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Japan declares victory in effort to end government use of floppy disks (japantoday.com)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/nottheonion

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Crossposted from [email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (3 children)

If it works well for the job that it's tasked to perform, why change it? It's got the added benefit of being an unintentional security feature now too, as very few others will even have a drive for reading them. Sort of like how manual transmissions are much less likely to be stolen now.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This is a great point, but it probably doesn't do the job as well as more modern alternatives.

Easy to lose, possible data leak concerns.
Easy to retain data that should have been deleted.
Easy to lose data if a disk gets lost or damaged.
Likely wastes time when trying to track down the disk you need to getting someone to transfer it.
Lack of access logs and auditing capabilities.
Easy way for viruses to spread.

Modern IT managed file servers solve a lot of real problems when well-managed.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

All of those are true of even smaller USB drives (which has been a problem here).

[–] [email protected] 20 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

On the other hand, if you use an old technology that isn't being mass produced anymore, it can reach a point where it will become a big liability for a mission-critical piece of equipment.

[–] Mpatch 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yah this is bad I run a cnc plasma table, big table 10 feet x 20 feet. It uses floppy disks. Pain in the ass to find a new drive and pain in the ass to find new disks because constant write re write emf and metal dust kills them. But despite that it's still cheaper and easier than a $15k retro fit to a more modern controler.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 5 months ago

If it works well for the job

Your example is one where it clearly isn't a great fit for the job. If you wanted to transfer sensitive data discretely, a floppy could be significantly better than a wired network where you've got to worry about America/Russia/China/Israel/Iran and who knows who else peeping on the transfer, or a USB drive which is already known to be compromised by stuxnet derivatives.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

I think there was something about the US government having to finally get rid of vacuum tubes because the only suppliers were in Russia.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

The most practical reasons are that both the drives and media are getting harder to find.