Here are some photos of a PAL, a PAL reprogrammer and a PAL verifier taken at the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History by Steven J. Greenwald (more photos here). I’ve added them to the additional material for my book.
Nuke photos
Comments
3 responses to “Nuke photos”
-
did you check out the gift shop?
the fat man and little boy shot glasses were in “interesting” taste -
Are those crypto devices? You now at my time in the service I always wondered why the crypto boxes have been so large. Technology of a long lost time. However, one thing which impresses me was the ease of getting a new secure key into them. The art of making technology foolprof for soldiers is inherited in that design. Unless of course you use “00000000” as a PIN.
-
For those who want to know a little more about Permissive Action Links (PALs) Steven M. Bellovin has a page of info with some useful links etc.
http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb/nsam-160/pal.html
However the page does contain one or two speculations and errors (see penultimate sentence in paragraph on encrypted code in microprocessors).
Although the paper,
http://www.icnnd.org/latest/research/Jason_Fritz_Hacking_NC2.rtf
Has an alarming sounding title it does provide background reading and many links to information surrounding the command and control systems that PALs form a part of.
And Dr. Bruce Blair has a very occasional “Nuclear Column” on the CDI website,
http://www.cdi.org/program/issue/index.cfm?ProgramID=32&issueid=110
Oh and PAls tend to be for large strategic nukes small tactical nukes don’t have them due to physical constraints, they use another method (PAPS) that are basically secure containers and delivery systems. In between systems such as some anti-aircraft etc missiles used PAL-Plugs that where physically inserted into the side of the device and where otherwise stored in a safe.
In almost all cases PALs PAPS operated under the two man (AB) doctrine. In the UK PALs where not considered a great necessity and likewise most other countries. The US’s real reason for having them was to support the US nuke law in NATO countries.
Leave a Reply