Air gaps can function in networks that don’t need to have much data coming in or out. This used to be the case for industrial controls systems and maybe weapons systems. But even when I’ve talked with industrial control systems experts on it, they recommended against it, because the gap will be plugged due to operational necessities whether you like it or not. Often it ends up being dirty USB drives bypassing your security that you have no control over. I strongly believe that the volume of external data processing needed by AI research means airgapping is impractical.
If someone has enough IT skills to get an entry-level position, I would encourage them to take that route. If they don’t, then I would nudge them towards a degree that both will help to motivate them and to gain a credential to help them get in the door.
I agree these are problems, but disagree they don’t have solutions.
(I was in the IDF where we did things to address these problems)
Also, the goal of defense is making offense very costly, it’s not “making offense impossible”.
We did, for example, allow data transfer, but there were limitations on it. Specifically USB drives were not allowed at all, and blocked from use on the computers themselves. If you wanted to transfer data, you couldn’t bring your own usb drive, you had to use a specific organizational protocol for it.
Sorry I’m not giving specifics here. My main point is that I’ve seen solutions to such problems in a real working air gapped network that I personally used for my development work
Air gaps can function in networks that don’t need to have much data coming in or out. This used to be the case for industrial controls systems and maybe weapons systems. But even when I’ve talked with industrial control systems experts on it, they recommended against it, because the gap will be plugged due to operational necessities whether you like it or not. Often it ends up being dirty USB drives bypassing your security that you have no control over. I strongly believe that the volume of external data processing needed by AI research means airgapping is impractical.
If someone has enough IT skills to get an entry-level position, I would encourage them to take that route. If they don’t, then I would nudge them towards a degree that both will help to motivate them and to gain a credential to help them get in the door.
I agree these are problems, but disagree they don’t have solutions. (I was in the IDF where we did things to address these problems)
Also, the goal of defense is making offense very costly, it’s not “making offense impossible”.
We did, for example, allow data transfer, but there were limitations on it. Specifically USB drives were not allowed at all, and blocked from use on the computers themselves. If you wanted to transfer data, you couldn’t bring your own usb drive, you had to use a specific organizational protocol for it.
Sorry I’m not giving specifics here. My main point is that I’ve seen solutions to such problems in a real working air gapped network that I personally used for my development work