In a report released by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), it was revealed that America’s nuclear arsenal is still managed and controlled by a 1970s computer system that uses eight-inch floppy disks.
The report stated that the Department of Defense (DOD) “coordinates the operational functions of the United States’ nuclear forces, such as intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear bombers, and tanker support aircrafts” using the pre-historic computer systems they were first built on.
“This system remains in use because, in short, it still works,” Pentagon spokeswoman Lt Col Valerie Henderson told the AFP news agency. “However, to address obsolescence concerns, the floppy drives are scheduled to be replaced with secure digital devices by the end of 2017.”
Henderson added, “Modernisation across the entire Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications enterprise remains ongoing.”
The Pentagon is planning to fully replace the entire system by the end of 2020. US taxpayers are spending $61 billion a year in order to maintain the ageing technologies, some three times more than the government spends on modern IT systems.
The US Treasury is also languishing in the technological past, still using code that was created in the 1950s and often tied into the systems and hardware for which it was written.
