Security Guards Bring Sony PSPs Into Nuclear Weapons Facility

Apparently these Darwin Awards candidates broke restrictions by bringing wireless capable PSP's onsite.

The ramifications could have been catastrophic given that the construction, dismantling, and recycling of nuclear warheads occurs in the protected zone (which didn't even allow cell phones). The facility suspended all three men and implemented new regulations that requires bag searches before permitting guards into the protected area.

It is amazing how close we keep on coming to serious disaster so often. If some catastrophe had actually happened, would terrorism have been blamed?
Link

I'm quite curious as to how a PSP in such a place is going to bring about disaster. If the weapons being serviced are able to be detonated by a WiFi signal then perhaps we should also beat the people who designed the systems. The only possible avenue I can see is a information leak because of the WiFi system on the PSP or perhaps it pulling the guard's attention away from their duties, but this whole thing smells like hype to me.

*insert chaos theory joke here*

but seriously imagine the things we never hear about.. thats the scary stuff.

reply to post by Question Fate


www.cdi.org...

Read the one from 1961 in Goldsboro, North Carolina, that was probably the closest we have come to a proper catastrophe involving nuclear weapons. Kind of scary to read that list however, too many incidents there for comfort.

reply to post by Helig


I guess we shall never know ... but perhaps it is related to the mess of unshielded signals ... much like the issue of passenger jets?

They mention this is a site for construction, dismantling and recycling... perhaps their equipment is rather sensitiveto interference.

reply to post by Helig


IMHO the closes we have come to Armageddon is the following incident:

Press interviews with Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov, the officer in charge of Serpukhov-15, the secret bunker from which the Soviet Union monitored its early-warning satellites, indicated that the new system reported the launch of several missiles from the U.S. continental missile fields. Petrov had been told repeatedly that the United States would launch a massive nuclear strike designed to overwhelm Soviet forces in a single strike.

Why did that false alarm fail to trigger a nuclear war? Perhaps the Russian command did not want to start a war on the basis of data from a new and unique system. On the other hand, if the sun glint had caused the system to report hundreds of missile launches, then the Soviet Union might have mistakenly launched its missiles. Petrov said that he refused to pass the alert to his superiors because "when people start a war, they don't start it with only five missiles. You can do little damage with just five missiles."

False Alarms

reply to post by deltaalphanovember


Yeah, I remember reading about that a while back and how easily it could have changed the face of history. That definitely takes the cake for closest call internationally speaking. Another scary thing is how many nukes the US has lost, some of which were never recovered or only recently pulled up (such as Tybee Island in Georgia).

Originally posted by Helig
I'm quite curious as to how a PSP in such a place is going to bring about disaster. If the weapons being serviced are able to be detonated by a WiFi signal then perhaps we should also beat the people who designed the systems. The only possible avenue I can see is a information leak because of the WiFi system on the PSP or perhaps it pulling the guard's attention away from their duties, but this whole thing smells like hype to me.

Hear hear. I've read an article about the cell phone ban in hospitals being 100% bogus. The evidence is simply not there. No studies have shown that cell phones or electronics interfere with hospital equipment.

Now on a plane though you're reliant of certain radio frequencies, but it's more or less bogus there too.

You'd think nuclear warheads facilities were safer against this kind of thing, then again you can't be too safe.

The PSP can make a nice little media player or even an ebook reader but I find it unlikely they were using it to surf the net given the lousy browser it comes with and I would like to think any nuclear facilitys would at least have any wifi encrypted if they even used it.

But it's hard to fault the sacking because at the very least they were playing with their toys instead of doing their jobs still I find it hard to believe the psp in such a situation could cause problems though even with the wifi switched on maybe better safe than sorry though.


[edit on 22-7-2009 by Teknikal]

Originally posted by Drexon
Hear hear. I've read an article about the cell phone ban in hospitals being 100% bogus. The evidence is simply not there. No studies have shown that cell phones or electronics interfere with hospital equipment.

Now on a plane though you're reliant of certain radio frequencies, but it's more or less bogus there too.

You'd think nuclear warheads facilities were safer against this kind of thing, then again you can't be too safe.

I run EEG's and you bet we can see when a cell phone goes off near our equipment. Its not the radio frequencies that cause the problem, its the Electromagnetic Interference which induces a voltage in the wires. These show up on an EEG as 60 cycle spikes in the channels, and is caused by the EMF lines of magnetic flux cutting across the lead wires (like big antennas). This is the same thing as when you set your phone near your radio and the speakers make a noise when the phone acquires a new cell tower or receives a call. So what they are afraid of, and rightly so, is inducing a voltage in the internal wiring, and triggering one of these suckers.

reply to post by defcon5


Thanks, that interesting ... so we really don't want voltage spikes near things that make big boom.

