In 2014, “60 Minutes” made famous the 8-inch floppy disks used by one antiquated Air Force computer system that, in a crisis, could receive an order from the president to launch nuclear missiles from silos across the United States.
But no more. At long last, that system, the Strategic Automated Command and Control System or SACCS, has dumped the floppy disk, moving to a “highly-secure solid state digital storage solution” this past June, said Lt. Col. Jason Rossi, commander of the Air Force’s 595th Strategic Communications Squadron…
“I joke with people and say it’s the Air Force’s oldest IT system. But it’s the age that provides that security,” Rossi said in an October interview. “You can’t hack something that doesn’t have an IP address. It’s a very unique system — it is old and it is very good.”
In 2016, the Government Accountability Office wrote that SACCS runs on an IBM Series/1 computer dating from the 1970s and that the Defense Department planned “to update its data storage solutions, port expansion processors, portable terminals, and desktop terminals by the end of fiscal year 2017,” but it’s unclear whether those upgrades have occurred.
MacDailyNews Take: Faster nuke launches. What’s not to love?
[Attribution: Engadget. Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
I remember those 8″ floppies. They could be used as a lunch plate also.
I’m with the BattleStar Galactica crowd. You can’t remotely hack into it if it’s not on a network.
Oh MDN your take is priceless 😂
It’s an SSD shaped like an 8” floppy disk… 😑
Well I feel sooo much safer now, given that the nuclear submarine fleet runs Windows XP for Submarines. smh