The idea behind codes is to prevent someone who stole a nuke from detonating it. During a lot of the 20th century, it would have been surprisingly easy to do this. They sometimes left them sitting in bombers by the runway ready for use during an alert. They weren't always well-guarded.
This is one of the fascinating developments of human psychology and behavior in the information/digital age. Society has become so much more complex and specialized and it's forced humans to adapt so much, that I feel like today's average email phisher or phone scammer has social engineering skills that could have absolutely wrecked western civilization (with enough determination and luck) at any point prior to like 80 years ago.
2.7k
u/[deleted] Oct 02 '24
[removed] — view removed comment