The C.R.M. 114 Discriminator is a fictional piece of critical radio equipment in Stanley Kubrick's film Dr. Strangelove (1964), the destruction of which prevents the crew of a B-52 from hearing the recall code that would stop them from dropping their atomic bombs on the U.S.S.R.
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In Peter George's's novel, Red Alert (1958), which was the basis for the film, the device is called the CRM 114.[1]. Peter George was well-informed - under the US military Joint Electronics Type Designation System (The "AN" System), CRM is the designator for a Cryptological Radio Maintenance item, and 114 is a perfectly feasible series number[2]. If the CRM 114 were an actual US military item, its official number would be designated as AN/CRM-114.
To ensure the enemy cannot plant false transmissions and fake orders, once the attack orders have been passed and acknowledged, the CRM 114 is to be switched into the receiver circuit. The three code letters of the period are to be set on the alphabet dials of the CRM 114, which will then block any transmissions other than those preceded by the set letters from being fed into the receiver.
Kubrick also used a near homophone of "CRM 114", "Serum 114", for the name of a drug injected into Alex to help his reformation in A Clockwork Orange (1971).
Other non-Kubrick works contain references to "CRM 114", in apparent homage to Kubrick:
"CRM114" is also the name of a 2005 computer program which uses a statistical approach for classifying data and is especially utilized for filtering email spam. It was named after the fictional device.