U.S. Nuclear Missile Program Runs On Floppy Disks

NUCLEAR MAINFRAMES FROM THE 70s

A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office says the Pentagon is still using floppy disks for its nuclear program.

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Daily Mail

The GAO report says that U.S. government departments spend upwards of $60 billion a year on operating and maintaining out-of-date technologies. That's three times the investment on modern IT systems.

GAO said it found problems across the government, not just in a few agencies. Among those highlighted in the report:

— The Defense Department's Strategic Automated Command and Control System, which is used to send and receive emergency action messages to U.S. nuclear forces. The system is running on a 1970s IBM computing platform, and still uses 8-inch floppy disks to store data. 'Replacement parts for the system are difficult to find because they are now obsolete,' GAO said. The Pentagon is initiating a full replacement and says the floppy disks should be gone by the end of next year. The entire upgrade will take longer.

— Treasury's individual and business master files, the authoritative data sources for taxpayer information. The systems are about 56 years old, and use an outdated computer language that is difficult to write and maintain. Treasury plans to replace the systems, but has no firm dates.

— Social Security systems that are used to determine eligibility and estimate benefits, about 31 years old. Some use a programming language called COBOL, dating to the late 1950s and early 1960s. 'Most of the employees who developed these systems are ready to retire and the agency will lose their collective knowledge,' the report said. 'Training new employees to maintain the older systems takes a lot of time.' Social Security has no plans to replace the entire system, but is eliminating and upgrading older and costlier components. It is also rehiring retirees who know the technology.

— Medicare's Appeals System, which is only 11 years old, but facing challenges keeping up with a growing number of appeals, as well as questions from congressional offices following up on constituent concerns. The report says the agency has general plans to keep updating the system, depending on the availability of funds.

— The Transportation Department's Hazardous Materials Information System, used to track incidents and keep information relied on by regulators. The system is about 41 years old, and some of its software is no longer supported by vendors, which can create security risks. The department plans to complete its modernization program in 2018.

TRUMP CAN CHANGE THE CULTURE

Taxpayers Protection Alliance President David Williams on wasteful government spending on outdated technology. I've set this clip to play the last 45 seconds where discussion of Trump begins.

Comments

[skinflint]

DB, Didn't know if you knew of this place while here. Some interesting stuff here. Occasionally catch a piece on the local news about Leakin Park and some bodies turn up in this place. I would imagine that there are a lot of others. I used to patrol parts of these woods as a kid back in the 60's. Got chased through the trails by some crazy kids back then.
http://chamspage.blogspot.com/2010/11/the-bodies-of-leakin-park-baltimore-md.html

[S. Gompers]

This is part of the reason a couple of goat herders with 29 dollars worth of parts were able to hack our drones and we never knew they were doing it till they took full control of one. And they had been doing it a while monitoring the video as was confirmed later by captured laptops full of video. Our tax dollars at work are spent very inefficiently and ineffectively, but that is why we call the keepers of the purse strings politicians...

They had to close the bank they used years ago because they can't even manage their own finances. So lets let them screw up the nations bank account.

[DailyBail]

SKIN

That map showed a lot of bodies. Where in the city is the park?

[DailyBail]

GOMP

I had forgotten about that drone hijacking.

[Bob]

I would not believe this report unless it is substantiated by a trustworthy independent investigation. The GAO is not "independent" from being a conduit for propaganda. I suspect the reason for this story is to justify increased defense spending. A similar motive was in the recent story about a supposed threat due to low numbers enlisted in the US Army. All of us in private industry found simple, inexpensive ways to store and retrieve data once the floppy became obsolete. On the other hand, after judging the performance of the F35, maybe it was wise to keep using older technology.

[DailyBail]

Bob

Yeah the F-35 Falcon is a boondoggle. I have been following GAO for awhile and they are always non-partisan. They are about pointing out waste, fraud and abuse from both sides. However, yes it is quite possible the findings of this report will be used by both sides to further their respective agendas.

[S. Gompers]

DB,

They found out like a year after the hijacking they were hacking the cameras for like 2 years prior to taking full control of one and flying it into Pakistan when they captured the laptops. Most may think that is no big deal, but the enemy can learn a lot from the videos. There is more flights over areas where pending boots on the ground are about to be. Ample warning to the enemy to either get out of that area, or prepare to fight. It removes the element of surprise from our side when the enemy can gain this sort of intel without us even knowing it....

[skinflint]

DB, The park straddles the city county line on the west side. My Grandmothers street is on this map and is where my Mother currently resides. There was a trail called the Dickeyville trail that winded it's way around Gwynns Falls. Dickeyville was incorporated in the early 1700's or somewhere thereabouts. Some wild stuff around there. There are illegal dumping sites there and I would surmise that there are just a bunch of corpses yet to be unearthed there.

[DailyBail]

GOMP

Here is another one, unless this is the one you're talking about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incident

[S. Gompers]

That is a different one DB.

[Al]

It's obvious that the PTB have set us up to be the fall guy in the next world war, we have been set up to fail. We are spending trillons of dollars on bloted budgets, where nothing works. This must be an intentional and deliberate set up.

[john]

I'm with you Gomp. However, everyone is doing it.

http://theintercept.com/2016/01/28/israeli-drone-feeds-hacked-by-british-and-american-intelligence/

[Cele]

This is an absurd article. Ever hear of Lockheed Martin? They are not running our missile program on arcane technologies. These issues were resolved in the 90's switching to the microchip based systems, completed in the early 2000's with further integrations. Everything works high tech. This is complete and utter false BS.

[DailyBail]

CELE

I guess you know better than GAO.

[S. Gompers]

DB,

My bad, it was 26 dollars in parts, I ran across this article about the hacks on the drones, and the vulnerabilities of the next gen as well.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB126102247889095011

If you remember a while back I wrote about how Chinese individuals working for defense contractors during the Clinton years were caught "taking their work home" and stealing missile defense technology. I don't know if you saw this in April, but it seems some things never change...

http://www.newsweek.com/spy-china-florida-underwater-drones-451541

John,

That is why they call it espionage. Yes, everybody does it, we just make it easier than most for our enemies. It appears even the police drones can be hacked for about 40 dollars.

https://hacked.com/police-drones-can-be-hacked-with-parts-worth-40/

The really interesting thing here is that the government drones cost way more than the police ones, but can be hacked for less...



Where do all the kool aid drinkers come from...