12 Apr 2011

The U.S. nuclear "secret unlock code" was... 00000000

Those of you who are embarrassed to admit that your passwords for most sites are not robust enough may be able to take some comfort from this admission about events during the height of the Cold War. In the 1960s Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, concerned about nuclear security, had "technical locks" placed on the Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles to prevent unauthorized deployment.

Minuteman

The Strategic Air Command (SAC) in Omaha quietly decided to set the “locks” to all zeros in order to circumvent this safeguard. During the early to mid-1970s, during my stint as a Minuteman launch officer, they still had not been changed. Our launch checklist in fact instructed us, the firing crew, to double-check the locking panel in our underground launch bunker to ensure that no digits other than zero had been inadvertently dialled into the panel. SAC remained far less concerned about unauthorized launches than about the potential of these safeguards to interfere with the implementation of wartime launch orders. And so the “secret unlock code” during the height of the nuclear crises of the Cold War remained constant at 00000000.

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