Strategic Air Command deliberately set the launch code for the United States Minuteman nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles to a string of eight zeroes from 1968 until 1977.

A closer look

Strategic Air Command deliberately set the launch code for the United States Minuteman nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles to a string of eight zeroes from 1968 until 1977. While civilian computer users are forced to create passwords containing uppercase letters, obscure symbols, and the blood of their firstborn child just to log into a music streaming account, the military decided that 00000000 was perfectly sufficient security for a weapon capable of initiating global thermonuclear annihilation. The high command intentionally chose this idiot-proof sequence to ensure that nobody would forget the password during an actual apocalyptic emergency. It is deeply comforting to know that the fate of human civilization rested for a decade on a passcode that most people would consider too insecure for a cheap bicycle lock