Having worked in classified areas, both as an admin and an unprivileged user, CDs were normally the method of transferring data up the network. (Transferring down rarely occurred, and even then you’d be limited to plaintext files or printouts.)

I’ve seen more places use data diodes to perform one- or two-way transfers so that requests can be streamlined and there’s no loose media to worry about tracking. It’s not super fast and higher speeds mean more expensive equipment, but it covers 98% of software update needs, and most non-admin file transfers were under 20MB anyways.

Anything that did require a USB drive, like special test equipment (STE) or BIOS updates, had to use a FIPS-140-1 approved drive that offered a ready-only mode via PIN. This drive could only be written to from a specific workstation that was isolated from the rest of the machines (where data was transferred via CDs of course) and required two persons to perform the job to ensure accountability.

Not the most time-efficient way of doing things, and not completely bulletproof, but it works well enough to keep things moving forward.

Oh I didn’t know the Air Force Reserves did that! Though that makes a lot of sense given how it’s surveilling in proximity to the States. Good use of aircraft and brainpower in that pursuit.

Well shit, I read the Wikipedia link and some articles from the comment about the NOAA Hurricane Hunters and assumed you were referring to them.

The C-130J you linked from the ADS-B recorder seems to be military. Guess they’ve been using them for a while for storm reconnaissance.

Seems that the C-130s won’t be ready until 2030. Looks like they’re using WP-3D Orion aircraft currently.

I’ve jokingly said this before, but just wait until manufacturers start adding 4G/5G to TVs explicitly for ads and telemetry…