Toddler plays with parent's phone, sends 'secret code' via US nuclear weapons agency
MANILA, Philippines — A child unintentionally created tensions by posting a tweet in the official account of US Strategic Command.
The official account of the agency that’s responsible for US’ nuclear weapons wrote on Twitter “;l;;gmlxzssaw", which was deleted minutes after.
Journalist Mikael Thalen wrote to the agency, asking for an explanation.
The tweet has over 6,664 shares and 8,549 likes before it was deleted.
A quick writeup on U.S. Strategic Command's response to my FOIA request regarding its now-deleted tweet from yesterday.
— Mikael Thalen (@MikaelThalen) March 29, 2021
I've also attached the PDF response to the bottom of the article for those interested. https://t.co/uB1RFeEFlQ
“The Command's Twitter manager, while in a telework status, momentarily left the Command's Twitter account open and unattended. His very young child took advantage of the situation and started playing with the keys and unfortunately, and unknowingly, posted the tweet,” US Strategic Command answered the journalist.
“Absolutely nothing nefarious occurred, i.e., no hacking of out Twitter account. The post was discovered and notice to delete it occurred telephonically,” it added.
US Strategic Command, which controls America's massive nuclear arsenal, set red lights flashing when it tweeted what many took to be a cryptic launch code ";l;;gmlxzssaw."
With the Kremlin caught between the fear of impending Armageddon and the hope that someone had mistakenly slipped them the codes, Stratcom admitted they had fallen victim to a toddler with a telephone.
Forced to juggle work and child-care, one of their officials had let his precious work phone fall into his child's hands. — Reports from Agence France-Presse
