Kevin Wampler <wam### [at] uwashingtonedu> wrote:
> On 10/22/2010 3:36 PM, Darren New wrote:
> > Kevin Wampler wrote:
> >> On a terrifyingly related note:
> >> http://www.foo.be/docs/tpj/issues/vol2_1/tpj0201-0004.html
> >
> > Excellent! That's a keeper.
> >

> Turns out it's a joke (as is perhaps obvious from the author's tone of 
> voice).  Still a pretty good read though IMHO.

  There are tell-tale signs of that, which made me suspicious from the
start. For example:

  - The whole premise of someone revealing *anything* about the programming
practices and details of NORAD and other US military organizations dealing
with intercontinental nuclear missiles is absolutely ludicrous. Such a
person would find himself in jail faster than he could type "missile".

  - The idea of perl being used to control intercontinental nuclear missiles
is ludicrous (no offense to perl enthusiasts).

  - "[...] a lie that would later be repeated over and over again at my
court-martial." I don't think someone court-martialed would be allowed
to reveal the details in public.

  - "This error went undetected as my Perl code was translated into C using
the Perl Compiler, from C into machine code, and then was burned into missile
EPROMs. Six weeks later, the missiles were interred in their silos with
inertial guidance systems based on my code. If fired, they would have missed
their destination by thousands of miles." This would mean that they put
completely untested code in nuclear missiles. I find that rather unlikely.
(This sounds like something they would *emulate* first, and an error of
"thousands of miles" would be detected pretty quickly.)

  - And of course the glaring hint at the end (emphasis mine): "Ray Piodasoll
no longer works for NORAD in Colorado Springs, but occasionally writes
articles intended to be published in *April, toward the beginning of the
month*."

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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