US military uses 8-inch floppy disks to coordinate nuclear force operations • Hacker News Board

Re: US military uses 8-inch floppy disks to coordinate nuclear force operations

#51

Post by nickpsecurity » Thu, May 26, 2016, 2:04 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #23

Old storage media (floppies, CDs) have a big advantage over new ones (SD cards, USB sticks, hard drives) - they don't have firmware . Most people didn't notice how over the last decade or so we've moved from having a computer read out data directly from a removable medium to having two computers talking together over a low-level, high-privilege protocol. While there are many benefits to this evolution, it also opens…

That's true but not why they use them. You can easily restrict the interfaces of many forms of media where firmware is hardcoded in ASIC as a state machine or restricted at interface points. The military also has systems available to do exactly that from Rockwell-Collins, General Dynamics, etc.

Nah, this is a scary example of critical capabilities depending on legacy hardware people might not dven make that they're afraid to replace. Sandia at least modernized some of our nuclear system. They need to deal with this, too.

Re: US military uses 8-inch floppy disks to coordinate nuclear force operations

#52

Post by bhollan » Thu, May 26, 2016, 2:19 AM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #13

It reminds me this story, which was told to me as a true story, but I wouldn't bet too much on that. A soviet bomber gets lost and finds itself over western germany. It has to land on a military airport, which pilots jovially invite the soviet pilots for a drink. While they are drinking, intelligence officers take pictures of the plane, and are laughing at antiquated soviet technology, using bulbs while the US was we…

They still sell them today. They're called Nuclear Event Detection (NED) chips. It detects a spike in voltage from the air and drops all power to everything, acting as an instantaneous power interrupt for everything you care about.

I used to test them for Lockheed all the time on stuff that flies on stealth aircraft. There is a very specific sequence of events with very tight specs they have to pass, the whole thing is over in 250 ms, and that includes the shutdown duration.

Re: US military uses 8-inch floppy disks to coordinate nuclear force operations

#53

Post by bhollan » Thu, May 26, 2016, 2:20 AM UTC

I'll just put this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y1ya-yF35g

Re: US military uses 8-inch floppy disks to coordinate nuclear force operations

#54

Post by bhollan » Thu, May 26, 2016, 2:22 AM UTC

bhollan wrote: post #52

cm2187 wrote: post #13

It reminds me this story, which was told to me as a true story, but I wouldn't bet too much on that. A soviet bomber gets lost and finds itself over western germany. It has to land on a military airport, which pilots jovially invite the soviet pilots for a drink. While they are drinking, intelligence officers take pictures of the plane, and are laughing at antiquated soviet technology, using bulbs while the US was we…

They still sell them today. They're called Nuclear Event Detection (NED) chips. It detects a spike in voltage from the air and drops all power to everything, acting as an instantaneous power interrupt for everything you care about. I used to test them for Lockheed all the time on stuff that flies on stealth aircraft. There is a very specific sequence of events with very tight specs they have to pass, the whole thing…

http://www.maxwell.com/products/microelectonics/space-nuclea...

Re: US military uses 8-inch floppy disks to coordinate nuclear force operations

#55

Post by spoiledtechie » Thu, May 26, 2016, 2:23 AM UTC

bhollan wrote: post #53

I'll just put this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y1ya-yF35g

This blows me away. I think ignorance comes to those people who refer to comedian shows when talking about seriousness.

This shows me ignorance, not John Oliver, but the person who chooses to use it to satisfy some valid and real point.

Re: US military uses 8-inch floppy disks to coordinate nuclear force operations

#56

Post by bhollan » Thu, May 26, 2016, 2:32 AM UTC

spoiledtechie wrote: post #55

bhollan wrote: post #53

I'll just put this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y1ya-yF35g

This blows me away. I think ignorance comes to those people who refer to comedian shows when talking about seriousness. This shows me ignorance, not John Oliver, but the person who chooses to use it to satisfy some valid and real point.

relevant username.

I take the government's actions very seriously. I left the country, wife and kids and all, because I got tired of it.

I respect Jon Oliver's work. I think he makes discussions about things like this more approachable to more people than any article cnbc will every publish.

Re: US military uses 8-inch floppy disks to coordinate nuclear force operations

#57

Post by katzgrau » Thu, May 26, 2016, 2:40 AM UTC

In the words of Joel Spolsky, "code doesn't rust."

Who cares how old the code or the medium is? If it's tested and working, and it's used for nuclear effing weapons, I'm happy to leave it in my pile of tech debt.

Re: US military uses 8-inch floppy disks to coordinate nuclear force operations

#58

Post by daveguy » Thu, May 26, 2016, 2:42 AM UTC

cesarbs wrote: post #44

gene-h wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you could hide a wireless reader and transmitter in a floppy disk, you would still be able to pick it up on X-ray. It would be very difficult to differentiate an SD card with a malicious payload even if one X-rayed it.

Would X-rays corrupt the data on the floppy disk? Honest question, I have no idea.

I think the answer is no. You have to have a magnetic field to induce changes on a floppy (don't get them near a magnet). An x-ray would require a curved flow to generate a magnetic field (think electromagnet) so the generally direct x-ray flux should be harmless. Of course the equipment and power requirements may make it difficult to avoid magnetic fields. Not an x-ray expert.

Re: US military uses 8-inch floppy disks to coordinate nuclear force operations

#59

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 26, 2016, 2:46 AM UTC

joshavant wrote: post #12

throwanem wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> are there producers of 8" floppy media anymore? It would appear so, and in the US, yet: http://www.athana.com/html/diskette.html#8

I seem to remember someone telling me how there are a couple of cottage industries that center around the fact that the US Government has to buy goods that are US-made. I think ceiling fans are one example. (i.e. There's relatively few US-based ceiling fan manufacturers. For one of them, I think the large chunk of their business is the US Government.) I have a feeling this may be an example of that.

[deleted]

Re: US military uses 8-inch floppy disks to coordinate nuclear force operations

#60

Post by superuser2 » Thu, May 26, 2016, 2:51 AM UTC

bhollan wrote: post #52

cm2187 wrote: post #13

It reminds me this story, which was told to me as a true story, but I wouldn't bet too much on that. A soviet bomber gets lost and finds itself over western germany. It has to land on a military airport, which pilots jovially invite the soviet pilots for a drink. While they are drinking, intelligence officers take pictures of the plane, and are laughing at antiquated soviet technology, using bulbs while the US was we…

They still sell them today. They're called Nuclear Event Detection (NED) chips. It detects a spike in voltage from the air and drops all power to everything, acting as an instantaneous power interrupt for everything you care about. I used to test them for Lockheed all the time on stuff that flies on stealth aircraft. There is a very specific sequence of events with very tight specs they have to pass, the whole thing…

How do you test such a thing? Small nukes?