Slashdot Mirror
Company Offers Disaster-Proof Storage For Records
Makarand writes "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is reporting that a Utah company,
Perpetual Storage, is
offering
disaster-proof commercial storage space
deep inside a granite mountain
for companies looking to store their most important records.
The company claims that their vaults are protected
and safe from "any force known to man", including a nuclear blast.
The vaults have gained popularity
recently after hospitals, government agencies and universities have started using them to keep
their computer records safe."
Perhaps a nuclear winter would be a good time to re-evaluate our social standings on something other than the size of our bank accounts.
I have been pwned because my
what if the mountain collapses?
Like when the sun goes all red giant on us? How about a supernova or getting nailed by a decent sized black hole? What about gravitional collapse of the universe into a primeval atom?
Man knows some pretty awesome and irresistable forces, chief among them, in terms of data persistence, is Rose Mary Woods.
KFG
The company claims that their vaults are protected and safe from "any force known to man", including a nuclear blast.
But not including company employees.
I'm sure after a nuclear blast my first thoughts will go to whether or not my files are safe. Since it'll get boring down in that fallout shelter, so I should read paperwork on now-dead customers and play old video games on my computer. Well, at least until the generator dies.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
"Perpetual Storage -> "Long term storage"
"Disaster-proof" -> "Disaster-resistant"
"any force known to man" -> "most forces known to man, in reasonable amounts and not too close, and assuming no help from a disgruntled member of staff"
Whatever happened to truth in advertising?
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
My records are always getting melted by the sunshine.
Bitchslapped. Neat.
Out of the area clients can use any available delivery service such as UPS, Fed Ex, or the US Mail.
For when your uber sensitive business data must get to the super secure storage facility safely... trust USPS and remember, pack well.
Also, while the mountain may protect your stuff from any kind of physical catastrophe like meteors or mad bombers, it will do nothing to protect it from frothing lawyers and government agents (SCO, RIAA, BATF or whatever) or plain old industrial spies with briefcases full of cash, seeking access to the stuff from the people who run the facility. The perils of putting your goodies in someone else's care in a publicly known location are the same as those of storing your backups on someone else's computer over the net (and the obviousness of that peril is one reason why the net-backup business didn't do so well).
If you want to keep something really safe, protect it well and don't tell anyone where it is. Also, if all you're trying to protect is data, rather than physical artifacts, you're better off replicating it all over the place than trying to bomb-proof it at a single site.
In all seriousness, though they seem to have an open mind regarding material allowed to be stored, they substantially limit their potential market. For instance, "To eliminate fire risk, the company won't store paper or anything that might burn." I suppose this makes sense. But then they start turning down precious metals (and by that logic, stones such as diamonds and valuable jewelry), refusing to store cryogenically frozen human cells.
Additionally, I have to wonder about the security of the place. It only has about ten employees, which would put suspects on a short list, but at the same time gives the mountain comparatively little protection from outside attackers. Furthermore, the excavation was done only thirty or so years ago, so it hasn't yet stood the test of time. Not long ago, they completed some more major construction adding second and third floor mezanines...I have to wonder as to whether or not any of this has affected the structural integrity and to what extent. Of course, the southwest isn't exactly the most stable region either...earthquakes are many.
But let's put all of that aside for a moment. We have a company that has its eyes on the future!
Merry Christmas,
Scott
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They have several vault sites where they keep the works of Elron Hubbard preserved. Quite elaborate and expensive. Seems redundant, you can find all the used copies of Dianetics and Battlefield Earth you could ever want at 2nd hand books stores.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
It's safe from any force known to man, yet here we go, slashdotting their server, making quick on-line retrieval of even the tiniest record impossible.
You could aways encode messages in your DNA.
Or even more sophisticated: you could encode your DNA in such a way that the message shows up as a tatoo on the buttoms of your descendants.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
They need to update their physics textbook. Modern forces at work include Bureaucracy, Incompetence and Government.
I'll bet any one of those three could breach this fortress ...
... mostly company business records on computer tapes and microfilm.
See Pedler, K. & Davis, G.
The Viking Press, New York, 1972;
Mutant 59: The Plastic Eaters
Or some nanobots wreaking havoc for the more hardware type of things.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Most people here are missing the point. These things were orinially built to house the geneology data for the LDS church to survive serious biblical type disasters. This is for like, the end of the world comes and were diggin out, and your data is still there.
I can't believe some of the idiots responding to this saying "this is useless because it doesn't allow restore in near-real-time".
At the other end of the sepctrum is the idiot who is worried about volcanoes in Little Cottonwood Canyon. Please people, get a clue before posting.
Arrgh, armchair geologists getting modded Insightful.
Granite forms at depth in the crust, not in volcanos. It is typically indicative of igneous activity a long time ago -- sometimes billions of years. Its presence is not any kind of indicator of potential for volcanic activity.
When it is exposed at the surface, it usually indicates there has been tectonic activity that moved it upwards. Again, may have happened a long time ago.
In the Salt Lake, there is extremely low potential for volccanic or other igneous activity. What Utah DOES have is a potential for strong seismic (earthquake) acitvity. How safe things are getting bounced around by a magnitude 7 is a matter of question. Would depend on how well engineered the structure is to isolate it from ground movement. Building structures on solid rock is more easily engineered that unconsolidated materials because there is no potential for liquifaction and the high-amplitude, low frequency surface waves (Lova, Rayleigh) are not much of a design factor.
Building inside a granite mountain is a pretty good choice for isolating a structure from seismic waves. Just requires a good isolation system.
The EMP however is completely different, almost the opposite end of the scale. It isn't a wave as much as a pulse - a very sudden, high amplitude rising and falling edge producing effects more similar to an electromagnet than radio waves. When this pulse reaches wires etc inside electronic equipment it induces a high voltage, zapping it. Faraday cages can certainly protect against them, but there are problems because to have a running computer it usually needs connecting cables for power, data etc which must go through the cage. These can conduct the pulse in unless carefully opto-isolated.
"Studies have shown that people who eat peanuts live longer than those who do not eat."