Much like that old quip about the bandwidth of a vehicle full of tapes: "Never underestimate the at-rest security of a room full of filing cabinets."
Friction and delay have always been aspects of security.
Friction and delay have always been aspects of security.
Or has that been fixed?
In terms of significant danger, perhaps you're thinking of nitrocellulose movie film that was phased out in the '50s.
Europe is as much ahead as it is behind.
Example of those mag tapes: https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/memory-storage/8/...
How they were stored: https://www.hewlettpackardhistory.com/item/an-attractive-sol...
The newer stuff is a heck of a lot better than the olden stuff.
In the 90s, the French IRS seized massive amounts of files from Elf, then a major French oil company under investigation for various frauds.
Their offices where burglarized maybe a couple nights after that. All that was seized disappeared.