Floppy disks have been seen as obsolete since the 90s, but the US is using them to control its nuclear missiles. Meanwhile, Norway used them to share patient records with doctors.
Why are governments still using such ancient technology? They do not believe that the cloud is secure enough, and less-connected devices are harder to hack.
The US Department of Defence plans to replace its nuclear floppy disks with “secure digital cards” by the end of next year. But this would still not be a centrally connected system to control its nuclear bombs.
Doctors in Norway received a floppy disk every month from the government with a list of their patients.
Computers used to copy the data from the disks were “required by contract to be air-gapped”, meaning they could not be connected to any network, writes Finn Espen Gundersen, a floppy disk contractor to the government.
The Norwegian government only this year closed down floppy disk distribution. Instead, doctors will get the data through paper printouts, which must be keyed into a computer at the doctor’s office - this could be more prone to errors than a floppy disk.
It’s not so much nostalgia, but the threats of today’s technologies that are keeping some governments to technology from the 70s.
Berlangganan Bulletin GovInsider: Pembaruan terkini tentang inovasi sektor publik
*Jika saya telah memberikan alamat email domain non-bisnis (seperti, namun tidak terbatas pada, gmail, hotmail, dll) saya melakukannya dalam konteks yang digunakan untuk bisnis saya dan bukan interaksi pribadi dengan GovInsider.
GovInsider adalah bagian dari Clarion Events Pte Ltd yang merupakan bagian dari Grup perusahaan Clarion Events (Clarion).
Kami menjaga privasi Anda dengan serius. Kami ingin menggunakan informasi Anda berdasarkan kepentingan sah kami untuk tetap berhubungan dengan Anda tentang acara, produk, dan layanan relevan yang mungkin menarik bagi Anda. Kami hanya akan menggunakan informasi yang kami kumpulkan atau terima tentang Anda sesuai dengan Kebijakan Privasi kami. Jika Anda memilih kami untuk tidak menghubungi Anda tentang acara, produk, dan layanan relevan yang kami yakin akan Anda minati, Anda dapat mengelola preferensi Anda melalui link yang akan kami kirimkan kepada Anda, berhenti berlangganan menggunakan link di email kami atau dengan mengirim email ke [email protected].
