For Nearly Two Decades the Nuclear Launch Code Was 00000000

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/11/nearly-two-decades-nuclear-launch-code-minuteman-silos-united-states-00000000/

by iand • 13 years ago

124 67 13 years ago

todayifoundout.com

analyst74• 13 years ago

What's worse?

1) Being the party/person who started another world war; 2) Being nuked without ability to retaliate (in case the executive branch is wiped out)

Most incredibly stupid decisions were made rationally, under extreme perception of the reality.

kken• 13 years ago

Your primal senses probably tell you that 1) is the best option, but objectively seen it's 2).

6d0debc0712• 13 years ago

How so? If we're nuked, we're nuked. The thing is that the other side believes we can nuke them back so they don't do it in the first place. If it's all in the air, I don't see what we stand to gain.

sbarre• 13 years ago

Definitely #1

BenderV2• 13 years ago

Well easy, it's 1)... But thinking that there was only two viable options is stupid. (less stupid than create a password so simple for such a powerful stuff...)

Though, you are right about the danger of the perception of reality. (that why it's good, some time, to go back to the first principles)

JulianMorrison• 13 years ago

A nuclear explosion is a disaster; a nuclear war is a species extinction event. I pick "nuke me".

rdtsc4• 13 years ago

That why Russians created

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand_(nuclear_war)

Its purpose was to actually two fold -- ensure the ability to launch a retaliatory attack after a "surgical" nuclear strike and (and this follows from the first) ensure that hot headed generals or future leadership wouldn't be too quick to press the trigger on the very first warning (which might be a false alarm, and these have happened in the past).

That is a pretty nice system come to think about it.

So on first ever threat the #1 thing to do is enable this system. Then decide what to do, knowing, it would be possible to retaliate.

Note, what is interesting, they didn't broadcast to the world that they had it. Which is interesting. From a game-theoretic point of view, shouldn't they have broadcasted its existence as that would have discouraged a first strike?

ceejayoz2• 13 years ago

What's the point announcing it to the world? They only needed NATO higher-ups to know it existed, which is pretty likely given the state of Cold War espionage.

fela• 13 years ago

1. No appropriate locking doesn't necessarily mean a world war will get triggered, but it might happen, and it would be a very bad thing, specially if it could be avoided, that your party started would hardly be of any consolation.

2. A locking system in place does not make much of a difference if there is no war, and much of the deterrent factor would probably still be there. If there is a nuclear attack, well, even if you are able to respond things will look quite grim, so it doesn't really make such a great difference (and it has to be seen how easy it is for your opponent to block retaliation).

eitland• 13 years ago

If site owner visits this discussion:

Interesting story, crazy popup ads (mobile device).

BenderV2• 13 years ago

I couldn't believe it. It pushed pop up even when I wasn't on the navigator...

hrkristian• 13 years ago

Yeah. I had to manually kill the app to escape those damned things. Quite persistent.

hercynium• 13 years ago

"That's the stupidest combination I've ever heard in my life! That's the kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage!"

/obligatory

antonius• 13 years ago

Reverse psychology against hackers/spies. Let them think that it was a super obscure, difficult code to crack.

Amadou2• 13 years ago

Reverse psychology against hackers/spies. Let them think that it was a super obscure, difficult code to crack.

Nope, according to the article it was listed in the instructions handed out to the soldiers who manned the silos. If there had been post-it notes back then, they probably would have stuck one right on the console with the code.

joering2• 13 years ago

There was particularly a concern that the nuclear missiles the United States had stationed in other countries, some of which with somewhat unstable leadership, could potentially be seized by those governments and launched. With the PAL system, this became much less of a problem.

