Comments on: I’ve Got the Same Combination on My Luggage!

By: Terranaut

Terranaut — Fri, 27 May 2011 04:54:18 +0000

[quote]Retired USAF said: ““The men and women running SAC in 1960 essentially put the entire planet’s population at risk by deliberately disabling the PAL safety mechanisms. Perhaps we should keep that in mind before we put too much trust in the people charged with our nation’s defense.”

That Trust was well placed! You should be grateful to the Men And Women of our military whom were so focused, virtuous, and dutiful to protect your butt so you could have the freedom to write your dribble. I think you owe them all an apology and a thank you for the fine job that has been done to date in safegaurding this country and the individual rights we all are privilidged to enjoy.”[/quote]

“RETIRED USAF” ROCKS!!! THANK-YOU!!! TO ALL VETERANS!

johnb3491 you and all of you namby-pamby ilk are an abomination to this nation! there is a reason the Colt .45 was and is called “THE PEACE MAKER”.
it is stupid ignorant pacifist thinking that allowed the majority of europe to fall under NAZI control! this whole “peace, love, and hug the trees” mentality is going to bring the end of AMERICA faster than anything the reds ever could have tried. come on people get your heads out of your arses and think for yourselves instead of gulping down the Kool-aid that the media and our higher education system is feeding you!!!!!!
USE YOUR BRAINS!!!!!!! COMMON SENSE TELLS YOU THAT KIND OF THINKING IS WRONG!!!!! JOHN I BET YOU WHERE ONE OF THE KIDS THAT GAVE-UP HIS LUNCH MONEY TO THE SCHOOL BULLY ARE’NT YOU!!!

By: johnb3491

johnb3491 — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 04:09:34 +0000

[quote]howhurley said: “The problem, Alan, isn’t that the story or your post is wrong (factually incorrect). The problem is the first time someone reads the story on the Internet while multitasking as we all do, this person might (will) get the idea that somehow the SAC intercontinental ballistic missile network were somehow insecure. This assumption IS incorrect. The codes you speak of are simply one of many layers of multiple redundancy that military folks are used to. I spent five years at a SAC base in North Dakota and can tell you that the multiple layers are overkill. If a layer or two is bypassed for convenience, it show intelligence, not blind obedience. We were secure.”[/quote]
“military folks are used to”, “overkill”, “layer or two is bypassed for convenience, it shows intellegence”; Is anyone else thinking Chernobyle?
This is exactly the problem that scares me immeasurably. Ban the nukes, completely.
This is a Groucho. Military music, military justice, military intellegence.
There is no way to peace. Peace is the way. Mohandis Gandhi

By: notlaw99

notlaw99 — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 14:12:50 +0000

It was not uncommon for weapon system designers to pre -build features or put hooks into software for easy modifications to a weapon system to be sold to DOD in a future contract Boeing as well as other contractors would do it in a routine basis. Especially when it is a feature you know the DOD customer wants but does not have the budget authorization to get it on the original contract but it can be added as a supplement in a future budget cycle or future contract modification. The all then vendor has to do is to turn it on and put past ups [decals] on the hardware configuration panels to use it.

By: a1c

a1c — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 02:22:31 +0000

I wonder if the effects of increased trust by having the codes printed on there actually *decreased* the potential for mutiny by showing that the military (as opposed to civ gov’t) was on the avg. missilers’ side.

By: notlaw99

notlaw99 — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 01:47:33 +0000

My comment on this article is that Alan Bellows does not know much about the various versions of the Minuteman Weapon System. Fist of all the illustration for the article is a Tifton II Missile not a Minuteman. Just because there is a cell in the D37 computer that may contain eight octal zero does not mean that the missile software paid any attention to it. The Minuteman Modernized Launch Control Centers (LCC) did not even have a position in the equipment racks to send an eight digit octal command until 1970 and it was used for the Cancel Launch In Process command. After the requirement was super ceased the control panel was used to insert weather words, correction octals , The Minuteman II Mark 11C reentry vehicle was subsonic on reentry an subject to float in the target island due to air density and cross winds. The octal provides a modified aiming point to make the reentry vehicle strike the planned aiming point. The coded command octals for execution checklist could not be implemented until Boeing and Sylvania put in a hard ware modification to the Launch verification panels and the D37 computer software t pay attention to the octal and this was implemented for both Minuteman II and III in both the Boeing and Sylvania LCC configurations. The whole procedure was done for a manpower cost reduction to reduce the number of combat crews and have the perform longer tours at their console positions in the LCCs. This allowed one crew member to be able to sleep in the LCC when they were pilling 24 to 72 hour alerts in the LCCs. And that was implemented about 1977.

