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I am perplexed why this kind of information is not classified.

• gwern 17y ago
  Because you want security information disseminated. You want nuclear powers to be able to control whether their nukes get used or not. The US has for decades basically given away most of its tech like the PALs to nuclear powers for this very reason, even to nuclear powers we rather wished did not exist (like Pakistan), so the nukes don't get loose. (A sovereign nation knows that everyone else knows the isotopic signatures of its nukes, and that it will be held responsible for any use, so they want the tech as much as we want them to have it.) The important stuff about nukes is how to make them; nothing about that is revealed by visiting some silos.
• epochwolf 17y ago
  Probably because current procedures have been updated many so times that these procedures wouldn't help anyone trying to launch a current ICBM. The article mentioned a voting system that's used to prevent modern ICBMs from being launched without the agreement of several launch sites. Also, notice the only computer mentioned in the place was the guidance system for the missile. I'm sure a modern ICBM site would have computer based security. An ICBM is useless if you can lockout the guidance system or detonator. Just think, the guidance system could drop the missile into the ocean or self-destruct the missile on lift off if it is somehow launched without proper codes. (Assuming you could get the rockets to fire in the first place) The warhead could refuse to detonate if the missile is launched without proper codes. There are many levels of security a computer can add to prevent an ICBM from being successfully launched. The Titan II launch procedures are based solely on mechanical security.
• dasht 17y ago
  re: "I am perplexed why this kind of information is not classified." I speculate that it is mis-information: half-truths. What is described is an incredibly involved maze launch procedures and potential elaborate security violations leading to launch. It looks like a big maze of "attack here!" signs. So, if you are assigned to work in one of those bunkers, but deep down you are actually kind of unhinged... the design encourages you to show your hand early by aiming for a false vulnerability, with lots of ways to catch you waiting in the background. I would bet that there are trivial bypasses to all of the security, but that the nature (even existence) of those bypasses are a secret some guys are going to take to their graves. That is, I would bet the most trusted "missileers" could single-handedly launch one of those puppies by first disabling or agreeing with the other guy in the room then opening up an access panel and, more or less, crossing two wires. It would be less safe to build it any other way than "launch at will, though you might have to kill another guy first although he stands a 50/50 chance of killing you first". Why make a more complicated game of it than that? The only things to really guard against are take-overs of a silo (capturers should have no clue what wires to cross) and not-yet-fully-trusted missileers. Meanwhile, the failure modes of control and command have to fail gracefully and, in this case, that means putting the bombs fully under the control of a few trusted guys who are relied upon to exercise good judgment. I'd bet those things could be launched in less than a minute, more or less by flipping a disguised switch. After all, that's what the Soviets did: http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/17-10/mf_deadhand?currentPage=all http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/17-10/mf_dea...
  • lutorm 17y ago
    Thanks for that link, that was a very interesting read.