Is this for real? Its like putting a lock on your car steering wheel, while all wheels and radio has been stolen overnight.

thrill• 13 years ago

The concern was the seizure and launch by illegitimate parties. A bypass of the PAL system was nontrivial, giving the needed time to handle that issue (recapture, destruction, ...) without worrying about your own nuclear weapons being used against you or your allies anytime quickly.

eterm• 13 years ago

Why "for nearly 2 decades"? It doesn't explain how this stopped being the case, did I miss the paragraph where it explained that the codes are no longer 00000000?

goodcanadian• 13 years ago

Apparently, you did. Near the end (second or third last paragraph):

"Dr. Blair . . . decided to outline it for the public in this 1977 article where he described how just four people acting in tandem could easily activate a nuclear launch in the silos he had worked in. Further, amongst other things, the PAL system McNamara had touted was barely in operation and thus launches could be authorised by anyone without Presidential authority . . . It is, perhaps, not coincidence that the PAL systems were all activated and the codes changed the same year this article was published."

fennecfoxen2• 13 years ago

What's really more likely? A Soviet spy gains physical access to your nuclear weapons and launches or detonates one (or several), possibly starting a global thermonuclear war (which the Kremlin could honestly start at any time if it were interested anyway) with a modest advantage on the Soviet side. (A possible advantage - it depends how quickly the Soviets are able/willing to follow up with additional nukes.)

or...

You lock yourself out of your own nukes during a crisis because you have a big fancy launch-code-management system and it falls apart because key people are confused and/or dead.

In related news, handguns with fingerprint sensors and other electronic locks will protect you in case a criminal breaks in and steals your gun from you - and yet they're not very popular among gun owners.

fennecfoxen2• 13 years ago

AND WHILE I'M HERE TALKING ABOUT NUCLEAR WEAPONS SYSTEMS and understandings thereof, allow me to rant about one of the most misunderstood videos of all time, Bert the Turtle ("duck and cover") -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKqXu-5jw60 -- Witness the crowds of people saying "lol but nuclear bomb! you're already dead!" Well, maybe you're right and you're already dead, but IF YOU'RE NOT DEAD YET then there's going to be a BIG BLAST WAVE OF DEBRIS heading your way IN A MATTER OF SECONDS, so you'd better look for some shelter, pronto. And get away from any windows, too, or you'll end up like those poor people watching the Chelyabinsk meteor, getting LACERATED by flying glass.

hga• 13 years ago

Except of course for the school children in one class with a teacher who remembered her Soviet era civil defense teachings and got them to duck and cover in time.

pjscott2• 13 years ago

Some juicy details here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_and_Cover

The short versions is this: in most of the area where a nuclear blast can kill you, there are simple things you can do to reduce its effects and survive. A building will protect from much of the blast wave, and even a blanket can greatly reduce the amount of skin burning. Nukes are not unstoppable bringers of universal instadeath.

Cyranix• 13 years ago

I had a flight a few months ago during which I was seated next to a fascinating woman whose mother had survived one of the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan during WWII. She had thrown herself facedown into a shallow ditch at the roadside, suffering tremendous burns on her back but staying alive. There's no question that it can pay to do your utmost when it comes to a matter of survival like that.

Crito• 13 years ago

I would be less concerned about "Soviet spy" and more concerned with "General Jack Ripper".

Amadou2• 13 years ago

According to the article it was actually "General Tom Power" they were worried about.

Reality is better than fiction.

TazeTSchnitzel• 13 years ago

Mmm, the US is known for its crazed gunmen, and a spy has little incentive to ensure mutual destruction.

rfnslyr2• 13 years ago

I hope a nuclear war erupts right now so I don't have to go to work tomorrow. I hate my job with the passion of a trillion suns.

The only thing preventing me from not blowing out my fucking brains is living is slightly cooler than not existing.

shele• 13 years ago

Either a soviet spy or the regular crew in the chaos of a soviet nuclear attack: false dichotomy.

codex• 13 years ago

I don't think you can buy a biometric firearm (yet).

martincmartin• 13 years ago

I take it you've never seen "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove

rdtsc4• 13 years ago

However note that the reason for the all zero code can be complex.

Especially if it was known. The idea behind the nuclear deterrent is that a response can and will be launched immediately, after a threat is detected. That is key. If someone out there knows that something prevents US from launching quickly they now have an advantage so to speak. So it is absolutely imperative for others to know that launch response will be total and prompt.

