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I’m really starting to think the “smart” thing to do about pervasive network connected and computer controlled devices is to follow the USSR’s example.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Soviets rolled out a new aircraft (I think it was nicknamed “Foxbat” by USA / NATO). Later, when they got the opportunity to examine one, they found that its electronics still used vacuum tubes.
But were the Soviets using primitive technology because they couldn’t produce silicon semiconductors? No, I don’t think so. I think it may have been that they thought about the effects of a nuclear weapon’s “EMP” wave on electronics and concluded that tube-based systems were more likely to survive such a blast.
In other words, I think it may be “smart” to consider the possible consequences and make technology choices that mitigate the worst outcomes.
But this must happen on a broad scale. It matters little if I alone make it difficult for malware to wipe out my financial records and a widespread malware attack puts the rest of the nation back into the 1800s, except without the accumulated knowledge and skillsets to operate in that environments.
- clacke: inhibited exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛, simsa04 and aTRoPiNE like this.
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A year back I asked an employee of Wikimedia Foundation whether they had hardened their servers that host Wikipedia's various language versions to shield the "encyclopedia" against wipe-out by EMP. The person couldn't answer that question, but I guess they didn't fix their servers yet.
It's one of the reasons why I rely on printed dictionaries and encyclopedias at home – they are protected against EMP (although not with regard to fire and flood).