I was a Minuteman Launch Crew Commander and Deputy Commander and later served at HQ Strategic Air Command, now USSTRATCOM as a real time analyst of the Strategic Automated Command Control System. [System Supervisor, Command Control War Plans Computer Division]

By: Lauri the Lapanen

Lauri the Lapanen — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 19:26:16 +0000

Splendid article! A real pearl to read. But in many ways the article is dwarved by these (must use the word, sorry - my handicap) illustrious replys!

Has anyone noticed how hard it actually is to not-reply to a message line such as this? I read the comments and frankly one can not agree with really anyone but those who seem to be quoting "official sources".

It's clearly a fact that the article which Alan mentions does infact exist and it seems to be of a official US agency. I, living altogether some where else, have no idea that is the agency real or not - it seems to be referred here and there... But I think that Alan actually did something even better than an annoying friday can do to a driver when it's 4-5pm., on .. a .. friday ;) How come is this such a emotional topic? I think that all countries do odd things at points. And _certainly_ all countries are either implied or acccused of having done something odd or bad. Naturally truth must be defended (not sarcastic here), but altough Alan didn't explicitely imply in his article that the source, infact, might be wrong, I'm quite certain that he didn't try to imply that it was fool proof. So come on, some slack maybe? It's not as if CCCP implied for years (come on, prove me wrong) that the US started the first real bang-and-boom of WWII (I'm finnish, yet I wasn't there. I wasn't even born then).

Right, to my real comment. Be the truth one way or another or maybe even out there, the fact is that nukes, be they handled with exceptionaly brave people or not, don't really seem the answer. A nuke is a very big and powerful bomb, need I say more? (yes, I've done my service, I've seen bombs, I have the knowledge basis needed to see the purpose of a defencive bomb as an oxymoron) Though nice to hear that they were handled be rigorous people. (not being sarcastic here either - it's just refressing to hear in todays world that some people seem to believe firmly in something. I believe in my things :)

I understand that this reply could be viewed as a flame or an attempted insult towards other replyers. It's not. Its just a bewildered reply to the multitude of emotion an article of this kind can cause. I enjoyed reading the article and the replys. I am sorry if I manage to offend anyone. I edited this a few times before pushing the send button, but even as I write this line it already seems diluted.

By: Retired USAF

Retired USAF — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 23:52:34 +0000

"The men and women running SAC in 1960 essentially put the entire planet's population at risk by deliberately disabling the PAL safety mechanisms. Perhaps we should keep that in mind before we put too much trust in the people charged with our nation's defense."

By: Neagle

Neagle — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 05:38:34 +0000

PAL lock was set to zero for a good reason, to accomplish an emergency code change if the J-CODE became compromised on the MCU. Enabling individual codes on the PAL lock was deemed unnecessary with certain exceptions that never was allowed to present itself. The next generation of security protocols are a bit more “optimal.”

By: Drakvil

Drakvil — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 01:14:12 +0000

Alan, I have to bow to your editorial wisdom of noting that some of the published facts that you quoted in this article are in dispute, as opposed to the more popular ‘all or nothing’ route where one side of a dispute is declared correct when neither side can be verified. With all due respect to Vickinutah and DonWhit, statements about being there are not likely to be verifiable to/by anyone outside of the defense department. Healthy skepticism is a necessary element both on the Internet and with paper media, and it does need regular exercise.

By: EuGenus

EuGenus — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 04:25:33 +0000

You were there, AND? You’re saying that ’00000000′ was the default combination to be changed once the system is set up? Great – so then the system was not SET to the dumb combination, but instead a concious decision was made to KEEP the dumb default. What exactly is the difference? The fact is that for 15 years the combination was NOT changed as it should have been.

So then the president has a person carrying around a briefcase that is difficult to open without the right codes? How useful when the settings remain at the default ’00000000′ and all concerned are aware of the fact. I feel so safe that the president doesn’t have both codes needed to open the briefcase and read out the wonderfully secure combination of ’00000000′ to make sure – yep that’s what it is. Hail to the BLAM!