Idiots!

a live option function. For obvious safety reasons, this type of software should have two entirely separate and independent packages to prevent users from making crossover links.

Probably a promotion with higher pay. It is clear the state wants to cover up why they waited 38 minutes to give an all clear when they knew almost immediately it was a false alarm.

It was a mistake. And there were significant consequences for the citizens. Awful. But, cover up? The error showed a number of flaws in the system, including the fact that no one planned a process for rescinding the alarm if it was sent in error. That is what took so long.

The good news is that those flaws were exposed.

I would be quite surprised if the employee got a promotion w/higher pay. The person is lucky to have escaped termination.

The state did not cover up what happened. I did read that there was no way to alert folks that this was a mistake. There was no protocol in place. I believe that will now be remedied.

I see nothing where the employee received even a slight reprimand. No way to alert people of a mistake? How about the same way to alert people of a problem? What if it had been an actual missile. Are you saying the state only can give one message and has no way of giving a follow up? That explanation is not credible even remotely.

That would not be a matter of public record.

I understand your frustration over the matter, but I agree with California Peggy on this. The likelihood is far greater that the employee was reprimanded rather than rewarded. Who would reward something like this?

So it is not all fun and games for this person.

... confirm system for a nuclear alert is in and of its horrible and that's not the operators fault.

Even the state admitted that.

... system or design it.

There's no way any 3rd world nation would allow a one confirm system for nuclear ANYTHING ... that's why there are two confirm systems so crap like fat finger clicks etc don't happen.

does not meet the supposed standards of "any 3rd world nation". Well, your opinion.

... fire drill.

The system was made wrong, it was really stupid to attach a one confirm anything to anything related to human operation of something nuclear.

...that an alert will not be sent in a timely manner or at all in an actual attack.

The problem was not in having a single initiator able to send the alert, the problem was in having this desktop setup as a primary terminal for sending test alerts or alerts at all really.

FEMA should require IPAWS alerting agencies to have a peripheral physical red button with a separate Test button that can only send the test automated alert. Screens are a suboptimal interface for alerting for this very reason, they should be used for message configuration, not for message launch.

By adding another person to the alert chain, without an obvious override readily available to a single operator, Hawaii has increased the time it takes to send an alert and created a point of failure should anything incapacitate one of the two operators.

You could have two 'departments', both staffed w/a number of people allowed to issue or advance the state of the warning (i.e. to the state of 'real alert' thus causing it to be physically sent out). Could even have a 3rd department w/multiple folks who are authorized to advance the state if the 2nd department does not 'pick up' after, say, 2 minutes from an alert being issued.

The Intelligence Community has a CRITIC report type. You send these when wars break out, world leaders die, the Kremlin catches fire...all those fun things the president needs to know right fucking now. (In Trump’s case they’d give him three or four Bolshoi Maks first just to calm him down.)

When they first invented the report they knew a bogus one would be a huge problem. They headed the problem off at the pass by putting a switch in the communications center. It is a physical switch and the comm center supervisor has to operate it to allow a CRITIC to go out.

The Hawaiians are putting one in now, but it should have been there from the start.

That is not a small offense. People's lives were in danger.

Amber Alert? Tsunami alert? Taco Tuesday? Volcanic eruption? Zombie picnic?

Seriously, how often have you accidentally picked the wrong thing on a drop-down menu? It happens all the time. That this should be on a drop-down menu without an option to cancel is a crime.

or killed or this started a nuclear catastrophe? Would this person been “temporarily reassigned”then? And why did it take so long to send another alert that there was an error? I’d fire the whole lot of them, get a new system, and hire some competent people who would get Hawaii ready for the real thing.