US Nuclear Missile Silos Still Use Floppy Disks

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/04/28/huge_floppy_disks_and_other_old_tech_is_common_at_air_force_nuclear_missile.html

by ForHackernews • 12 years ago

41 48 12 years ago

slate.com

bigmario• 12 years ago

Security through obscurity? Old technology and keeping disconnected from the Internet are probably decent additional security measures, although they shouldn't rely on it. Like the article says though, we still want these computers to be new enough to actually work

ghshephard2• 12 years ago

"Old technology and keeping disconnected from the Internet are probably decent additional security measures, although they shouldn't rely on it. "

It's called an airgap, and is easily the most effective countermeasure to cyber attacks, and, in conjunction with physical security and careful 2-man control/people management, should certainly be relied on.

chiph3• 12 years ago

The airgap technique didn't work so well for the Iranians. Stuxnet was designed to jump gaps via USB keys. Luckily, 8" floppies don't have enough capacity for a virus.

jonnybgood• 12 years ago

Frankly I don't see any need to throw tax payer money to upgrade the technology while we are decreasing the arsenal.

Goopplesoft• 12 years ago

Whats up with people trying to decide what budgets of these things should be? If we're really so capable of doing back of the envelope calculations on things like "how much should I spend on maintaining nuclear silos?" why don't we just cut out all the representatives, budgeting offices, inspectors, financial planners, et al and set up a direct democracy?

Sarcasm aside, I don't know fuck all about nuclear silos let alone what say $19 million or $400 million would be used for in regards to them. So perhaps you can build your credibility on this matter some so your comment matters?

Not trying to rant but this reminds me of Paul Graham on the WhatsApp deal. He said something along the lines of: "When I hear Facebook says its buying WhatsApp for 16 billion, I think 'oh so thats what WhatApp is worth', like the Federal Reserve giving inflation numbers." But our community of expert HN company appraisers was quick to try to bash Facebook over their valuation.

drill_sarge• 12 years ago

Weren't the launch codes set to 0000000 or something because for convenience for decades? So no need to upgrade to larger storage for this.

edit: found it http://gizmodo.com/for-20-years-the-nuclear-launch-code-at-u...

dba7dba2• 12 years ago

Well before the launch codes were FORCED onto the generals, there were supposedly about a dozen generals who could launch nukes on their own without specific authorization from the POTUS.

Understand this was allowed initially in case POTUS was incapacitated or cut off from communication but still...

MichaelGG• 12 years ago

You'd think they'd use an m-of-n system requiring 2 or more generals to agree.

jimueller• 12 years ago

These systems are designed to do one thing and do it well, without error. They have been in place a long time. Because they are old does not mean they are not secure. Much like the Apollo mission computers are often quoted as being "less powerful than a calculator" does not mean that they do not work. Many military computers are not impressive from a hardware standpoint because they don't have to be.

npizzolato• 12 years ago

Or said another way: nasa can go to the moon on hardware less powerful than a calculator. What kind of specs does the latest photo sharing app take to run?

toufka• 12 years ago

The military still use bolts! And screws! And I bet if you look really hard you can find a copper wire! Some of these things are hundreds of years old!

If it works, why change it? So long as they can find a supplier of new floppy disks for the data, it seems pretty reasonable to me (and given they're nuclear missiles, a few dozen grand per disc really doesn't seem that bad). Now if there are no more suppliers of those disks at all, and no way to read/write to them (at all), then we should start being a bit more concerned.

hayksaakian• 12 years ago

I suppose the main contention is that copper, bolts, and screws last much longer than vinyl/magnetic strips.

josephkern3• 12 years ago

The longevity and ease of destruction is probably a primary concern for this media.

Cowen• 12 years ago

If there's one situation where you definitely want to apply the rule "if it's not broke, don't fix it", it's probably nuclear missile silos.

Oculus• 12 years ago

I'm wondering if it works better then current technology. If the old tech is more stable and easier to upkeep than upgrading to a modern system, then power to them. I suspect it's more of a priorities thing where the DoD rather throw money at drones or a cyber unit then on nuclear weapon systems since those are more relevant to today's world.

bashinator• 12 years ago

I don't think there are many people who live through that time, who would describe a floppy disk as "stable" and "easy to upkeep".

bradgessler2• 12 years ago

I just gave a talk at RailsConf and demoed a web app running on a floppy disk. http://tech.pollev.com/articles/html5-app-on-a-floppy/

You can buy a USB floppy drive off Amazon for $15 and a 10 pack of floppies for $10. Surprisingly the disk drive is recognized on Mac OS X and ticks away like a champ.

stephenhuey• 12 years ago

I saw that talk! A bit slow at starting up, but really not any worse than a few seconds of high network latency, and then your web app basically worked like a champ.

barbs• 12 years ago

That's hardly an appropriate comparison. The reason it's strange that they're still using floppy disks is that much better alternatives exist today.

That said, I agree that, so long as it does the job, there's no real reason to change.

