Certain critical information should never be stored as digital data, as we've seen repeatedly keeping it secure is essentially impossible. Like it or not, ther

Certain critical information should never be stored as digital data, as we've seen repeatedly keeping it secure is essentially impossible. Like it or not, there's now overwhelming evidence to prove that statement true. We've seen far too many supposedly very secure sites broken into have any faith in keeping very sensitive data secure—the huge SolarWinds attack, the NSA break-in and the loss of British National Health records to name just a few at the tip of a huge iceberg. Now here's yet another instance, and we're seeing them at this high level almost every day. Tragically, this leak could have very serious consequences in that people are likely to be killed as the consequence: It's time we citizens demanded that such critical records be stored on paper files and in locked cabinets in secured buildings as they once were. Simply, we've no other option. Smart governments such as Russia have gone back to keeping critical documents on paper as they once did. In essence, no matter how hard one tries to secure digital data it's still dead easy for a determined adversary to access it—but it's much, much harder - in fact almost impossible - for the same adversary to break into a building and then into locked repositories and steal the same files in their paper form. Let's do some very basic sums to prove my point: 1. The amount of data stolen in this case is 250GB. (This is an absolutely huge amount of data.) 2. If we commit text to paper we get about 2K bytes per page (a long accepted round figure) 3. Therefore, a standard ream of paper, 500 pages, stores 1,000,000 bytes (1MB) of data. 4. 250GB is actually 250,000 megabytes 5. Now, a ream of paper weighs conservatively 2Kg (it's likely more). Thus, each 1MB in paper storage will weigh ≈2 kg 6. Extrapolating this out, we therefore need ≈500,000 kg ==> ≈500 tons of paper. 7. Thus, I'd strongly assert that whilst thieves (smart hackers) have amply demonstrated that they can easily steal 250GB of data from right under the noses of highly secured sites such as the NSA, Police etc, that it would be nigh on impossible for them to do so if the records were STILL stored in paper form, as they: (a) would have to breach the physical security of a guarded building and break in; (b) once inside, they'd then have to breach records security by breaking into secure records rooms thence secured filing cabinets; and, (c) then remove 500 tons of paper records, this would require a huge logistical operation involving much manpower and many, many trucks—and they'd have to do all this without being caught! The only way this could ever happen in practice would be for a country to be invaded by another (like the Nazis did in WWII). In short, digital security has long proved that it's nowhere near being ready for prime-time. QED!