Los Alamos Labs eases rules for computer useLos Alamos 27 August 2000 Nuclear scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory have won a battle against a new security restriction they said was making it difficult to use their computers for weapons work.
Laboratory officials Tuesday reinstated a long-standing rule
that allows weapons scientists to keep classified weapons programs
running on computers while they take breaks -- as long as they leave
the computers locked inside offices.
After two laptop hard drives with nuclear weapons designs were
missing in June, Department of Energy security officers rescinded
what is known as the ``two-hour rule,'' which had let scientists
run unattended classified material for up to two hours.
The change forced scientists to shut down computers if they left
their offices for a cup of coffee or a break. Weapons designers
complained during a July 13 visit by Gen. John Gordon, head of the
new National Security Administration, that they couldn't get any
work done.
Weapons designers use software called weapons codes to simulate
the stages of nuclear detonations. ``Production computing'' with a
weapons code can take hours or days on a supercomputer, and a
designer often needs several runs.
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