better security for nuclear laptops

[ljplicease]

Usually I read /. for the semi-incoherent rants that pass for “comments”, but today they posted this semi-incoherent article instead:

“ A memo leaked by the Project on Government Oversight watchdog brought the lost [Los Alamos National Libratory] nuclear [sic] laptops to the public's attention, leaving the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration with no choice but to confess. Better than letting the debacle blow up in their faces, we presume.”

— IT News: U.S. nuclear weapons lab loses 67 computers

I worked at Los Alamos (LANL) briefly when I was in college, and I can attest to this. I was issued with a top secret nuclear laptop, which not only was fuelled by a highly secret portable nuclear drive, but also contained designs of all the nuclear weapon systems and codes to be used in case of nuclear war which would have allowed me to launch a retaliatory strike against the Chinese and North Koreans. Honest.

I wouldn’t hesitate to say that LANL has serious systemic problems it will probably never overcome, I don’t think losing a few laptops is one of them. I am sure The Lab (as those of us who lived in the town refer to it) has thousands of laptops, and I am equally sure that none of them have sensitive data on them.

In reality I worked for a scientific data management group at LANL and our primary customer was a climate modelling scientist. Notice that none of that directly has anything to do with nuclear weapons. It is useful to understand how nuclear weapons will affect climate conditions so I wouldn’t say it’s unrelated but it also has a number of peacetime applications as well. I am not saying that they don’t do research to build “better” nuclear weapons, but there are entire swaths of The Lab that are doing basic research, which is a good thing, some of which doesn’t even indirectly have to do with nuclear weapons. The Lab is a convenient punching bag for the media anytime they are foolish enough to bring attention to themselves.