Most Digital Content Not Stable

brunes69 writes "The CBC is running an article profiling the problems with archiving digital data in New Brunswick's provincial archives. Quote from the story: 'I've had audio tape come into the archives, for example, that had been submerged in water in floods and the tape was so swollen it went off the reel, and yet we were able to recover that. We were able to take that off and dry it out and play it back. If a CD had one-tenth of one per cent of the damage on one of those reels, it wouldn't play, period. The whole thing would be corrupted'. Given the difficulties with preserving digital data, is it really the medium we should be using for archival purposes?"

Comments

Stone tablets

[IckySplat]

Stone tablets. Just drill a hole for a zero and your away and laughing
Now we just need a large enough area to store them :)

Re:Stone tablets

[kalirion]

Hey, it worked for Moses...the 10 commandments are still around.

That's out of the original 15.

3.5"

[otacon]

At the enterprise level we use 3.5" 1.44MB Floppy drives in an elaborate redundant array. It consists of roughly 70,000 Disks, each changed nightly. We haven't had any problems yet. Hopefully the rest of the world will play catch up soon.

Crush and Preserve!

[webword]

Shouldn't it be possible to take all the media and just crush it? You know, like throw it into a Mega Power 3000 Digital Garbage Collector (TM) and crush it into a diamond or something? Let future generations figure out how to decompress it.

Re:That's nothing, think of DRM

[Rude Turnip]

And if they didn't insist on DRM in their smoke signals, they might still be a pretty formidable group today.

I've said it before and I'll say it again...

[eno2001]

...the solution is simple. We need a way to take a quantum snapshot of the whole of the Earth at least once every 24 hours and then to send that data out into space as a broadcast in all directions. To retrieve the quantum structure, we'd simply pop out of a wormhole near where the data is passing and retrieve it, then retransmit it back to here and reconstruct the Earth as it was before catastrophe struck. The nice thing about this is that if we can find another M class star like Usolia (our sun), we don't even have to beam the data through the wormhole. We could just intercept it near the star and start the assembly process there. Point-in-time restores for the whole of the planet. Imagine that. You're welcome.

Re:I've said it before and I'll say it again...

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Point in time restoration, brings back all the bugs and vulnerabilities too. Unless you could apply all the security patches released after you have check pointed Earth, it will be pwned in no time.

Re:I've said it before and I'll say it again...

[inviolet]

We need a way to take a quantum snapshot of the whole of the Earth at least once every 24 hours and then to send that data out into space as a broadcast in all directions. To retrieve the quantum structure, we'd simply pop out of a wormhole near where the data is passing and retrieve it, then retransmit it back to here and reconstruct the Earth as it was before catastrophe struck.

That service is already available. However, only the ultra-rich can afford it, and what with the whole galaxy in a bit of a recession right now, I think the company is mothballed.

Re:Multiple identical copies?

[eno2001]

Digital media is OK, it's the storage that sucks. That's your basic point. But I have to disagree with you on the ubiquity of CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drives. Trust me... of all those devices that exist today, you'll only find less than 1% in a serviceable state in another 75 years. What we really need is a self-replicating storage system that builds copies of itself. I propose that for proper storage of digital information, we should really be looking at systems that can store the data in a sequential chemical form (to represent the bits). These systems should be very compact and only contain a limited set of data + the ability to copy that data to neighboring units. (Death by a thousand paper cuts sort of thing) These small systems would be contained within larger systems whose sole responsibility would be acquiring the necessary physical resources (complex matter that could be broken down into the base chemicals needed by the smaller storage systems).

The larger systems could also provide mirroring by interfacing with each other as directed by chemical interactions in order to preserve original data as well as integrate new data that may be useful in assuring that future units are even more resilient to any sorts of flaws or possible malfunction caused by inappropriate chemical input. The key to all of this is going to be to make sure that the larger units are impelled to continue the duplication and exchange of data ad infinitum. To do that, there should be some sort of mutual benefit that the engaged units acquire from the mirroring. Multiple levels of mutual benefit would likely be more successful than just one level. So I propose that at a base level, the units should be programmed with routines that make them feel more or less successful whenever a mirroring connection is attempted. I know that sounds strange, but it should be a pretty simple subroutine and will at least get the units to attempt mirroring.

The next level would also be an expansion of the data mirroring to the actual manufacture of a tertiary (or even more) unit that contains selected data from both origination units. As part of the mutual benefit relationship between units, the origination units should be programmed to protect the manufactured unit in order to safeguard its data as it would be the freshest copy (chemically speaking) and therefore more viable. So the relationship between origination units and next generation manufactured units would be that of security and stability from the origination units as applied to the next generation.

Another aspect to all of this that would add even more value would be to provide the larger units with various sensors that would store ANY and ALL possible forms of energy radiation and chemical exposure to the environment. This would assure that the units would not only contain the originally stored data, but would be constantly gathering the data in a parallel fashion in every corner of the world where the units are deployed.

As you can see, this would ensure after several generations, that all the original data is in tact and could simply be retrieved by reading all units chemical stores simultaneously and reassembling the original data as well as newly stored information. Imagine that... a sensor array that spans the planet with historical functions as well. And all self-sustaining and chemically based.

Re:Multiple identical copies?

[Red Flayer]

So (-1, redundant) should now be (+1, redundant) for posterity's sake? And dupes are posted for archival reasons?

I'm confused.

Re:Multiple identical copies?

[Not_Wiggins]

Exactly! Why store it on plastic at all?

What I do is take files I care about, encrypt them, rename the file to something tempting like "Cheerleader Sex Orgy XXXIV.avi," note the MD5 (sticky note on the next of the monitor), and share it on a P2P network.

Instant distributed backup! 8D

Re:Multiple identical copies?

[WinterSolstice]

"Only wimps use tape backup: _real_ men just upload their important stuff on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it " --- Linus Torvalds

Re:Multiple identical copies?

[sporkmonger]

We know papyrus has tried-and-true longevity for sure. Everything else is just a pretty good guess.

Re:That's nothing, think of DRM

[dr.badass]

That's nothing, think of DRM. That content can not be preserved at all.

That might mean something if DRM magically retroactively destroyed all non-DRM copies of the content it contains. Like, say, the original.

Ten years ago my VCR ate my copy of Citizen Kane, which might have been a cultural tragedy, but fortunately someone had the foresight to give me a copy on VHS instead of the original print.