5 ms·

On the face this seems ridiculous. It's a big stretch, but we do know that some US adversaries use portable media (usually thumb drives) to currior data. Maybe

On the face this seems ridiculous. It's a big stretch, but we do know that some US adversaries use portable media (usually thumb drives) to currior data. Maybe they had a target that was using floppies? Maybe Iran's centrifuges or N. Korea still uses really old tech?

simias 10y ago
Doesn't sound too far fetched to me, I'm actually using floppies at work to move data from old equipment (mainly old oscilloscopes and other measurement systems). If it ain't broke...
anc84 10y ago
"Really old tech" is everywhere. For example Germany's high speed trains' reservation system runs on floppy disks.
- lb1lf 10y ago
  ...and if you're not careful when ordering Siemens Simatic software, the accompanying licence file arrives on a yellow 3,5" floppy. Don't ask me how I know. It took AGES to purge our ERP system of any reference to the Siemens item# which resulted in a floppy showing up. On the other hand, it resulted in some business for both DHL and whoever still manufactures floppy drives nowadays - service engineers opening a package somewhere in the world, finding what kids today would assume was a 3d-printed 'save' icon - and order a drive, double haste...
  - prewett 10y ago
    +1 for "3d-printed 'save' icon"!
- germanier 10y ago
  Sadly they replaced that with a wireless system in most trains a few years ago. But you find a lot of old tech in the train system. Some traffic control was built 50+ years ago with even older technology.
dqv 10y ago
It could be organizations in the US itself. I remember somewhere that the military was still requriing 3.5 floppies at least within the last 5 years. (no, I'm not talking about the nuke software that uses the bigger floppies)
- digler999 10y ago
  Makes perfect sense to me. Why upgrade some critical piece of infrastructure if upgrading can only hurt you, but can never help you ? Assuming they didn't have ongoing problems such as bit-rot with floppies, why upgrade to USB ? There have been at least a few major attacks using either auto-run , auto-mount, or even infections in USB firmware over the years. If you dont need the extra capacity or speed that USB or optical offers you, don't upgrade. I mean this specifically for infrastructure-size projects where the "thing" / entity that is controlled costs multiple orders of magnitude more than the computer system controlling it. Say I have a hydro-electric dam, or any kind of power plant (not just nuke), or train switch controller, submarine, aircraft carrier, etc. Stuff that can't break. Its just cheaper and safer to keep using the same tech, keep replacing known-working parts, than it is to risk updating the system to "stay current", and risk a costly outage (or some kind of catastrophe, even if theres only a 10^-7 chance of it happening). I dont blame them one bit.
  - Piskvorrr 10y ago
    You assume too much. Bit rot was the driver towards anything-not-floppy, if I recall the 90s correctly. "Can't break" and "floppies" is an oxymoron - oh God, now I have that horrible sound of a floppy read error (yes, you could actually hear most types of read errors) stuck in my head. (Perhaps the 8-inch floppies are still in use as their lower density gives higher resilience?)
    - digler999 10y ago
      What I meant was if you expect them to die, and discard them on some regimented schedule instead of expecting them to last forever. Flash-based USB storage (and even platter-based HDDs ) suffer degradation and/or bitrot, just at different rates/probabilities. Even optical media only has a few years of expected lifetime.
ajross 10y ago
Ancient technology is pervasive in established industries. Development and deployment costs (due to risk) are huge in this world. They don't have the staff to fix a glitch due to a docker migration or whatever, and frankly wouldn't see much benefit anyway. So they continue to use what works as long as they can. And if they have to pay $10 each for obsolete media and scrounge part bins for FDD replacements, so be it. And the CIA's job is as much to spy on this world of established industrial capability as it is to hunt down laser-toting agents in the urban jungle of Beijing.
irixusr 10y ago
WVU's PRT train system runs on VAX. Any university has dozens of labs with 386s, or similar vintage, because the software they need to operate incredibly expensive equipment is abandonware. In fact an IT guy I knew kept the best surviving examples of vintage computers in his closet for parts or to transfer data with.

simias 10y ago

Doesn't sound too far fetched to me, I'm actually using floppies at work to move data from old equipment (mainly old oscilloscopes and other measurement systems). If it ain't broke...

anc84 10y ago

"Really old tech" is everywhere. For example Germany's high speed trains' reservation system runs on floppy disks.

lb1lf 10y ago
...and if you're not careful when ordering Siemens Simatic software, the accompanying licence file arrives on a yellow 3,5" floppy. Don't ask me how I know. It took AGES to purge our ERP system of any reference to the Siemens item# which resulted in a floppy showing up. On the other hand, it resulted in some business for both DHL and whoever still manufactures floppy drives nowadays - service engineers opening a package somewhere in the world, finding what kids today would assume was a 3d-printed 'save' icon - and order a drive, double haste...
- prewett 10y ago
  +1 for "3d-printed 'save' icon"!
germanier 10y ago
Sadly they replaced that with a wireless system in most trains a few years ago. But you find a lot of old tech in the train system. Some traffic control was built 50+ years ago with even older technology.

dqv 10y ago

It could be organizations in the US itself. I remember somewhere that the military was still requriing 3.5 floppies at least within the last 5 years. (no, I'm not talking about the nuke software that uses the bigger floppies)

digler999 10y ago
Makes perfect sense to me. Why upgrade some critical piece of infrastructure if upgrading can only hurt you, but can never help you ? Assuming they didn't have ongoing problems such as bit-rot with floppies, why upgrade to USB ? There have been at least a few major attacks using either auto-run , auto-mount, or even infections in USB firmware over the years. If you dont need the extra capacity or speed that USB or optical offers you, don't upgrade. I mean this specifically for infrastructure-size projects where the "thing" / entity that is controlled costs multiple orders of magnitude more than the computer system controlling it. Say I have a hydro-electric dam, or any kind of power plant (not just nuke), or train switch controller, submarine, aircraft carrier, etc. Stuff that can't break. Its just cheaper and safer to keep using the same tech, keep replacing known-working parts, than it is to risk updating the system to "stay current", and risk a costly outage (or some kind of catastrophe, even if theres only a 10^-7 chance of it happening). I dont blame them one bit.
- Piskvorrr 10y ago
  You assume too much. Bit rot was the driver towards anything-not-floppy, if I recall the 90s correctly. "Can't break" and "floppies" is an oxymoron - oh God, now I have that horrible sound of a floppy read error (yes, you could actually hear most types of read errors) stuck in my head. (Perhaps the 8-inch floppies are still in use as their lower density gives higher resilience?)
  - digler999 10y ago
    What I meant was if you expect them to die, and discard them on some regimented schedule instead of expecting them to last forever. Flash-based USB storage (and even platter-based HDDs ) suffer degradation and/or bitrot, just at different rates/probabilities. Even optical media only has a few years of expected lifetime.

ajross 10y ago

Ancient technology is pervasive in established industries. Development and deployment costs (due to risk) are huge in this world. They don't have the staff to fix a glitch due to a docker migration or whatever, and frankly wouldn't see much benefit anyway. So they continue to use what works as long as they can. And if they have to pay $10 each for obsolete media and scrounge part bins for FDD replacements, so be it. And the CIA's job is as much to spy on this world of established industrial capability as it is to hunt down laser-toting agents in the urban jungle of Beijing.

irixusr 10y ago

WVU's PRT train system runs on VAX. Any university has dozens of labs with 386s, or similar vintage, because the software they need to operate incredibly expensive equipment is abandonware. In fact an IT guy I knew kept the best surviving examples of vintage computers in his closet for parts or to transfer data with.