Suspected radiation alert saboteurs cuffed by cops after sensors disabled

Spain's national police say they have arrested two former government workers suspected of breaking into the computer network of the country's radioactivity alert system (RAR) and disabling more than a third of its sensors. The intrusion happened between March and June 2021, and the two suspects worked for a company contracted …

[Anonymous Coward]

But ... why?

Apparently not ransomware or foreign spying. Workplace grudge? Or just 14 yr old minds stuck in the bodies of adults having a bit of adolescent fun? Thank god they didn't have a way to remotely pull the rods.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or they were covering up containment infractions for energy company and will get minimum sentence + cash.

Without independent radiation sensor readings who can say what would have been recordeded by disabled monitoring systems, perhaps TSB levels of competence?

[My-Handle]

Not impossible, but without any additional evidence Occam's razor would point the finger at a simpler situation.

[Mark Eaton-Park]

Occam's never ever applies to people

Since people lie and cheat, daily even without a good reason

[My-Handle]

Re: Occam's never ever applies to people

It does, if used properly. The default stance isn't to immediately assume that someone is lying just because they could personally gain from doing so, or even just because they can for no good reason.

Occam's Razor isn't a law, rather it's a philosophical tool. It suggests that the hypothesis with the least number of assumptions is most likely to be true. Gaining evidence reduces the number of assumptions needed for a hypothesis, thus affecting how likely it is to be true compared to other hypotheses.

[Mark Eaton-Park]

Re: Occam's never ever applies to people

You missed out the most important part i.e. "all things being equal".

People are not equal and can lie for no reason therefore they cannot be considered to be simple especially if they are aware Occums will be applied.

If things were otherwise then there would be no need to investigate crimes, since the most obvious suspect need only to be asked and they would confess.

[Dave314159ggggdffsdds]

Re: Occam's never ever applies to people

No. Occam's razor says you should assume the simplest of two possible hypotheses, where no further evidence is available. It doesn't say you shouldn't gather enough evidence to find out for sure.

[phuzz]

Re: Occam's never ever applies to people

Rather than Occam, a better razor to use here is Hanlon's:

"never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

Maybe they were shit at their job, accidentally deleted the control app, and they were actually trying to log into the sensors to fix them before their boss noticed, but fucked it up even worse?

[Swarthy]

Re: Occam's never ever applies to people

Or, both. Maybe they were trying to take over the alarms to set them off on-demand for fun and profit (malice), and just ended up borking them (stupidity).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Occam's never ever applies to people

@Mark Eaton-Park

I would kindly ask that you don’t judge everyone else by your, presumably, low standards.

Thank you.

[Dave314159ggggdffsdds]

The biggest problem with that conspiracy theory is that all the historical evidence suggests no-one would notice, so there is no need to bother hiding anything.

[Paul Herber]

There's the perpetrator - quick - caesium!

[Conundrum1885]

Could be worse

The gang might have planted false data and caused even more damage.

[TeeCee]

...a well-known establishment of hospitality...

Nudge nudge, wink wink, Say No More!

[tfewster]

One shudders at the thought of maintaining a "public-use network of a well-known establishment of hospitality". Though maybe the sysadmins got company perks on SAAD?

Yes, mine is the dirty mac ------------>

[MachDiamond]

The bigger problem

Why were these sensors accessible through the internet? A popular place of hospitality sounds suspiciously like Starbucks or a local equivalent. Why wouldn't these sensors be broadcast only with modifications only via physical access? Yeah, I get it. It's so much easier to push out changes to all of them at once, but this is the sort of thing where you'd think they would have worked it all out before the devices were deployed. It's also something that should be very simple to begin with.

[Paul Smith]

Re: The bigger problem

The whole point of the Arpanet, the parent of the internet, was that it would survive a nuclear catastrophe. Where else would you put sensors designed to detect such a catastrophe?