Part of Star Wars’s big charm was how it seemed futuristic and retro at the same time. I used to imagine it was a place where different technologies caught on sooner than others, but these days I like to think of it is a world where no digital information is ever considered safe. In a post-cybersecurity landscape, it would actually make more sense to physically send critical Death Star plans through space via an out-of-date automaton than to send them wirelessly. This same mistrust in cybersecurity could also explain the overly complex central computer in Rogue One.
In Battlestar Galactica, the humans learned the hard way what happens when they get too reliant on inter-connected computers to run their ships. It was Commander Adama’s insistence that the ship restrict itself to more low-tech and manual resources that the ship was able to survive the great Cylon attack. Earlier today, president-elect Trump said “It’s very important, if you have something really important, write it out and have it delivered by courier, the old-fashioned way” adding “no computer is safe”. The man knows a thing or two about how hackers can throw an election.
So the next time you watch Star Wars and chuckle at the fact that they’ve mastered light speed technology, but still save data on magnetic tape, wonder if that design is remnant of 1970s sci-fi or a well thought precaution in a post-cybersecurity landscape.
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