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Disagree. Why connect them to the internet? They should be super hardened against attacks, and should NOT have a physical connection to the internet. Same with electrical infrastructure. Network access? Possibly, however that network should NOT be accessible from the internet.

The only exception I can think of would be for meter reading, which should be a separate, read only device with no ability to do harm altogether.

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At a few of our sites, we have webcam-pointing-at-gauge. Deemed secure via air gap and simple to deploy.

That's great! Different take on the opto-isolator.

People start freaking out at the costs of dedicated fibers to every monitored facility. Hence even 'private' networks still run over the same actual lines as the internet.

The physical cost of installing definitely dominates the conversation but there is a reliability component as well. If you have a dedicated point-to-point fiber it's only one backhoe needed to ruin your day. If you have something like a tunnel over the internet, the death of one router or one link means you will probably just route around it and still be fine if you can tolerate the momentary blip in connectivity.

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