> 38 people
The number of people whose info can fit on 2 floppy disks.
Tokyo police lose 2 floppy disks containing info on public housing applicants
61–70 of 222 posts
Re: Tokyo police lose 2 floppy disks containing info on public housing applicants
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was on a 3 hour Shinkansen trip that was 2 minutes late and the staff profusely apologized when we arrived. I have also been on a cross US Amtrak trip that was literally 30 hours late and they rationed food and the staff became increasingly rude and unhelpful.
Same here in Canada. I used to take the train between Montreal and Toronto frequently and I don't actually remember it ever being on time. It usually was 30-60 minutes late, since Via Rail shared rail with freight trains, but had a lower priority so it often needed to wait.
I must commend the Berlin transit system. Except for the occasional strike, I found it to be extremely efficient, clean, and rather polite. Especially the trams.
Re: Tokyo police lose 2 floppy disks containing info on public housing applicants
#63Will we pretend that the usage of floppy disks is normal in almost 2022? Or perhaps the news value comes from this fact, but then, they don't make any comment on it... Weird. I also love that they seem to be taking this seriously, even when it's just 38 people, while all over the world, governments (cough Turkey cough) don't even apologize when they leak the personal details of ALL of their citizens. Well.
Will we pretend that the usage of floppy disks is normal in almost 2022?
What's wrong with them? They're reasonably robust for short term shortage, easily copyable, and you can design your own format if you want to. The space limitation is only a problem if you need to actually store more than 1.4MB or so. And if you want to lock down an environment so USB devices can't be used there aren't many other portable storage options.
They're definitely not something you'd want to keep around as archival media or anything but they served very well for the best part of 3 decades, and the main reason we moved on was because users started needing to store large images and video. I still rather like floppy disks.
Re: Tokyo police lose 2 floppy disks containing info on public housing applicants
#64BusinessInsider, October 2021, "The Japanese government is still trying to phase out floppy disks a decade after Sony stopped making them" https://www.businessinsider.com/japan-government-tokyo-flopp...
> The disks "almost never broke and lost data," Yoichi Ono, who is in charge of managing public funds for Meguro ward, told the Nikkei. This was not my experience.
Nor mine. I distinctly remember back to college circa 2000, copying a project from my computer in the dorms, walking to a project partner's dorm room adjacent to mine, and in that 15 second walk, having the data corrupted.
Thumb drives weren't common or cheap, yet, though I did have a Zip Drive, as did nearly all of the school's lab computers. I never had a corruption problem with Zip disks, but man, floppies? Seemed like if I walked near them, they'd get corrupted.
Re: Tokyo police lose 2 floppy disks containing info on public housing applicants
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
I know it's security by obscurity, but this would secure the data a very decent amount lol
Not quite obscurity given the attackers could measure the disk and do a quick Yahoo search. Maybe, security by antiquity?
Both. There was an episode in the second `gig` of GITS anime that showcased this model to secure a character's secret ledger before hackers fried his brain.
For a brief period, I kept a copy of my /etc/passwd and keyfiles on a HiMD disk with an RH1.
Re: Tokyo police lose 2 floppy disks containing info on public housing applicants
#66Will we pretend that the usage of floppy disks is normal in almost 2022? Or perhaps the news value comes from this fact, but then, they don't make any comment on it... Weird. I also love that they seem to be taking this seriously, even when it's just 38 people, while all over the world, governments (cough Turkey cough) don't even apologize when they leak the personal details of ALL of their citizens. Well.
>Will we pretend that the usage of floppy disks is normal in almost 2022?
This is Japan, no pretending needed. They're waaaay backwards, internet there tends to be 20 years behind the times for starters ... Thought this was common knowledge.
Re: Tokyo police lose 2 floppy disks containing info on public housing applicants
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
I presume then they are computer controlled? If so, how does one actually leave early or late?
Computer control is nice but it's one tiny piece. If wayside infrastructure fails during rush hour, trains are going to be delayed, so they have to assure that won't happen. Station dwell times are another big issue that computers don't have any control over (the train can't leave when someone's backpack is caught in the door). Computer control is more of a safety issue than a reliability enhancer. Computers are pret…
> Computer control is nice but it's one tiny piece.
I don't know if they do this, but I'd imagine if they built in buffers and then controlled the train speed based on arrival/departure times they could get pretty accurate. If a run's maximum average speed (mouthful) is 120 km/h then plan on 100 km/h which gives you +20 buffer to play with in order to make sure the time is right. A computer would allow that +20 to be evenly spread so passengers aren't aware of it.
That, of course, has much less to do with computers and more to do with planning and eliminating and accounting for unknowns as much as possible.
Re: Tokyo police lose 2 floppy disks containing info on public housing applicants
#68Will we pretend that the usage of floppy disks is normal in almost 2022? Or perhaps the news value comes from this fact, but then, they don't make any comment on it... Weird. I also love that they seem to be taking this seriously, even when it's just 38 people, while all over the world, governments (cough Turkey cough) don't even apologize when they leak the personal details of ALL of their citizens. Well.
Using floppies is apparently still pretty common in japan.
Re: Tokyo police lose 2 floppy disks containing info on public housing applicants
#69Will we pretend that the usage of floppy disks is normal in almost 2022? Or perhaps the news value comes from this fact, but then, they don't make any comment on it... Weird. I also love that they seem to be taking this seriously, even when it's just 38 people, while all over the world, governments (cough Turkey cough) don't even apologize when they leak the personal details of ALL of their citizens. Well.
Instead of encrypting the data, maybe they are relying on the fact that nobody else today has a reader for floppy disks, so the data is safe.
Re: Tokyo police lose 2 floppy disks containing info on public housing applicants
#70So less than 3MB of data.