Wulfyn

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Rincewind

Wow, talk about lack of security.

A rogue cyclist armed with their bike-lock key and allen-wrench set could have set off Nuclear Armageddon.

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~~ Veritas simplex oratio est ~~
No matter how far a wizard goes, he will always come back for his hat. --T. Pratchett

<---- You know you're getting old when you rely on your forum meta-data to remind you how old you are.

Required Reading for all TG sandboxers

El_Gringo_Grande

Wow, user defined settings for nuclear war. I find that unnerving for some reason.

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I’m not racists, I have republican friends. Radio show host.
- "The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity". -Jacob Burkhardt
- "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Emerson
- "People should not be afraid of it's government, government should be afraid of it's People." - Line from V for Vendetta
- If software were as unreliable as economic theory, there wouldn't be a plane made of anything other than paper that could get off the ground. Jim Fawcette

icky

They do give the impression that a bit of trial-and-error is required to get the settings exactly how you want them.

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Peace through fear... since 1947!

mentholated

Ah, the wonderful illusion of security just died for a whole lot of people.

Kerostasis

There's really only two scenarios where the Nukes could be launched without authorization anyway:

Scenario 1: Some baddie steals the nuke. Outright steals it and walks away with it (somehow). Once he's got it back in his own lab, it doesn't matter how impressive your trigger-lock is, he can find away around it. Even if he has to take your trigger off completely and put his own, new trigger on it, he can still detonate the bomb.

Scenario 2: The guy flying the plane decides to start nuclear war all on his own. This is the scenario trigger locks were designed to stop, but it isn't really all that likely to begin with. As the article mentions, "It would be invidious to suggest... that Senior Service officers may, in difficult circumstances, act in defiance of their clear orders". I mean, its not like any joe off the street who enlisted yesterday can fly a nuclear bomber -- these guys have background checks, complete psychological evaluations, and so on. What would have to run through a pilots mind to nuke his own backyard while on a training mission?

The other thing not mentioned in the article, although its clearly implied if you're paying attention, is that theres actually a second step in the arming process -- actually dropping the bomb out of the plane. Sure, some guy might be able to sneak into the warehouse where this thing is kept and turn the bicycle key, but that won't actually set the bomb off. The villain would have to load the bomb into a plane first, fly up to 30,000 feet, and drop it off the back end -- and THEN it would detonate. And if he's got time to pull all that off, we're back to scenario one above, where he would have time to defeat any security locks anyway.

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Wulfyn

I can just see the UK remake of Crimson Tide...

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