Storage curiosity: Write-Only media

[Mercutio]

I was speaking with my father this morning, and one of the subjects that came up was the situation in Japan regarding the nuclear plants there. My father's work as an engineer did at times involve working with nuclear plants and he had some insights that were somewhat interesting.

But one of the things he mentioned during our conversation was unique to say the least: apparently, some of the electronic auditing and logging done in US Nuclear plants is done on media that is purposefully designed to so that it cannot be viewed again once written, to meet a need for security or secrecy in addition to accountability.

I pressed him for details. Apparently the system he was familiar was a magnetic cartridge disk (think Zip disk) that was used to log data regarding process control systems in the plants, and that the specific requirement for the drives writing the data was that they have no capacity to read data back once it was committed to the disk. He was not aware of any facility to read back the data. Presumably it must have existed someplace, but according to him, no such devices were available at the plants where the data was being created, making the media being used effectively write-only.

Weird, huh?

 

[BingBangBop]

There is no point in a product that is totally write-only. Why write, if it can never be read? There is no accountability if the logs can not ever be read. More likely, it just can't be read locally or requires special HW that is not readily avail.

 

[Mercutio]

That was his speculation as well.

 

[Howell]

What makes the most sense is if the hardware is standard and the data is encrypted. The software on sight would only have the ability to write. The regulatory agency likely has the proper combination of hardware, reading facility and encryption key. If speed is not likely a criteria then the data could also be written in an unexpected way, say back to front.

 

[ddrueding]

That is really interesting. I have a number of applications where I would like a write and read capability, but not change or delete.

 

[Chewy509]

That is really interesting. I have a number of applications where I would like a write and read capability, but not change or delete.

Some vendors offer WORM options with their tape libraries, eg: http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/storageworks/wormdps/index.html

Contact your prefered vendor for their options, assuming tape is a viable platform, otherwise I know back a few years again some vendors even had WORM options with MO media as well. Don't know if those options still exist.

 

[Adcadet]

Interesting.

I can see why some data would need to be stored in an unalterable format for accountability purposes, but would that data really be sensitive and need to be kept secret? Would terrorists care when a reactor was shut down for maintenance, for example. I guess if the maintenance schedule presented an opportunity for a terror plot, occurred on a set schedule and was otherwise kept secret a scheme including encryption would be useful.

 

[time]

That is really interesting. I have a number of applications where I would like a write and read capability, but not change or delete.

Why not just remove the 'Modify' permission on the folder?

 

[ddrueding]

Why not just remove the 'Modify' permission on the folder?

Is that what it would take? I've always been concerned about breaking stuff.

 

[time]

It depends on the application. Why not just try it and see?

You might be able to work around app limitations by auto-moving any files from a R/W folder into your target folder once the user has finished with them.

Or, I guess you could script something that set the RO attribute. Off the top of my head, you could probably do it with a batch file that acted like a daemon.

Might be able to help more if we knew more about your needs.

 

[ddrueding]

I don't have a need at the moment, in the past I've used different solutions.