There is an important computer system within the US Army that evidently needs updating. This system "coordinates the operational functions of US nuclear forces, such as intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear bombers and their tankers," the US Court of Auditors wrote in a 2016 report (PDF).
He examined the IT infrastructure of the US authorities and found that many use outdated programming languages and hardware that is no longer supported by the manufacturers. In part, the components are "at least 50 years old," it said in the report.
As an example of such a system, the examiners just named the Strategic Automated Command and Control System, or SACCS for short, the now prehistoric-looking communication system that sends alerts to rocket bunkers and military airfields. Ironically, in this system, which could be triggered in case of doubt, the nuclear emergency, would still 8-inch floppy discs used, it said in the report critical.
But that's the end - after more than 40 years - reports the military portal "C4ISRnet". Three years after the publication of the admonitory Court of Auditors report, the Air Force has finally abolished its old Wabbels disks and replaced them with something cumbersomely described as a "high-security digital solid-state storage solution". This could be a state-of-the-art SSD hard drive with encryption capability. Or a USB stick from the electronics market.
A computer from 1976
Because especially a lot of storage capacity can not be replaced. 8-inch floppy disks initially had a storage capacity of around 80 kilobytes, which was increased to 1.2 megabytes over the years. In today's era of Tera and Petabytes seem ridiculous sizes.
At least as ridiculous looks from today's perspective, the computer of IBM type Series / 1, where the SACCS is running according to US Court of Auditors. This series was introduced in 1976 and programmed in today's almost forgotten languages such as Fortran and Cobol. Their age is actually the outstanding security feature of this machine, an Air Force officer is quoted by "C4ISRnet": "You can not hack something that does not have an IP address - it's a unique system - and it's very good . "
However, the 2016 report said the US Department of Defense, despite all these benefits, is at least once outperforming the golden-time mainframe computer at the end of the 2017 fiscal year.