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Comment by nickpsecurity | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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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