Originally posted by deltaalphanovember
). The facility suspended all three men and implemented new regulations that requires bag searches before permitting guards into the protected area.

WTH?? They implemented NEW RULES to check bags and a facility that dismantle nukes? Man, we are so boned.

Originally posted by Drexon

Hear hear. I've read an article about the cell phone ban in hospitals being 100% bogus. The evidence is simply not there. No studies have shown that cell phones or electronics interfere with hospital equipment.

You have hit on one of my pet peeves, the 'cell phone bans' in hospitals. When my kids were born, I played by the rules, but I noticed Doctors ambling around, jabbering on cell phones. I suppose that it is more of a noise issue than anything else, but it would appear to not be anything that the docs worry about.

Originally posted by Helig
I'm quite curious as to how a PSP in such a place is going to bring about disaster. If the weapons being serviced are able to be detonated by a WiFi signal then perhaps we should also beat the people who designed the systems. The only possible avenue I can see is a information leak because of the WiFi system on the PSP or perhaps it pulling the guard's attention away from their duties, but this whole thing smells like hype to me.

The same reason why they have signs at the entrance to blast zones on the highway to turn off all 2-way radios. Spurious radio energy can set off the explosive compound in a blasting cap. And when these devices are dismantled and shielding is removed, these things can be pretty sensitive.

To put it simply, and its going to have to be simple because I have a somewhat basic understanding of electronics, its the lines of flux. Magnets for example produce invisible lines of flux, exiting one pole and entering the other, like the magnetic field of the earth. When you cut through those lines of flux with a wire you induce a voltage in that wire. That is how a basic generator works, and if you reverse it you have a basic electric motor. In a basic generator you spin wire, wrapped around an iron core, in the field and you get AC electricity. The electricity is AC because wire cuts through both the positive field and the negative field in one complete rotation.

AC electricity also creates such a field around a wire, as the current moving through it goes positive the field expands, when it goes negative it collapses. If I put another wire close enough to that field, a slight voltage will be generated in it as well. This is how a step down/up or isolation transformer works. This can also happen due to other items which generate such a field. That is why I can pick up bursts of cell phone activity when they are close enough to my EEG telemetry equipment, the same way that a cell phone can cause noise in inactive speakers.

Of course the distance of the wire from the lines of flux, shielding, the power of the lines of flux, and the frequency (how fast they expand and contract) controls how much voltage is induced in the nearby circuit. Cellphones put out a surprising amount of EMF flux when they seek/acquire a cell tower, or when they receive an incoming call. This is the Radiation that is spoken of when people talk about how bad prolonged cellphone usage is for you health. As a matter of fact, if I am on my house phone, and I put my active cellphone up to my other ear I can hear the interference in the house phone from it being close to the cellphone.

Try this at home, take a normal cellphone, and a normal wireless house phone and turn them both on, call someone on the cellphone, then listen to the interference on the house phone from the EMF of the cellphone...

Originally posted by Helig
I'm quite curious as to how a PSP in such a place is going to bring about disaster. If the weapons being serviced are able to be detonated by a WiFi signal then perhaps we should also beat the people who designed the systems. The only possible avenue I can see is a information leak because of the WiFi system on the PSP or perhaps it pulling the guard's attention away from their duties, but this whole thing smells like hype to me.

The article didn't mention that the wi-fi signal could have initiated a disaster. If the wi-fi signal was the culprit then they would have suspended the guard with the wifi enabled psp, not all 3 of them. It's obvious that what they didn't want in the facility was electronic devices of any kind.

However, I'm not implying that the wifi enabled psp is not worse than the others. They are working on a nuclear facility, not on a supermarket. The last thing a supervisor would want is sensitive information leaking out, specially through a PSP.

[edit on 22-7-2009 by daniel_g]

That WiFi signal wouldn't have caused a detonation let alone a simple dirty bomb type explosion. People have accidentally had cellphones dial out near ICBM's that were hot and nothing happens.

Now with that said...it was stupid to do it but it'sstupid because of the lack of focus and concentration that occurs when distracted around nuclear weapons. When I worked as a 2W2 I had a phone in my pocket but never on due to secrecy. The redudant safety systems that exist has stopped full on shocks to a core of the EED's (electro explosive device) themselves

I am not saying it is impossible because...well nothing is but if a PSP wifi ever detonates a weapon I will eat my shoe in front of you

Like I said though thisis disastrous because of the lack of concentration. PSP in a weapons bay...what will they do next? Nintendo DS? :-p

-Kyo