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The US nuclear forces’ messaging system finally got rid of its floppy disks

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Re: The US nuclear forces’ messaging system finally got rid of its floppy disks

#111

Post by dinodub »

gugagore wrote: post #101
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Older technology is probably much simpler though. It might actually be possible to train someone, or for that someone to learn from a manual.

Whenever I want to be depressed about the loss of human knowledge, I think about how no one will know how to build a VCR, or all the "hacks" and things that were needed to get it working. I'm sure they'll understand the concepts very well. It will be "simple" physics because it was discovered first (Like how a HDD uses earlier physics than a SSD). But then I think of all the amazing people (that are on youtube) who r…

I imagine there's more than one way to build a "VCR" or a thing that replicates its purpose: to read magnetic tape.

As long as there's engineers, there will be hope ;)

Re: The US nuclear forces’ messaging system finally got rid of its floppy disks

#112

Post by mark-r »

danmg wrote: post #84
edejong wrote: post #41

> You can't hack something that doesn't have an IP address. That's a very risky assumption to make. There are many attack vectors besides TCP/IP: social engineering, side-channel attacks, EM pulse, backdoors in ICs...

This guy needs to go back and watch/rewatch wargames.

Amazing what you can do with just a telephone and a modem.

Re: The US nuclear forces’ messaging system finally got rid of its floppy disks

#113

Post by xen2xen1 »

edejong wrote: post #41

> You can't hack something that doesn't have an IP address. That's a very risky assumption to make. There are many attack vectors besides TCP/IP: social engineering, side-channel attacks, EM pulse, backdoors in ICs...

Just read up on Stuxnet to see a real world case. No network connection did not stop them.

Re: The US nuclear forces’ messaging system finally got rid of its floppy disks

#114

Post by drmpeg »

Shivetya wrote: post #97
drmpeg wrote: post #52

In the 80's, I was the project engineer for the Air Force DSP satellite ground communications network upgrade. This system used a 20 MB Bernoulli Box to store the early warning messages. It was replaced in 2005. This was the system used to pass early warning to the Patriot anti-missile (Scud) batteries during the first Gulf War. Internetworking the Air Force system to an Army system was considered revolutionary in 19…

also in the 80s, when I served in the secure communications group we had a Burroughs computer that was the first generation to have not used tubes, it was the main computer for this application. Could boot by switches or paper tape. not that the base computer for personnel and other records was much more modern, cards were still used till 89 for many applications; this was on a Sperry 1100/70 ? I remember my first tu…

The system we replaced consisted of an IBM Series/1 and some unknown Xerox computer the size of a refrigerator. The Xerox box was being kept alive by cannibalizing other boxes that had been taken out of service elsewhere.

Re: The US nuclear forces’ messaging system finally got rid of its floppy disks

#115

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #80
bArray wrote: post #36

I know of several military systems that still use floppy disks, that comforts me for a few reason: * Their maintenance is well understood - every fault that is likely to happen has happened and has been recovered/repaired from. It's very unlikely there will be new surprised down the road. * Their degradation is well understood - it's been around long enough that parts have failed and have been repaired. * Isn't easil…

Absolutely. When you have a system that absolutely must not fail ever, you want it to be set up so that all the code involved--not just the application but the system it runs on--can be manually reviewed in a practical timeframe. If you're running on any modern OS, even a really good, stable one, that's millions of lines of code that you're just hoping don't have any weird, undiscovered edge case interactions with yo…

absolutely must not fail ever

I know I'm being pedantic, but no such system exists. The best you can do is reduce the probability of failure to an acceptable limit.

Especially since this was a military system, some team, somewhere, estimated the Mean Time To Failure for this system and was satisfied with the answer.

Re: The US nuclear forces’ messaging system finally got rid of its floppy disks

#116

Post by fortran77 »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #106
magduf wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't be ridiculous. Our nuclear missile launch systems need to be redeveloped with Rapid Agile methodology, and using all the latest Javascript frameworks, MongoDB databases, Kubernetes microservices, and a great web interface that can be easily accessed over the internet.

I think we should just rewrite the entire stack in Rust. It will make us safer, right?

This! And deploy it on Arch Linux.

Re: The US nuclear forces’ messaging system finally got rid of its floppy disks

#117

Post by fragmede »

PietdeVries wrote: post #79
bArray wrote: post #36

I know of several military systems that still use floppy disks, that comforts me for a few reason: * Their maintenance is well understood - every fault that is likely to happen has happened and has been recovered/repaired from. It's very unlikely there will be new surprised down the road. * Their degradation is well understood - it's been around long enough that parts have failed and have been repaired. * Isn't easil…

And the downside: you will only have a few technicians that really understand how things work, hiring new ones is next to impossible as teenagers have never seen neither the hardware nor the software that is running on it. It scales terrible to new locations. I recall a few years ago NASA was looking for 286-processors for the Space Shuttle. I cannot imagine your spacecraft is getting safer because of outdated hardwa…

> I cannot imagine your spacecraft is getting safer because of outdated hardware.()

Given the possibility of hardware bugs; eg FOOF, Intel dev bug, outdated hardware is well tested hardware, and as such, is arguably safer than newer, less-well tested hardware.

Re: The US nuclear forces’ messaging system finally got rid of its floppy disks

#118

Post by PostOnce »

apostacy wrote: post #100
metaphor wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So when we upgrade the hardware, how much of it will be sourced from China? FYSA[1], would it surprise you if that figure was precisely zero? [1] https://www.dmea.osd.mil/trustedic.html

That is good, but, supply chains are still a major attack vector. I think we should try to minimize that. I am quite certain that there are no Chinese back doors in hardware that was put in the ground in the early 1980s. Security wise, we can only go downhill from there.

https://www.theverge.com/2014/5/7/5688760/the-navy-built-an-...

They do make a fairly substantial effort.

Re: The US nuclear forces’ messaging system finally got rid of its floppy disks

#119

Post by gatherer21 »

k_sze wrote: post #29
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #10

> While SACC’s hardware is decades old, its software is constantly refreshed by young Air Force programmers who learn software development skills at Offutt’s Rapid Agile Development Lab. I am not so sure I want “Rapid Agile” development for something that literally controls nuclear missiles.

`git commit -m “added factoryboy to generate random target coordinates to test the launch sequence.”` `git commit -m “Fuck fuck fuck, forgot to replace the launch API endpoint with a mock one.”` Scrum master: “Let’s implement the stuff with the highest customer value first.” Developer A: “I guess that means being able to launch the nukes.” Developer B: “Yeah. Auth can come later.” Developer C: “Nobody answered us abo…

Gatherer 21, or gatherer 24, does naught approve.

Hunter/Gatherer , hunter12, Get IT.

lol and ROL. my gentlemen. women. polar bears, whatever.

I approve. Just making a joke.

Re: The US nuclear forces’ messaging system finally got rid of its floppy disks

#120

Post by jki275 »

zentiggr wrote: post #107
jki275 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We teach them every detail of everything they need to know in their technical school when they come into the military. Old equipment is actually interesting to work on -- difficult, but interesting. It's also very valuable for understanding modern hardware at a deep level that isn't often taught anymore. How many people do you know who have actually replaced and aligned the heads on a UYH-3 or run end to end tests on…

UYK-7 maintenance... fault code lists and swap cards... love those days underway.

I missed the UYK-7 by a couple of years. But I lived the 43 and Q-21 for years.
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