Permisive Action Links (Not!)

[mark w]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7097101.stm

Hi All

Thought this might be off some interest

[pmulcahy11b]

That's as bad when I heard a few months ago on CNN that for about 20 years, the nuclear codes were set to all zeroes (such as 00000000000 or whatever).

[The Dark]

Well really, what did you expect from the same bunch that brought us the chicken-heated nuclear land mine?

[Owen E Oulton]

Originally Posted by The Dark

Well really, what did you expect from the same bunch that brought us the chicken-heated nuclear land mine?

Nope, this was the US Department of Defense, not the UK's Ministry of Defense, who were the ones that came up with Brown Bunny/Blue Bunny/Blue Peacock.

[The Dark]

Originally Posted by Owen E Oulton

Nope, this was the US Department of Defense, not the UK's Ministry of Defense, who were the ones that came up with Brown Bunny/Blue Bunny/Blue Peacock.

That's not correct. Rainbow codes were assigned by the British Ministry of Supply. Blue Peacock was officially assigned by the MoS in May 1957 after Blue Bunny was compromised. Blue seems to have started as a code for potential nuclear weapons, since Blue Danube was the first British nuclear warhead, Blue Boar was a TV-guided bomb that was intended to use Blue Danube, Blue Bunny/Peacock was a nuclear mine, Blue Cat was a British derivative of the Mk.44, Blue Envoy was a nuclear SAM, Blue Rosette was a short-cased nuke for the (cancelled) Avro 730 bomber, Blue Slug was a nuclear SSM, Blue Streak was the nuclear-armed Skybolt missile (and one of its warheads was Blue Water), Blue Stone was the initiator for the Green Grass warhead used on the Blue Steel missile, etc. It's definitely a British project (it was the British National Archives that declassified the project in 2004), and it was developed by RARDE in Kent. One of the prototypes is on display at the Atomic Weapons Establishment Educational Collection at the former RAF Aldermaston.

The US equivalent of Blue Peacock at the time was the W-7/ADM-B, using a down-rated warhead that was otherwise similar to the ones from Honest John (and had no chickens).

[raketenjagdpanzer]

As has been mentioned the "all 0's" launch code was really meaningless. The launch procedure requires so many intermediate steps it might as well have been nothing at all - it wasn't like Ivan Borschtovitz was going to ring up Kilo Capsule and phone in a fake launch. "Da, ees seero seero seero seero seero, komrad. Da, spaceba."

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by The Dark

Well really, what did you expect from the same bunch that brought us the chicken-heated nuclear land mine?

Ah-hah-hah-hah-ha-oh shit!

[swaghauler]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

That's as bad when I heard a few months ago on CNN that for about 20 years, the nuclear codes were set to all zeroes (such as 00000000000 or whatever).

I need to change the combination on my luggage!

[Owen E Oulton]

Originally Posted by swaghauler

I need to change the combination on my luggage!

Hail Scroob!

[Owen E Oulton]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

That's as bad when I heard a few months ago on CNN that for about 20 years, the nuclear codes were set to all zeroes (such as 00000000000 or whatever).

That was the launch code selection in the actual launch sites, not the codes carried in the "football" - just the ones that had to be physically selected at launch. The actual sequence was eight zeroes, or 00000000. The Soviets, Chinese or terrorist "flavour of the week" could not have used them to remotely trigger a launch, so it was still secure, if frighteningly simple-minded and lazy.