Reagan set USSR up the bomb, literally! World's largest non-nuclear explosion -MSNBC

[ReiAyanami]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4394002/


good thing there wasn't a single casualty, otherwise me not liking reagan.

maybe the soviets shoulda just bought all their spy secrets off ebay
hey, maybe that's why we lent that spy plane to china few years back...

 

[Orsorum]

Silly commies.

 

[AnImuS]

very interesting stuff. thanks for the link!

 

[SirStev0]

wow kinda f'ed up

 

[gsaldivar]

LOL - nice title

 

[dpm]

the pipeline story? wasn't that debunked? Although I can't remember where I read about it.

 

[opticalmace]

wow

 

[Red Dawn]

That's what we should do with Military systems we sell to countries like Pakistan and Israel

 

[CaptnKirk]

Anybody here remember what computers and software was like in '82 ?

Oh for the days of FORTRAN & COBOL !

1983 brought us Mictosoft MS-DOS 1.0
1985 we get Windows 1.0
1987 Win 2.0

5 1/2" Floppys were the vouge
ATI wasn't in business yet
Hard drives didn't become an affordable standard until after about '85.

Makes me doubt the authenticity of the claim.
I hated working with computers back then, took hours to do simple tasks.

Me thinks Reagan gets too much credit for things he didn't really do,

 

[burnedout]

Originally posted by: dpm
the pipeline story? wasn't that debunked? Although I can't remember where I read about it.

It's also my understanding that this incident was indeed debunked by a couple of sources.

 

[kage69]

Wow. Damn! I guess that's what they get for messing with us through Vietnam eh?

 

[etech]

It doesn't sound possible to me.

At that time there wasn't preprogammed packages for control so how could the software be set to cause and motors to fail? I'd have to have more details but control systems are still individually programmed for the specific installation they are installed on.


edit/ if true, well fvck'em anyway, they stole it and got what they deserved.

 

[maluckey]

Damnable double click! Double posted again

 

[maluckey]

It is entirely plausible, and credible, when you consider that we and our Euro friends deliberately leaked flawed plans an technology for the Concorde to the Russians, and that one ended VERY badly. It is also beleived that the U.S. leaked faulty Space Shuttle data and plans so that the Russians would waste time building the thing, only to have it fail. Havr you seen their shuttle? It could be ours!

 

[EXman]

Me thinks Reagan gets too much credit for things he didn't really do,

like what smarty pants. It's a funny story and you take a shot at Reagan? Man Did a republican beat you up everyday after school. Do you ever have a comment that is positive? Or even differs from the dem party line?

 

[SuperTool]

I thought it was Reagan's deficit explosion.

 

[MonkeyK]

This story may or may not be true, remember Xerox had a point and click OS out in 1981. We still messed with thier economy to try an bankrupt them in many ways.
But what I don't get is why? We argue that our way of doing things is for the best of everybody. Why isn't our Capitalistic society compelling enough to convince other countries by itself? It seems to be happening in China. Why did we need to try and bankrupt the USSR?

 

[CaptnKirk]

Soviet Space Shuttle - 'Buran'

Very simular in appeaance, quite different in application.

 

[ajf3]

Uh..huh.... and how exposed are we going to be in another 5-10 years when the majority of the software that supports OUR infrastructure is developed and maintained off-shore by foreign workers. Yep, just another reason that offshoring is such a good idea.

 

[Zephyr106]

Originally posted by: EXman

Me thinks Reagan gets too much credit for things he didn't really do,

like what smarty pants. It's a funny story and you take a shot at Reagan? Man Did a republican beat you up everyday after school. Do you ever have a comment that is positive? Or even differs from the dem party line?

Someone got their panties in a wad.

Zephyr

 

[Nietzscheusw]

Thank you France!

 

[arsbanned]

Huh. Interesting stuff. Does anyone have a link showing the debunking of this story?

Also, because commerically available software at the time was crap doesn't mean a scheme as described here couldn't have been carried off.

 

[Bowfinger]

Originally posted by: CaptnKirk
Anybody here remember what computers and software was like in '82 ?

Oh for the days of FORTRAN & COBOL !

1983 brought us Mictosoft MS-DOS 1.0
1985 we get Windows 1.0
1987 Win 2.0

5 1/2" Floppys were the vouge
ATI wasn't in business yet
Hard drives didn't become an affordable standard until after about '85.

Makes me doubt the authenticity of the claim.
I hated working with computers back then, took hours to do simple tasks.

Me thinks Reagan gets too much credit for things he didn't really do,

Oh you kids these days, you think IBM compatible PCs were the only computers.

There were computers of all sorts and sizes available then, from microprocessor-based systems (Tandy, Apple, multiple CP/M business-type machines. various single-board and specialty systems) to all sorts of minicomputers perfectly suited for such applications (various DECs, IBM Series 1, Honeywell, Data General, dozens of others). Plenty of languages besides COBOL and Fortran too, though I would expect assembler or some other low-level, macro-based "language" for something like this. C was also available, but I doubt it had enough history and install base then to show up in commercial applications.

I agree with etech, however. The real question mark in the story is the implication that off-the-shelf software was available for such a specific application. It's not out of the question; it might also be possible there was some sort of a standardized application framework sold for controlling pipelines that was then customized for individual implementations. If that were true, I can see how one might plant bugs within the framework. That seems a stretch. I would love to see more details of how this was (allegedly?) pulled off.

 

[ReiAyanami]

hey, didn't microsoft leak 19% of their OS source code recently? hmm....

BILL GATES RULE WORLD!

 

[burnedout]

Originally posted by: Bowfinger

Oh you kids these days, you think IBM compatible PCs were the only computers.

There were computers of all sorts and sizes available then, from microprocessor-based systems (Tandy, Apple, multiple CP/M business-type machines. various single-board and specialty systems) to all sorts of minicomputers perfectly suited for such applications (various DECs, IBM Series 1, Honeywell, Data General, dozens of others). Plenty of languages besides COBOL and Fortran too, though I would expect assembler or some other low-level, macro-based "language" for something like this. C was also available, but I doubt it had enough history and install base then to show up in commercial applications.

I agree with etech, however. The real question mark in the story is the implication that off-the-shelf software was available for such a specific application. It's not out of the question; it might also be possible there was some sort of a standardized application framework sold for controlling pipelines that was then customized for individual implementations. If that were true, I can see how one might plant bugs within the framework. That seems a stretch. I would love to see more details of how this was (allegedly?) pulled off.

Last night, I spoke with my step-father, a retired engineer, about oil field technology and automation back then. From 1979-1982, he worked for ARAMCO as a contractor in Saudi. One of his jobs at that time was interfacing Foxboro and IBM computers with remote instrumentation, orifice plates, etc. on the pipelines and out in the fields. He indicated that the scenario was possible and had heard of it. However, he also wondered why the Russians wouldn't have better validated the software before relying upon it so much.