MichaelTieso• 12 years ago

"and though the missiles have been upgraded numerous times to make them safer and more reliable"

A strange sentence for nuclear missiles.

chiph3• 12 years ago

But something you really really want ... even 30 minutes after launch. You do not want a bang when you were expecting silence, nor silence when you were expecting a bang.

hcarvalhoalves2• 12 years ago

Just like any weapon, you want it to be safe and reliable - specially nuclear missiles.

josephkern3• 12 years ago

Weapons are tools (admittedly tools for separating nervous systems from muscles as quickly as possible), all tools should be safe and reliable.

cheeseprocedure• 12 years ago

One would hope so. "Command And Control" is worth a read; it reviews the history of nuclear weapons, focusing mostly on their safety record. (Spoiler alert: it's bad.)

http://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-Illu...

leeoniya• 12 years ago

in related news (not really news anymore) http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/why-todays-spacecra...

i read somewhere that they had to resort to buying them on ebay in the specific binning/stepping cause they were no longer made by the mfg

Jtsummers2• 12 years ago

i read somewhere that they had to resort to buying them on ebay in the specific binning/stepping cause they were no longer made by the mfg

This wouldn't surprise me. A friend was working on a defense project, an avionics system. In their test/development lab they had the hardware itself, same as what's in the aircraft (an F-??, 16 probably). The display died. They couldn't do anything with it. They ended up having to contract with someone to set up the manufacturing process and conduct a one-time production run. The damn displays pushed 6-figures in cost each.

Unfortunately, modernizing these systems isn't as easy as just hooking up a modern LCD/LED display, minimally they'll have to insert some new circuit to sit between the display controller and the incompatible display to do translation. That means one more part that has to be developed with a maintenance plan setup, testing and certification done. It's kind of sad that spending close to $100k for a 6" display is cheaper than moving to a new display that would likely cost much less in the long run.

fleitz• 12 years ago

And contrary to the opinions of the General are probably massively insecure because they were invented in a time before aleph one's famous paper even came out.

Imagine a system so insecure that it will execute whatever the operator has on a floppy disk with full root permissions.

smacktoward• 12 years ago

Imagine a system so insecure that it will execute whatever the operator has on a floppy disk with full root permissions.

Congratulations, you just invented MS-DOS!

noir_lord• 12 years ago

Imagine a system so insecure that it will execute whatever the operator has on a floppy disk with full root permissions.

Indeed but that system is air-gapped at the bottom of a missile silo surrounded by trained people with shoot to kill orders.

massysett• 12 years ago

Phew. If they "upgraded" these things so they would work "in the cloud" or whatever then I'd be concerned. I certainly don't want to see a story about how generals can now launch the missiles from an iPhone app.

taylorjbrennan• 12 years ago

"In the mushroom cloud," one might say.

tedks• 12 years ago

But don't you want to see the HN headlines once the startup scene gets involved with nuclear weapons?

* Nukey (W16) aims to "disrupt global thermonuclear warfare"

* Show HN: My Nuclear-Silo as a Service sideproject (NSaaS)

* Nukey set to be "Uber of mutually assured destruction" with new iNuke app

* Nukey has been acquired by Dropbox

clarky07• 12 years ago

doesn't have to be in the cloud to have USB and thumb drives. i'm not sure it makes sense to use 8-in floppy drives.

EDIT: what happens when a drive dies? there just aren't a lot of new 8-in drives to be had i don't think. Do we have a special supplier that sells them for 10k each?

cnvogel• 12 years ago

Assume that a ridiculous amount of effort went into designing and testing this device, and that this 8in drive is connected to devices that will not have an sd-card reader or USB controller available for $5 off eBay.

It might just be cheaper to buy 100 8in drives for 10k each, instead of upgrading the control systems to use thumb-drives. You'll also have to do all the paperwork to change documentatino from "insert Top-Secret launch diskette into drive" to "put Top-Secret micro-sd card into the top-secret-launch-diskette-substitude-reader-assembly (TSLDSRA)".

sirdogealot• 12 years ago

I for one am glad that they are not incessantly restoring and renewing the nuclear missile silos.

josephkern3• 12 years ago

Not everyday you see a Top Secret sticker flashed on national television. I bet there are 20 intelligence organizations trying to read the label on that floppy disk.

dba7dba2• 12 years ago

Military STILL relies on internal combustion engine, technology developed around 1860...

Sarcasm off...

dredmorbius• 12 years ago

And screwdrivers. Invented for knights in armor, for chrissakes!

beggi• 12 years ago

I'm very happy not everybody shares the motto "move fast and break things".

coreymgilmore• 12 years ago

If its not broken, don't fix it...and make it vulnerable to Heartblees (yes, I know the article states these systems are not connected to the internet).

On the other hand, these systems should be non-attackable via Stuxnet as USB is quite a deal younger than Floppy and I don't believe Floppies can autorun (correct me here please),

beedogs• 12 years ago

Considering how US government pensions are administered, I am not at all surprised other branches of government are using antediluvian tech.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2014/03/22/sinkhol...

US Nuclear Missile Silos Still Use Floppy Disks

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