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The systems are time-tested. How many accidental launches have happened so far? Zero. In my opinion that's the most important metric of these systems, as long a
by certainly_not 11y ago
The systems are time-tested. How many accidental launches have happened so far? Zero. In my opinion that's the most important metric of these systems, as long as they are still credible threats otherwise.
Also, what could a better system improve? Slightly faster launches? Slightly more certain launches? I argue that those are not important -- the enemy won't fear the missiles more if they run off USB. But you might increase the chance of a false launch, and certainly incur large testing costs.
- pdw 11y agoFrom a military point of view, the huge advantage of floppy disks is that they're dumb storage. The modern replacements such as USB storage or SD cards are microprocessor-based systems. How are you going to verify that the SD cards you're buying don't have malicious firmware?
- amorphid 11y agoYou most definitely don't want infected USB drives in your nuclear facility! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet
- Dylan16807 11y agoThat's a different issue. That's a file that makes certain systems misbehave. The drives are dumb storage. When your storage device itself is smart and compromised, you can't even verify what its contents are. Things get much worse.
- paulryanrogers 11y agoI imagine BadUSB would fall into that latter category
- usrusr 11y agoAdding to that, 8 inch floppies have a certain quality to them that no younger medium has ever recreated: try hiding one on your body, try sneaking in an illicit reader to make "personal backups"... Security through unwieldyness goes a long way, when your biggest threats are of the social kind.
- shalmanese 11y agoYou should buy this talisman of mine that wards away tigers. You know it works since I've had it my entire life and I've yet to be attacked by a tiger!
- gambiting 11y agoUhmmmmm, read Eric Schlosser's "Command and Control". The US nuclear missiles had no protection against accidental lunch, you didn't even have to put in a code or a key, and the US government has said, sincerely, that "the US nuclear stockpile is completely safe, based on their observation that there was no accidental lunches yet". If you have raw electrical cables sticking out of your wall, they are not "safe" just because you haven't electrocuted yourself yet.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- al2o3cr 11y ago"The systems are time-tested. How many accidental launches have happened so far? Zero. " Hell, if that's your metric just unplug the thing. Exactly zero accidental launches, and you'll only have made the wrong decision once if anything goes wrong...
- Dylan16807 11y agoWell, we are unplugging them.