You know what I hate...
Tech terms so stupid that they obscure their own brillance

When I began to encounter the term "air gapped" in my reading and research, I could not discern the meaning of air gapped from the context of how it was being used.  My initial assumption was that "air gapped" referred to that nether region located between the top of the scalp and the base of the chin — going north to south — and between the left earlobe and the right earlobe — going west to east, of Particular Pro Paranoid Putin Pricks like Tucker Carlson, who I understand is quite the star on Russia Today TV.  But I digress...

So I looked up the term "air gapped," and found it means a computer that has been disconnected from the Internet.  The term is actually somewhat of a pun.  For between the Internet and the disconnected computer exists a "gap."  And that gap is filled with "air." Hardy Har Har.

Air gapped also sounds an awful lot like what some unscrupulous or unknowing, or both, security snakeoil salesperson might propose to a client when resorting to baffling with bullshit after all brilliance has ceased to bedazzle.  "Well, Sir, I suggest we air gap your server."  Of course, a server that has been air gapped would cease to be a server, unless all other devices that connect to the server are themselves air gapped.  And we already have a term for a closed local network where all nodes only communicate with each other, and not outside the "token ring network."

Why I call an air gapped computer brilliant is that a computer not connected to anything is a perfect place to maintain a data archive.  A data archive is different that a data backup in that a data backup is an active dataset that is changed regularly and frequently by backing up the data on the user's PC.  A data archive is a fixed snapshot of that dataset fixed at a certain point in time.  And this precious data archive is housed in a fairly rugged box called a computer.  A good last resort fall back position in the event of complete disaster and failure.

There is much more in a technical way about how best to make an older, but still working, computer useful that I can offer to help illustrate this concept.  But not here and not now.  Maybe later on the technical pages of the Dispatches.

Really all I wanted here was a segue in the context of the Dispatches to call Tucker Carlson an airhead and a prick for his Pro Paranoid Putin pronouncements.  Mission Accomplished.

Gerald Reiff