In message <9408031132.ZM695@simple.sydney.sgi.com> Ian Farquhar writes:

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.

According to recent press reports in the UK, when Soviet bombers were loaded with nuclear weapons, they were actually dummies (because the generals, etc, didn't trust the crews). This suggests that the Soviets did not have reliable safeguards on the bombs. Various arguments between the Ukraine and the USSR about ICBM warheads, also reported in the press, suggest that the safeguards on the warheads were reliable, because both parties seemed to agree that the Ukrainians couldn't set them off, although they are otherwise technically competent in dealing with the missiles. -- Jim Dixon