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US military uses 8-inch floppy disks to coordinate nuclear force operations
CNBC ^ | May 25, 2016 | Dan Mangan

Posted on 05/26/2016 6:02:18 AM PDT by C19fan

click here to read article


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To: 2banana
Hack this!

Hacking most often occurs by accessing the files electronically, not the physical media upon which they reside.

Binary doesn't care what format it is stored on. When it's traveling over wires, fiber or RF there is no way to tell what the storage media was. Just like Morse, only a whole lot faster!

41 posted on 05/26/2016 7:37:19 AM PDT by BwanaNdege
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To: The Sons of Liberty
I'm wondering where they are getting their supply of 8-inch floppies.

Well, I'm fairly sure that the dumpster behind my old office was emptied some years ago. :) I used to buy them from Radio Shack. We had state of the art tape back up too!

42 posted on 05/26/2016 7:41:22 AM PDT by DeFault User
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To: C19fan

When I graduated from college, I went to work for an actuarial consulting firm that used paper tape on an IBM 1620. There was one 1620 with a punch card reader, which was reserved for senior staff.


43 posted on 05/26/2016 7:48:20 AM PDT by Rum Tum Tugger
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To: Lazamataz

A creative response might be to point out that today’s 1-inch thumb drives have a much greater capacity, last much longer, and hold a lot more stuff than their aged 8-inch floppies.


44 posted on 05/26/2016 7:57:38 AM PDT by Heart-Rest ( "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil!" Isaiah 5:20)
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To: C19fan

Isn’t it easier to secure a physical disc than a storage system connected to outside access by heaven-knows-who?


45 posted on 05/26/2016 8:07:00 AM PDT by JimRed (Is it 1776 yet? TERM LIMITS, now and forever! Build the Wall, NOW!)
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To: dirtboy
"Better than punch cards. That’s what I started out on."


Did you have to use a keypunch machine, a card-sorting machine, and stuff like that?

Do you remember disk drive terminology from the old IBM-360 "mainframe computers", such as "unit=3330"?

Do you remember typewriters?    :-)

46 posted on 05/26/2016 8:07:30 AM PDT by Heart-Rest ( "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil!" Isaiah 5:20)
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To: C19fan

And these are the people PRIMED to fill FEMA camps and control the planet?¿??


47 posted on 05/26/2016 8:15:24 AM PDT by chit*chat
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To: Heart-Rest
today’s 1-inch thumb drives ... last much longer

Nope. Anything you have stored on flash is a charge on a capacitor that is slowly draining away.

An article from CMU in 2015 writes that "Today's flash devices, which do not require flash refresh, have a typical retention age of 1 year at room temperature." And that temperature can lower the retention time exponentially.

48 posted on 05/26/2016 8:17:51 AM PDT by Vroomfondel
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To: The Sons of Liberty

“In this case, I’m wondering where they are getting their supply of 8-inch floppies.”

Dunno, but I have a box of them that I’d sell. Our office once had a Wang word processor that used them.


49 posted on 05/26/2016 8:59:26 AM PDT by TexasRepublic (Socialism is the gospel of envy and the religion of thieves. Socialism is governmental theft!)
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To: Vroomfondel
Are you familiar with 8-inch floppy disks?   Unlike the later, vastly improved, 3-inch hard-plastic enclosed "floppy disks", the 8-inch floppy disks were really bendable floppy disks, unprotected by the hard plastic encasement the 3-inch ones had, and, as such, were very easily damaged by handling, dust, etc., and had to be duplicated quite often, as they simply did not have a long life expectancy.

Now I know for a fact that your article's claim to 1-year thumb-drive data retention is inaccurate, as I've personally had thumb drive data last much longer than 1 year.

It depends, of course, on the quality of the thumb drive being used, how often and exactly how it is being used, how and where it is stored, etc., but if you do a simple Google search on something like 'thumb drive data life expectancy', many technical sites declare that thumb-drive data can last for 10 years or more.

50 posted on 05/26/2016 9:18:22 AM PDT by Heart-Rest ( "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil!" Isaiah 5:20)
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To: Heart-Rest

Yes to all of that. I used an IBM 360 in college.


51 posted on 05/26/2016 9:22:00 AM PDT by dirtboy
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To: Heart-Rest
Are you familiar with 8-inch floppy disks?

Intimately.

Now I know for a fact that your article's claim to 1-year thumb-drive data retention is inaccurate, as I've personally had thumb drive data last much longer than 1 year.

And I once had to toss a printer that was perfectly fine, except that its firmware had leaked off its flash.

that thumb-drive data can last for 10 years or more.

Emphasis added.

52 posted on 05/26/2016 9:24:34 AM PDT by Vroomfondel
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To: dirtboy
Those old "job" punch card decks, and card readers, and "Job Control Language" (JCL), and "utilities", and card jams, etc.

(Ah, the good old days...)     :-)

That kind of also brings back the memories of the "hanging chad" election...


53 posted on 05/26/2016 9:35:14 AM PDT by Heart-Rest ( "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil!" Isaiah 5:20)
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To: C19fan

Yep right up there with the black wind up telephone the Russians use wonder if we have placed our order yet?.


54 posted on 05/26/2016 9:37:06 AM PDT by Vaduz (women and children to be impacted the most.)
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To: Vroomfondel

And that “can” word applies to all data storage media in the world, of course, (and always will in the future too, with all future technological advances).


55 posted on 05/26/2016 9:38:47 AM PDT by Heart-Rest ( "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil!" Isaiah 5:20)
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To: baltimorepoet

If I’m not mistaken, the 8” were the first (and largest) floppies. IBM SSSD, with their, I believe, 128 kbyte, capacity, were THE standard for a number of years.


56 posted on 05/26/2016 9:46:56 AM PDT by Bob (No, being a US Senator and the Secretary of State are not accomplishments; they're jobs.)
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To: C19fan

It is all in scale: they go along with those 5Mb hard drives the size of a two drawer filing cabinet.


57 posted on 05/26/2016 10:37:50 AM PDT by doorgunner69
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To: C19fan

Think that “magnetic medium, is a magnetic medium”… And using an Courier delivered 8 inch floppy will keep the systems “off-line”… Very important security measure


58 posted on 05/26/2016 11:44:10 AM PDT by RevelationDavid (Jesus First, no matter the cost.)
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To: C19fan

8-inch floppies, aka Ninja Frisbees. ;-)


59 posted on 05/26/2016 11:46:02 AM PDT by r_barton (GO TRUMP!!!)
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To: Heart-Rest

But are you claiming it’s hardened to survive as well as the older equipment?


60 posted on 05/26/2016 12:20:37 PM PDT by Ozark Tom (It works only if you think in Russian!)
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