Nuclear Launch Codes
 

For Nearly Two Decades the Nuclear Launch Code at all Minuteman Silos in the United States Was 00000000

"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'."

On my old house alarm if I punched in all zeros it was a silent alarm to tell the cops you were being held hostage and forced to shut of the alarm. If bad guys had somehow captured a minuteman silo whoud they figure out all zeros is the real launch code?

hiding in plain sight is the best place to hide, bwahahaha

I thought it was 42.

9-1-1

If I were to try to hack an 8 digit number, I would use a program that started with all zeros and worked it's way up.

At least the dweeb's could have made it 99999999.

C'mon Sammy, it was a bunch of army boys... That would have taken thought and a modicum of creativity. Not saying they are all that way, but it sure seems rampant...

LOL, based on my experience with the military and their constant use of mil specs and TLA (three letter acronyms) they'd be experts at developing unbreakable codes ;)

Coincidentally, I was talking w/ an older lady who was in Germany having dinner with a group of high ranking Air Force officers when Kennedy was killed. She remembers these officers drinking and enthusiastically toasting his assassination. She told me she was so shocked, that she never told anyone about that experience for many decades. I had always thought Kennedy was at least reasonably popular with the military.

I mean REALLY??!!? :confused:

BWHAHAAA!!!! Then the computer screen shows... Thanks for the fish!


angela

He was not very popular with some of the Joint Chiefs. Some citizens celebrated his killing as well...those who thought him to liberal.

There's a famous book written by one of the scientists at Los Alamos who claimed that the safes supplied by the government to hold top secret documents overnight when the nuclear scientists went home came from the factory set with combination 0-0-0. For fun he used to go around after hours swapping secret documents from one office to the other as a practical joke because no one ever changed the settings. He got a reputation as a master safecracker and he never told anyone his secret until he retired and told his story. This was back when the formula for the A bomb and H bomb were the most closely guarded secrets on the planet. He joked in his book that he stole the most valuable property in the history of safecracking when he messed around with America's nuclear secrets.

I forgot who it was, but I'll see if I can look him up.

Oppenheimer, IIRC

I didn't mean to launch the rocket sir. The cat was standing on the 0 button.

Give me a break.....that is the greatest waste of a server memory I've ever seen. Anyone who believes an article written by someone who can't spell "Defence" when referring to Robert McNamara as the Secretary of Defense would probably think OSU will beat MSU and FSU for the National Championship.

It doesnt matter what the numbers were. One is as good as the next. There is a lot more to it than entering 00000000 for a nuke launch. Makes a good headline tho.

I claim BS. Had a friend that worked in the missile silos, told me it took two people to launch. one person never had enough info/whole code as I recall.

Same combination on my luggage. How weird.

My dad worked on minuteman I and II projects including time in silos. This is what he said re: the codes.

Unless the two operators KNEW the launch codes were set to zero, it didn't really matter what they were set to.

The launch codes would be sent to them and it took two operators to verify the authenticity compared to authenticator codes that were locked in the safes.
That's the only time they'd figure out the numbers were all zeros.
Once verified, it still took two operators with two keys to simultaneously initiate launch.

The real danger here is (if the story is true), the numbers were not random.

If someone KNEW they were all set to zero it would have made it much easier to initiate an unauthorized launch by falsifying a launch order.

I saw a documentary with Matthew Broderick and he hacked the launch codes to the WOPR. It wasn't a bunch of zeros, that's for sure.