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Dial 00000000 To Blow Up the World

Posted by timothy on from the your-public-servants dept.

Charliemopps writes "For 20 years the password for the U.S. nuclear arsenal was '00000000.' Kennedy instituted a security system on all nuclear warheads to prevent them from being armed by someone unauthorized. It was called PAL, and promised to secure the entire US arsenal around the world. Unfortunately for Kennedy (and I guess, the whole world) U.S. military leadership was more concerned about delaying a launch than securing Armageddon. They technically obeyed the order but then set the password to 8 Zeros, or '00000000'."

1 of 306 comments (clear)

  1. Not only... by DerekLyons · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not only a dupe, but old, old news. This has been publicly and widely known for nearly a decade.