From: paul@poboy.b17c.ingr.com (Paul Robichaux)
Date: Wed, 3 Aug 94 06:43:40 PDT
To: ianf@simple.sydney.sgi.com (Ian Farquhar)
Subject: Re: The Terrorists are coming!
In-Reply-To: <9408031132.ZM695@simple.sydney.sgi.com>
Message-ID: <199408031339.AA05228@poboy.b17c.ingr.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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> Out of curiousity, is anyone aware of whether the USSR employed PAL's
> (Permissive Activation Links) in their strategic nuclear weaponary?  If so,
> is anyone aware of how secure the PAL's the Soviets actually used were?
> There was a rumor on USENET some time back that the Soviets were using RSA
> in their PAL's, but it sounded too much like an urban myth to me.

I suspect they must have had a PAL-like mechanism, although at least
some of their weapons rely on interlocks which can only be triggered
by a KGB-controlled activator.

I remember the USENET rumor as being that the _US_ was using RSA as a
component of the comm systems used to transmit Emergency War Orders
(EWOs) to US forces. No one has confirmed that, but it certainly seems
plausible. 

Come to think of it, the PALs on US weapons are primarily
electromechanical in nature. You get the EWO, you punch in the
supplied code into the PAL, and off you go. I'm not sure that RSA
would a whole lot of use as part of the PAL mechanism itself (except
for signature verification, which is certainly important.)

- -Paul
- -- 
Paul Robichaux, KD4JZG      | "Information is the currency of democracy."
perobich@ingr.com           |     - some old guy named Thomas Jefferson
	       Of course I don't speak for Intergraph.
	       

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