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 Earlier relevant 2014 thread from Jasper       

 

 

The US nuclear weapons force still uses a 1970s-era computer system and 8-inch floppy disks, a government report has revealed.

The Government Accountability Office said the Pentagon was one of several departments where "legacy systems" urgently needed to be replaced.

The report said taxpayers spent $61bn (£41bn) a year on maintaining ageing technologies.

It said that was three times more than the investment on modern IT systems.    

 

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-36385839
On the plus side at least they aren't hooked up to the Internet.
It is unfortunate that people are focussing on the mundane here, i.e., what media is used when that has little or nothing to do with how secure and fucntional the system is...typical piece of sensationalist journalism...:@
? So reporting that the GAO's advice that the need to update is urgent, adds up to sensationalist journalism? :S
Yes, because they headline with the fact that the system uses diskettes...LOL...as I said, the media is irrelevant IMHO...if it is such a bad system then why not headline with why rather than sensationalising the a trival element of the whole system...but then again reads/copy is what sells and what they are increasingly interested in rather than objectivity.

 

Just my personal thoughts on the topic...;)
? Ok, I see your point of view...but I learned in Copywriting and Journalism, that one should use the headline as an attraction to read more...as long as it's all true and accurate.  

We must agree to disagree methinks. ;)  
Indeed...but personally I would have been more struck by something like "US Nuclear Forces controlled by 40 year system" or similar, as a headline...that is far, far more worrying and attention catching...probably half the people catching the article would have little idea as to what a 'floppy disk' is (glad they did not misspell the latter word...;)).
Military / Pentagon, something dear to my ❤️. The government wants more money, cut the budget on the military. Why, because it's easy to do. I could go into a laundry list of things the military is behind on. I don't get my information from the media, I get it from higher up personnel in the military. I'll put it in a nutshell: If the United States doesn't get its act together soon, We Will Pay The Piper. 😠 😠
Good article on the security side of the equation:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/05/26/the-real-reason-america-controls-its-nukes-with-ancient-floppy-disks/

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