I don’t think the technical implementation is the barrier.
I would be much more worried about the human element of technology development. Namely that having a web based interface which shows data, but can’t change anything would feel unnatural. I can totaly imagine that you make the choice, implement it correctly. you have your website only showing things but unable to make changes.
A day later a product person asks for the ability to set the temperature on the web interface. You kindly and patiently explain to them that due to safety reasons you can’t implement that feature. They will understand and nod.
A month later one of the execs asks for a similar feature. They might also present the feature as mission critical, or even package it in the language of safety. After all customer X just lost so much money because we couldn’t do this one simple thing via the web interface. You argue with them and your viewpoint eventually wins. But it is a bit hard to argue because you ultimately have to argue that you / your team cannot be trusted to implement the feature safely. So you have to make it sound like you are both competent enough to be trusted with this hard decision and incompetent at making things secure enough the same time. A hard sell. But you win somehow.
Then a month later there is a hackathon. And one of the new hires puts together this amazingly looking new product UI. Everyone is amazed it is genuenly a delight to use. But it completely ignores the data diode principles. You have to kick it into the long grass, or modify it so much that it is barelly recognisable.
Then a month later a new product development start. Your company is hoping to conquer some new vertical, and need to make a cheaper version of the product. So an electrical engineer is tasked to cost optimise the control unit. They correctly point it out that we could reduce the BOM cost by more than half if only we got rid of the data diode and the second set of microcontroller. You have to argue the safety case. People nod. But you are loosing more and more “political capital”. Upper management asks you to work with the EE on how you can maintain the safety while also cutting cost. You know that this won’t be easy and the savings won’t be as much.
And so on and so on. So even if the company implements such data diode, and implements it correctly and safely. Future product and business pressures will work against it. Realistically you are not going to win every single argument about it. One day you will come back from a holiday and there will be someone who circumvented it either because they didn’t know better, or didn’t believe that they cannot be trusted to make the circumvention safe enough. It is a people problem, not a tech problem. If there is even such a distinction.
I would be much more worried about the human element of technology development. Namely that having a web based interface which shows data, but can’t change anything would feel unnatural. I can totaly imagine that you make the choice, implement it correctly. you have your website only showing things but unable to make changes.
A day later a product person asks for the ability to set the temperature on the web interface. You kindly and patiently explain to them that due to safety reasons you can’t implement that feature. They will understand and nod.
A month later one of the execs asks for a similar feature. They might also present the feature as mission critical, or even package it in the language of safety. After all customer X just lost so much money because we couldn’t do this one simple thing via the web interface. You argue with them and your viewpoint eventually wins. But it is a bit hard to argue because you ultimately have to argue that you / your team cannot be trusted to implement the feature safely. So you have to make it sound like you are both competent enough to be trusted with this hard decision and incompetent at making things secure enough the same time. A hard sell. But you win somehow.
Then a month later there is a hackathon. And one of the new hires puts together this amazingly looking new product UI. Everyone is amazed it is genuenly a delight to use. But it completely ignores the data diode principles. You have to kick it into the long grass, or modify it so much that it is barelly recognisable.
Then a month later a new product development start. Your company is hoping to conquer some new vertical, and need to make a cheaper version of the product. So an electrical engineer is tasked to cost optimise the control unit. They correctly point it out that we could reduce the BOM cost by more than half if only we got rid of the data diode and the second set of microcontroller. You have to argue the safety case. People nod. But you are loosing more and more “political capital”. Upper management asks you to work with the EE on how you can maintain the safety while also cutting cost. You know that this won’t be easy and the savings won’t be as much.
And so on and so on. So even if the company implements such data diode, and implements it correctly and safely. Future product and business pressures will work against it. Realistically you are not going to win every single argument about it. One day you will come back from a holiday and there will be someone who circumvented it either because they didn’t know better, or didn’t believe that they cannot be trusted to make the circumvention safe enough. It is a people problem, not a tech problem. If there is even such a distinction.