So making the system safe and secure from unauthorized launches has to be balanced by not making it harder to launch if needed (and of course letting the adversary know about this). Thinking of this, they could have actually had secure codes set BUT broadcast to the world that somehow a mistake was made and all codes are 0000000.

rch• 13 years ago

I just loaded up that page in Chrome and there is a horribly obnoxious add that covers the left 15 percent or so of the article text. My preference will be to never again see any content from that domain under any circumstances. Thanks for the article headline though; that's a mildly interesting bit of trivia.

xroche• 13 years ago

I got redirected to a malware/scam page claiming that "Java needed to be updated". Definitely a site to be avoided...

jasonkostempski• 13 years ago

Did that code ever actually get used to launch a nuke? Maybe it was just false information and really just triggered an alert if entered.

moocowduckquack• 13 years ago

Did that code ever actually get used to launch a nuke?

I suspect not. I think someone would have noticed the mess.

tehwalrus3• 13 years ago

Using nuclear weapons in any situation is morally unjustifiable, and frankly nearly always a war crime (since they are too large to avoid civilians).

This was utterly irresponsible, and from the sounds of it in direct violation of presidential orders. Isn't disobeying orders in the military quite a big thing?

graeme• 13 years ago

Civilian control of the military was tenuous in the early decades of the cold war.

Curtis Lemay, head of the Strategic Air Command, made his own plans for a pre-emptive strike on the Soviet Union. Lemay also clashed with Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis.

And Truman had to recall Macarthur when the latter refused to obey presidential directives.

tehwalrus3• 13 years ago

Thanks, I didn't know that. Even more scary, really - glad all that's over (if it actually is).

3pt14159• 13 years ago

It is morally justifiable to use nuclear weapons. If a country decides to be peaceful and not have an active army, airforce, and navy; but retains a stockpile of nuclear weapons, is it morally unjustifiable to strike an invading fleet with atomic bombs?

The whole point behind MAD is to show that you refuse to play the game of "I have the bigger army" and to literally level the playing field by making the game lose-lose.

brazzy• 13 years ago

So that's why the Soviet Union and the USA didn't have to invest much in conventional weapons during the cold war! Oh, wait...

tehwalrus3• 13 years ago

Using nukes to bomb entire civilian cities when the other side can't respond (US, 1945) is completely wrong. Using nukes against a conventional army is dubious - it is disproportionate in the extreme. The threat of using them may not be wrong (but I'm still not convinced on that point.)

Then (as sister comment says) neither side was playing the game right in the cold war.

I object to the way the game is set up in international relations - If we actually had a system to enforce international law it would be much much harder to justify having unilateral armies at all! My views on this are somewhat unconventional, though, so don't worry if I sound crazy; I may well be.

TobbenTM• 13 years ago

This reminds me of this scene from the movie Spaceballs; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6iW-8xPw3k

It's how I imagine the commanders get the code.

stefantalpalaru• 13 years ago

(...) the PAL systems were all activated and the codes changed the same year this article was published

They changed them to 12345678 didn't they?

Totient• 13 years ago

This story kind of reminds me of this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2007/...

For most of the Cold War, the RAF's nuclear bombs were armed by turning a bicycle lock key.

"The Royal Navy argued that its officers could be trusted and: 'It would be invidious to suggest... that senior Service officers may, in difficult circumstances, act in defiance of their clear orders.'"

kephra• 13 years ago

imho, a trelock is a much better protection than a 00000000 code.

froo• 13 years ago

This article actually gives me a little faith in humanity. Despite the fact that SO MANY people had access to launch a nuke nobody actually did... presumably they knew what the resulting shitstorm would be.

doug1001• 13 years ago

about once a month, i see a HN post that, at first glance, seems to be from TheOnion. This is certainly one of those. (Indeed, it's a well-explored theme on TheOnion, see e.g., http://www.theonion.com/articles/nasa-announces-plan-to-brin...)

ShadowyOrdeal• 13 years ago

Null pointer bugs, anyone?

For Nearly Two Decades the Nuclear Launch Code Was 00000000

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