For Nearly Two Decades the Nuclear Launch Code Was 00000000

What&#x27;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&#x2F;willing to follow up with additional nukes.)<p>or...<p>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&#x2F;or dead.<p>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&#x27;re not very popular among gun owners.

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

&quot;That&#x27;s the stupidest combination I&#x27;ve ever heard in my life! That&#x27;s the kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage!&quot;<p>&#x2F;obligatory

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 <i>any</i> content from that domain under any circumstances. Thanks for the article headline though; that&#x27;s a mildly interesting bit of trivia.

This reminds me of this scene from the movie Spaceballs; <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6iW-8xPw3k" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=a6iW-8xPw3k</a><p>It&#x27;s how I imagine the commanders get the code.

What&#x27;s worse?<p>1) Being the party&#x2F;person who started another world war; 2) Being nuked without ability to retaliate (in case the executive branch is wiped out)<p>Most incredibly stupid decisions were made rationally, under extreme perception of the reality.

This story kind of reminds me of this:<p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2007/11_november/15/newsnight.shtml" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bbc.co.uk&#x2F;pressoffice&#x2F;pressreleases&#x2F;stories&#x2F;2007&#x2F;...</a><p>For most of the Cold War, the RAF&#x27;s nuclear bombs were armed by turning a bicycle lock key.<p>&quot;The Royal Navy argued that its officers could be trusted and: &#x27;It would be invidious to suggest... that senior Service officers may, in difficult circumstances, act in defiance of their clear orders.&#x27;&quot;

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.

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.

Why &quot;for nearly 2 decades&quot;? It doesn&#x27;t explain how this stopped being the case, did I miss the paragraph where it explained that the codes are no longer 00000000?

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

Using nuclear weapons in any situation is morally unjustifiable, and frankly nearly always a war crime (since they are too large to avoid civilians).<p>This was utterly irresponsible, and from the sounds of it in direct violation of presidential orders. Isn&#x27;t disobeying orders in the military quite a big thing?

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&#x27;s a well-explored theme on TheOnion, see e.g., <a href="http://www.theonion.com/articles/nasa-announces-plan-to-bring-wifi-to-its-headquart,2299/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theonion.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;nasa-announces-plan-to-brin...</a>)

Reverse psychology against hackers&#x2F;spies. Let them think that it was a super obscure, difficult code to crack.

If site owner visits this discussion:<p>Interesting story, crazy popup ads (mobile device).

Null pointer bugs, anyone?

&gt;(...) the PAL systems were all activated and the codes changed the same year this article was published<p>They changed them to 12345678 didn&#x27;t they?