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beneficii
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02 Jan 2017, 5:34 am

I thought this was an interesting idea from Trump, with whom I often disagree:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politic ... -1.2930075

This reminded me of Rogue One and the various computer systems used on that movie. You didn't really see anything like a desktop PC or laptop, instead you saw what on the surface looks old-fashioned, but might actually be more functional and secure.

Take the Imperial archives facility, for example, where the Rebels stole the Death Star plans. It looked very old-fashioned and it was very cumbersome to get information from it. You couldn't just log into a server from a remote client and put in a username and password. You had to physically go to the heavily-guarded facility, open up the huge vault inside (and you had to go quite a ways inside the facility to even get to the vault), and then from the control panel outside the vault select the correct file which was stored only by codename, and then have the system physically retrieve the disk from storage and bring it to you. And you'd still have to find some way to get the information out, where all outgoing transmissions can be jammed if a breach is detected. It's cumbersome, and definitely not in the spirit of the Internet Age, but dang is it secure; though the Death Star plans were successfully stolen, the sheer difficulty of the task and the massive sacrifices required to accomplish it--it took a huge, bloody battle on both the ground and in space--is testament to the security of this information storage system. Basically, neither "brute-forcing" a password nor doing a little "social engineering" was anywhere near sufficient.

So it looks like the technology was being dialed back as we headed toward the original Star Wars movie, but I think you can find very good reasons for creating such seemingly backward systems: security and worker performance by eliminating the distractions from having a PC with an Internet connection.

I think Trump is actually making a very good point here. Sometimes "stone age" methods are more secure.


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naturalplastic
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05 Jan 2017, 9:27 pm

Makes sense.

Sometimes the best countermeasure to high tech is to go low tech.



Jacoby
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05 Jan 2017, 10:07 pm

Seems like a good idea, the president and other high ranking officials that would be privy to sensitive & classified information probably shouldn't directly communicate electronically with anybody over the air because the risks being too high.



Onyxaxe
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12 Jan 2017, 10:10 pm

I'm a bike nerd so I'd be excited to see couriers back into the mainstream flow of business. They really need it. With it being Trump though I'm concerned they'll be more exploited than they already are. The kind of businesses that take his advice aren't very concerned with the welfare of their workers.



BaalChatzaf
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16 Jan 2017, 11:31 pm

beneficii wrote:
I thought this was an interesting idea from Trump, with whom I often disagree:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politic ... -1.2930075

This reminded me of Rogue One and the various computer systems used on that movie. You didn't really see anything like a desktop PC or laptop, instead you saw what on the surface looks old-fashioned, but might actually be more functional and secure.

Take the Imperial archives facility, for example, where the Rebels stole the Death Star plans. It looked very old-fashioned and it was very cumbersome to get information from it. You couldn't just log into a server from a remote client and put in a username and password. You had to physically go to the heavily-guarded facility, open up the huge vault inside (and you had to go quite a ways inside the facility to even get to the vault), and then from the control panel outside the vault select the correct file which was stored only by codename, and then have the system physically retrieve the disk from storage and bring it to you. And you'd still have to find some way to get the information out, where all outgoing transmissions can be jammed if a breach is detected. It's cumbersome, and definitely not in the spirit of the Internet Age, but dang is it secure; though the Death Star plans were successfully stolen, the sheer difficulty of the task and the massive sacrifices required to accomplish it--it took a huge, bloody battle on both the ground and in space--is testament to the security of this information storage system. Basically, neither "brute-forcing" a password nor doing a little "social engineering" was anywhere near sufficient.

So it looks like the technology was being dialed back as we headed toward the original Star Wars movie, but I think you can find very good reasons for creating such seemingly backward systems: security and worker performance by eliminating the distractions from having a PC with an Internet connection.

I think Trump is actually making a very good point here. Sometimes "stone age" methods are more secure.


The main good the internet can do is to promote the sharing of ideas. Internet is for communication, not keeping secrets.


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