Posted on 09/01/2022 6:15:41 AM PDT by chajin
Japan’s digital minister, who’s vowed to rid the bureaucracy of outdated tools from the hanko stamp to the fax machine, has now declared “war” on a technology many haven’t seen for decades — the floppy disk.
The hand-sized, square-shaped data storage item, along with similar devices including the CD or even lesser-known mini disk, are still required for some 1,900 government procedures and must go, digital minister Taro Kono wrote in a Twitter post Wednesday.
“We will be reviewing these practices swiftly,” Kono said in a news conference Tuesday, adding that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has offered his full support. “Where does one even buy a floppy disk these days?”
A working group of the government’s Digital Extraordinary Administrative Advisory Committee is considering abolishing such designations to promote online application filing.
The working group has found about 1,900 clauses of laws, government, ministerial and other ordinances stipulating that specific storage devices, such as floppy and magneto-optical disks, be used to make administrative applications and keep data.
Japan isn’t the only nation that has struggled to phase out the outdated technology — the U.S. Defense Department only announced in 2019 that it had ended use of floppy disks, first developed in the 1960s, in a control system for its nuclear arsenal. Sony Group stopped making the disks in 2011 and many young people would struggle to describe how to use one or even to identify one in the modern workplace.
Legal hurdles are making it difficult to adopt modern technology like cloud storage for wider use within the bureaucracy, according to a presentation by the government’s digital task force dated Tuesday. The group will review the provisions, and plans to announce ways to improve them by the year-end.
The committee also launched a legislation screening team to examine whether new laws include outdated analog regulations that do not fit a digital society.
The screening will begin with bills to be submitted to an extraordinary session of parliament, which is slated to be held in autumn.
Kono said any opposition from ministries or agencies, if there is any, “will be pushed down.”
Kono, one of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s most visible politicians who is often cited by voters as a contender to be prime minister, has been an outspoken critic of bureaucratic inefficiencies due to archaic practices, most notably the fax machine and the hanko — a unique, carved red stamp that remains necessary to sign off official documents like a marriage license. He tried to curb use of both when he was administrative reform minister between 2020 and 2021, but the two are still widely used.
“I’m looking to get rid of the fax machine, and I still plan to do that,” Kono quipped at his news conference Tuesday.
I still have my hanko from my days in Japan.
Those floppies just aren’t suited for loading state secrets on...and selling them to China.
The Floppotron: Sweet Dreams
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGfkPCZYfFw
I have some 3.5” floppies that have some family photos on them. I was able to recover the photos with a Bytecc BT-144 USB external floppy drive. I was even able to boot my computer into DOS with it.
Ah...the old days.
I’m actually surprised to learn that Japan still uses floppy disks.
Take it with you when you have tempura, and you can engage in hanko-panko
I’ve read that Japan might export 2020 technology, but they function as a society 40 years behind.
In some ways using outdated storage mediums adds a level of security. “Security through obscurity” alone isn’t enough to secure a system, but it can be nice extra layer of security.
FWIW, Taro Kono is the fourth generation of Kono politicians, sorta like the Rockefellers in the early 20th century here. He’s almost certainly going to become the next PM, perhaps in Trump’s second term or when DeSantis becomes POTUS in 2028; their summit meetings will not need translators, since Kono-san speaks near-perfect English.
How else can you play King’s Quest?…
I occasionally bought those.
I will send him a box of punch cards explaining the reasons that is a dumb idea. Don’t drop it or it will look like a Biden speech when you restack them randomly.
Nonetheless, it still surprises me. 🙂
Are you absolutely sure that the “Digital Minister” isn’t an animatronic robot or a hologram?
It was fun inserting a black sheet of paper or two, and taping end to end to send to unfavored people ;)
“Take it with you when you have tempura, and you can engage in hanko-panko”
Ba-Dun ‘Tsss
I still have machines with floppy drives. They are useful for Intel motherboards that need firmware updates using a generic DOS image.
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