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Re:The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Sa... by jdmichal on Tuesday January 16, 2018 @12:23PM (#16159935)
I did think of the covered switches that are common in movies. I think the equivalent in software are confirmation dialogs, but those are not as effective as the physical counterparts due to click-through-itis disease. [0] This could actually be one of those types of things that might benefit from a different presentation, such as a silly skeumorphic design involving a graphical cover.

[0] Which, to be fair to users, is a disease introduced by putting too many switches under covers which shouldn't be.

Re:The screen that set off the ballistic missile alert on Sa... by mikeash on Tuesday January 16, 2018 @08:45PM (#16164766)
They could use an actual covered switch. Maybe something this important should have a bit of physical infrastructure associated with it. Doing everything in software can be great, but it's not always the best solution.