Dial 00000000 for Armageddon. US’s top secret launch nuclear launch code was frighteningly simple

For nearly 20 years, the secret code to authorize launching U.S. nuclear missiles, and starting World War III, was terrifyingly simple and even noted down on a checklist.


From 1962, when John F Kennedy instituted PAL encoding on nuclear weapons, until 1977, the combination to fire the devastating missiles at the height of the Cold War was just 00000000.

This was chosen by Strategic Air Command in an effort to make the weapons as quick and as easy to launch as possible, as reported by Today I Found Out.


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Dial 00000000 for Armageddon. US’s top secret launch nuclear launch code was frighteningly simple

Really, 00000000, and it remained the same for 20 years? This is really unbelievable and shows how inept the military and civilian employees are.

This is not a democrat or a republican problem but a symptom of stupid government. This another reason why the ACA will be disaster........ The sad part about this unaffordable healthcare Act is that it is just another way that corporations have come up with to fleece the taxpayer. Do you remember the Medicare prescription drug plan where the government pays 100 percent of the costs of the plan including all administrative costs like advertising and marketing. The premiums collected by the insurance companies are deducted from the total cost of the drug plan.

I really don't know what else to say but WOW! I can not believe that the government is really that incompetent

Wow, so if joe accidentally leans his elbow on the keypad, we'd be toast? Good god that's terrifying. You're right, completely inept.

And this whole time I had been trying 000000001

!!

I'm finding that a little hard to believe. a comp could so easily default to zero.

I understand what you all are saying, but really, who would have guessed it would be 00000000? One wrong entry and its disabled so I doubt any enemy would waste his chance with that code, plus in the heat of the moment would be very quick to enter.
Firepiston

fnpmitchreturns
Really, 00000000, and it remained the same for 20 years? This is really unbelievable and shows how inept the military and civilian employees are.

You mean it shows how inept many computer users are regardless of the industry or if they are a home user .

Look at the big issues over the past years and see all the users with passwords like = password, 12345678, abcdefg.

reply to post by VoidHawk

No kidding. Feed an erroneous value of 0 it into a routine to pad with 0 to eight characters and Yipee, we are a go.

Hopefully someone had to actually key it 8 times.

I'm thinking it's a fun thing that there weren't test-fire drills with all-live equipment in which the test code was 00000000 in thinking such a code would be safe to use for testing.

wow... I wonder what the new code is? 1234? 1337? 6969?

Pont52
wow... I wonder what the new code is? 1234? 1337? 6969?

My guess would be 00000001

They could have at least made it something that we could all sink our teeth into here on ATS...
Like 66666666.

Oh gad that reminds me of something that happened last month that I was thinking of starting a thread on. There I was, sitting there getting fingerprinted so I could get my badge to do work at a federal facility. I look up on the wall at a flow-chart describing the process of obtaining said badge...
At the bottom, it read - Station: 666
Freaked me RTFO!

VoidHawk
I'm finding that a little hard to believe. a comp could so easily default to zero.

This above.

Always the US. Dodgy f**ckers.

Every nuclear backpack (before they diced them all up at Pantex in 1990) had a combination lock with the same code. It wasn't 0000 but they were all the same.

Heck, for that matter, every Fedex drop box has the same combination. I watched the guy open one once and for years I could open them all. Mwa ha ha ha!

Bedlam
Every nuclear backpack (before they diced them all up at Pantex in 1990) had a combination lock with the same code. It wasn't 0000 but they were all the same.

Heck, for that matter, every Fedex drop box has the same combination. I watched the guy open one once and for years I could open them all. Mwa ha ha ha!

and it was...

fatpastyhead

and it was...

23 years ago.

eta: It had a combination lock thing, something disturbingly like a kitchen timer, and a switch. I had a serious distrust of the damned things, IMHO it was more than likely if you dialed the combo and armed it it was designed to go off right then, so as to remove any waffling or second thoughts in the field. I always suspected the timer was a dummy.

Bedlam

fatpastyhead

and it was...

23 years ago.

Haha fair play

FirePiston
I understand what you all are saying, but really, who would have guessed it would be 00000000? One wrong entry and its disabled so I doubt any enemy would waste his chance with that code, plus in the heat of the moment would be very quick to enter.
Firepiston

Exactly. It's so obvious that it'd the last thing you'd try.

"Hey we broke in to the nuke launch room guys.. what do you think the code is?"
"Uhh well microsoft used 11111111111-111, so lets try 000000000 !!"
"Good idea. I bet they...*boom*"

more like you'd start your super duper cracking app on your ipad mini and let it run for 8 years.

Or just try 42.

And if the guy leaning on the keyboard launched the things up then I'd not be worried about the code, but how the hell it was entered and by whom.

Pont52
wow... I wonder what the new code is? 1234? 1337? 6969?

Good god man, that avatar is awesome! I can die satisfied, seriously. oO

I knew a guy who's password was 1beer4now on his work pc.

when it was forced to change, he just made it 2beers4now.

so if he's anything to go by, we're safe!

roadgravel

Pont52
wow... I wonder what the new code is? 1234? 1337? 6969?

My guess would be 00000001

Should have been 867 5409 lol I love that song !

Maybe they determined the odds of somebody infiltrating the base and getting all the access necessary was so low the access password didn't matter.

It would be kind of OCD or paranoid to have a password like 9C27h9z1.