US nuclear force still uses floppy disks
From the BBC
26 May 2016
The US nuclear weapons force still uses a 1970s-era computer system and 8-inch floppy disks, a government report has revealed. The Government Accountability Office said the Pentagon was one of several departments where "legacy systems" urgently needed to be replaced. The report said taxpayers spent $61bn (£41bn) a year on maintaining ageing technologies. It said that was three times more than the investment on modern IT systems.
The report said that the Department of Defence systems that co-ordinated intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear bombers and tanker support aircraft "runs on an IBM Series-1 Computer - a 1970s computing system - and uses eight-inch floppy disks. This system remains in use because, in short, it still works," Pentagon spokeswoman Lt Col Valerie Henderson told the AFP news agency.
"However, to address obsolescence concerns, the floppy drives are scheduled to be replaced with secure digital devices by the end of 2017." She added: "Modernisation across the entire Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications enterprise remains ongoing."
The report said that the Pentagon was planning to fully replace the system by the end of 2020. According to the report, the US treasury also needed to upgrade its systems, which it said was using "assembly language code - a computer language initially used in the 1950s and typically tied to the hardware for which it was developed".
[Well, it’s good to know that the world’s largest nuclear arsenal is being controlled by tried and tested technology almost as old as I am. I’ll sleep soundly in my bed tonight because of that knowledge.]
3 comments:
On the bright side, that system probably slid into static obsolescence because of the Cold War thaw. Surely if tensions had remained high, they would have kept it as robust as possible.
I wonder if the datedness actually adds to the system's defensiveness. It's so out-dated modern script kiddies wouldn't know what to do with it. :-p
I think it'd need the parents or possibly grandparents of today's script kiddies to be able to do something like hack or infect these systems. There is (sometimes at least) something to be said for obsolescence - planned or otherwise!
I don't think this system is connected to the Internet, which would actually make it more secure.
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