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For you I'd recommend a digital repository like Dspace.

You're repeating one of those convenient myths the right wing has constructed to project its own demons on others. The notion that anyone who opposes a war is insulting the military is ludicrously confused, if you want confusion, so I guess you've done yourself proud in expressing that -- But with respect to the specific "spitting" lie you're repeating:

The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam

"...In February 1991, I was asked to speak at a college teach-in on the Persian Gulf War. My presentation focused on the image then being popularized in the press of Vietnam-era anti-war activists treating Vietnam veterans abusively. Drawing on my own experience as a Vietnam veteran who came home from the war and joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), I called the image of spat-upon Vietnam veterans a myth. The historical fact, I pointed out, is that the peace movement reached out to veterans as potential allies in a struggle against an unpopular war, while many veterans were joining the anti-war movement by the late 1960s.

My talk was published as an opinion piece in the Hartford Courant and the response to it encouraged me to look further into the truth and origin of the spat-upon veteran stories. My research focused on three sets questions: the evidence for and against the claims that the alleged acts of spitting ever occurred; the political and cultural roles played by the stories; and the way in which the stories were constructed and popularized..."

You could read on if you have any sense of curiosity about this at all. Suffice it to say: There are several newspaper stories about pro-war advocates spitting on veterans demonstrating for peace at the 1968 Republican Convention. Perhaps that's what you're thinking of. Otherwise during the war this particular story wasn't around. It was created afterward as a political tactic-- much like the deliberately misleading "POW/MIA" category. Spirow Agnew had something to do with it playing quite the way it did.

Yes, "my" solution [RAID] - the solution used by anyone who has digital data they want to store long-term

Bullshit. Maybe for your piddly archive, but the real stuff is all happening on tape with refresh cycles, duplicates and offsites. I've a 42TB archive in the room next to me, and we're a small player in the world of international digital preservation. The Trusted Digital Repositories of the world all use tape.

Don't imagine that tape doesn't require babysitting either. You don't plonk 'em in a copper room (although we have two) and forget about them.

The PDF format is essentially PostScript with the ability to execute code removed, and a declarative syntax in its place (see http://www.rlg.org/preserv/diginews/diginews5-1.ht ml#feature2 for details).

The PDF file format is open, and many tools have been written to use it without involving Adobe.

Digital technology, however, poses new threats and problems as well as new opportunities. Its functionality comes with complexity. Anyone with a compass (or a clear night to view the position of the stars in relation to true north) could theoretically set up or repair a sundial. A digital watch is more useful and accurate for telling time than a sundial, but few people can repair it or even understand how it works. Reading and understanding information in digital form requires equipment and software, which is changing constantly and may not be available within a decade of its introduction. Who today has a punched card reader, a Dectape drive, or a working copy of FORTRAN II? Even newer technology such as 9-track tape is rapidly becoming obsolete. We cannot save the machines if there are no spare parts available, and we cannot save the software if no one is left who knows how to use it.

With the storage evolving so rapidly, one must ask the question whether you'll be able to your present hard disk decades in the future. My personal recommendation is the obvious: to make physical, hard copies of all important data. Although Kodak claims their CDR media lasts 100 years or more, I still wouldn't hesitate to make physical copies, readable by humans rather than computers.

This topic is one that is already being seriously considered by librarians and historians.

The USA's Library of Congress Preservation Reformatting Division is digitizing many items for preservation, and you can be sure that they're concerned that the digital preservation will be at least as effective as the original (analog, paper, whatever) form.

One of the current projects of the Research Libraries Group is data preservation. The RLG is an international group formed originally by Columbia, Harvard, and Yale universities and The New York Public Library in 1975, with current members from academia, government archives, public and private sector historical organizations.

A google search on digital data preservation gives plenty more linkage to groups actively looking at the issues involved in digital storage.

Of course, there is still a huge volume of personal and corporate data that will no doubt degrade to dust. For that, we all need to take the approach of wiredog to keep our personal data accessible by refreshing the media as technology advances.

Naturally, since this is Slashdot, all of this has been already covered. This article was a particularly good treatment of the topic and was posted as a followup to an older Ask Slashdot.

Really, how different will it be if the future only has the preserved personal effects and communications of an insignificant fraction of the general population? Today, archeologists make a career out of extrapolating whole civilizations out of building foundations and shards of pottery.

So, with a little care, I'm confident that my own data will be happily accessible as long as I need it. After that, the future will take care of itself.

This topic is one that is already being seriously considered by librarians and historians.

The USA's Library of Congress Preservation Reformatting Division is digitizing many items for preservation, and you can be sure that they're concerned that the digital preservation will be at least as effective as the original (analog, paper, whatever) form.

One of the current projects of the Research Libraries Group is data preservation. The RLG is an international group formed originally by Columbia, Harvard, and Yale universities and The New York Public Library in 1975, with current members from academia, government archives, public and private sector historical organizations.

A google search on digital data preservation gives plenty more linkage to groups actively looking at the issues involved in digital storage.

Of course, there is still a huge volume of personal and corporate data that will no doubt degrade to dust. For that, we all need to take the approach of wiredog to keep our personal data accessible by refreshing the media as technology advances.

Naturally, since this is Slashdot, all of this has been already covered. This article was a particularly good treatment of the topic and was posted as a followup to an older Ask Slashdot.

Really, how different will it be if the future only has the preserved personal effects and communications of an insignificant fraction of the general population? Today, archeologists make a career out of extrapolating whole civilizations out of building foundations and shards of pottery.

So, with a little care, I'm confident that my own data will be happily accessible as long as I need it. After that, the future will take care of itself.

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