Dial 00000000 To Blow Up the World 306
Charliemopps writes "For 20 years the password for the U.S. nuclear arsenal was '00000000.' Kennedy instituted a security system on all nuclear warheads to prevent them from being armed by someone unauthorized. It was called PAL, and promised to secure the entire US arsenal around the world. Unfortunately for Kennedy (and I guess, the whole world) U.S. military leadership was more concerned about delaying a launch than securing Armageddon. They technically obeyed the order but then set the password to 8 Zeros, or '00000000'."
Well... ya (Score:5, Interesting)
In particular because there is no central computer control. The military has always been real big about having humans in the chain, which is why this code isn't a big deal. It still required the two guys in the silos to turn their keys. There isn't any "OMG we hax the missiles!" shit that can go on. At the end of the day, only the operators in the silos can trigger a launch, it isn't on a network.
Same general deal in planes and so on. Like when a modern bombing mission is conducted, all the stuff is uploaded in to the computers beforehand, flight plan, targeting data, all that. The pilot is told on his HUD a countdown to when to release the bombs. Hitting the button doesn't release them either, the plane's computers decide when it is actually best to release. So what does it do? Allows the plane to release. If the pilot doesn't trigger, it can't drop, no matter if it thinks it should. The human is the final deciding factor.
Maybe the military will change their mind some day as automation increases, but for now they are real, real big on having a human have to be the final factor.
A systematic problem (Score:5, Interesting)
The book Command and Control by Eric Schlosser goes into the issues of the cold war control of our nukes in a wonderful way, detailing just how messed up our control of nukes was and how we are damn lucky that we didn't have an accidental nuclear detonation at some point (there were plenty of accidental conventional detonations that by sheer luck didn't have a nuclear core in them).
Nuclear weapons are "always/never" devices in that they should always work when you want them to and never work when you don't. The military only cared about the "always" side of the equation. So much so that they even nixed the idea of an inertial switch in fusing mechanism of the reentry vehicles of ICBMs that would only connect the detonation systems after detecting the g-forces of reentry.
Further any suggestion of improving the control of the nukes was met with grumpy rage at civilians daring to tell the military how to run its business as well as fights between the Air Force, Army, and Navy over funding and power.
Re:Illusion shattered (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Illusion shattered (Score:1, Interesting)
"Not being so hot at maths" doesn't follow. It's easier to remember your lottery numbers if you never change them. Then it only takes a second to check whether you've won because the numbers are in your head as well as on the ticket.
Any numbers that you can remember are a terrible idea. It makes you infinitely more prone to gambling addiction - or what should perhaps instead be called paranoia of not having the chance to win. My friend's mother was quite fond of moderate gambling for a while but then decided to quit. However, the one thing which has become a regular - albeit relatively small - expense is the lottery for one simple reason. She always played the same numbers and since she remembers those, she simply fears how crazy she'll go if she stops and the numbers that she remembers so well come up. I believe her when she says she could quit that too if she simply had played different numbers every time.
Now I think the parent poster's reference to maths was to the poor ability of people who gamble to calculate probabilities.