OT: Funny in a really scary way

[geoschmo]

The series of zeros wouldn't have been enough to launch the missles. There were switches and keys and whatever that had to be thrown in the proper order. It wouldn't be something where you bumped into the desk and accidentally nuked Vladivostok. But this did mean that if a base was overrun by hostiles or a missle crew went wacky they could make a deliberate action and launch without the proper authorization. I guess the military figured their security and training was sufficent to prevent this. Pretty scary, I agree.

[Kamog]

Yeah, that's scary. If someone were to try to guess the password, and if they knew it was 8 digits, they might start with 00000000, then try 00000001, 00000002, and so on.

[Atrocities]

And so the “secret unlock code” during the height of the nuclear crises of the Cold War remained constant at OOOOOOOO.

I am ill...... just ill.

[Raging Deadstar]

Originally posted by Kamog:
Yeah, that's scary. If someone were to try to guess the password, and if they knew it was 8 digits, they might start with 00000000, then try 00000001, 00000002, and so on.

Or if we were really lucky they would have started at 99999999

I can only imagine if aliens out there do exist and receive the Last news broadcast from earth, somehow decypher it and believe it will be of monumental discovery.

Then they discover we wiped ourselves out by setting a VERY important 8 digit security code at 00000000

It's not the sort of way i'd like this race be remembered for all time...I might go write an empire description simmilar to this

[Atrocities]

And to think, these people were the smartest folks on the planet and they held our lives in their hands yet they choose a code system that you could basically dial like a phone number..... yes indeed this is very scary and NOVA or 60 minutes should do a story on it.

[Gandalf Parker]

They might have done it thinking that no one would try 0000000 as a first guess.

But the part that scares me is that someone showing the system to a big wig might also put in 0000000 figuring there is no way it could possibly be the right code.

Chances are that there was no thinking. They are nothing but a bunch of Windows Users. 0000000 was the default that the software installed with and it was years before anyone bothered to even consider changing it.

[ June 04, 2004, 12:56: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[Raging Deadstar]

Originally posted by Atrocities:
And to think, these people were the smartest folks on the planet and they held our lives in their hands yet they choose a code system that you could basically dial like a phone number..... yes indeed this is very scary and NOVA or 60 minutes should do a story on it.

I think it's more human ignorance. You'd be surprised on the network at school how many students still keep their accounts password as "password"