our-nuclear-future/#

GIven that "cyber attacks," that is remotely tampering with telecom equipment, are as old as the Arab Israeli war of 1948, I'm not ready to be reassured by the antiquated hardware the US and Russia use for C&C

How bout you tell me all the deaths and property damage that has happened from nuclear weapons detonated by hackers. Ill cross-reference it against all the financial, property, or other damage from hackers without nukes. We'll see which has been higher to determine what worries people should invest security money in.

I believe the parent meant that cyberweapons can be used to launch nuclear weapons without authorization. Which I'm not sure is actually feasible...

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