Any mechanism for getting things like that in is a break in the air gap, by definition. (Well, by a strict definition.) But at least a better mechanism would be managed by security policy, not by underlings' need to get their job done. (That is, the security policy would have to take into account the need for updates as well as the potential security implications of importing new executable code from outside.)

The inherent contradiction was lost on the people giving the orders. So...

The article is not well written, and I personally had to parse it several times to figure out what he was trying to say. I'm still not even sure if this is the correct interpretation.

> Believing that an air gap exists or will continue to exist indefinitely is hence setting yourself up for some unpleasant surprises in the future, and encourages weak security designs where the network/system is crunchy on the outside and all delicious and soft and gooey on the inside. (Which is more secure, to have your local WiFi set up with WPA or whatever and have employees telnet into servers, or just go Google-style and have fully encrypted end to end links without requiring any belief in security of the links?)

That depends on your physical security. A facility like the one he described should have had regular security audits to verify that no hard lines were placed where they should not be. All hard lines and ports should have been marked with identifying information. Nobody should have been able to keep a line open for any significant period of time unless these processes broke down.

Thank you.

Proponents of electronic voting and tabulation (eg central count of physical ballots) enthuse about security, air-gapping, data diodes, etc.

Alas, it's turtles all the way down. Dig deep enough and you'll expose the fiction.

Then you're in the trap of explaining technology to policy makers, testifying against trained bureaucrats supported by an army of vendor sales minions defending their cheddar.

You can't win.

It's nutty making.

An air gapped computer is pretty easy to create -- just disable the radios and don't connect any network cables to it.

A network would be much harder but the key has to be that there are no other non-air gapped machines in the same facility. If someone wants to bridge the gap it should be obvious by the cable coming in the door and running all the way up to the machine.

Obviously the kind of air-gapped networks I'm talking about are computers never involved in any internet business at all, the kind that operate power plants (or centrifuges...).

I think what may be happening is the ethernet cable runs are in sealed tubes running at either positive or negative pressure so that if someone tries to breach the tube and splice onto the cable it would be detected by a pressure sensor.