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The security of nuclear weapons may be less tight than one may think. Hare are some classics:

British nukes were protected by bike locks - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7097101.stm

Launch code for US nukes was 00000000 for 20 years - http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/launch-code-for-u...

Not only that -- before the creation of Permissive Action Links in the early 1960s, few nuclear weapons had launch codes at all.

UK Trident warheads don't have PALs in the usual sense - the crews on the boats have everything they need to launch.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_Action_Link

The military actually opposed PALs. They considered them to be an additional point of failure, and did everything in their power to prevent having them installed. Once you understand this, the decision to set all nuclear launch codes to 00000000 starts to make a little more sense.

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