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Europeans Bury "Digital DNA" Inside a Mountain

Posted by kdawson on from the you-must-remember-this dept.

adeelarshad82 writes "In a secret bunker deep in the Swiss Alps, European researchers deposited a 'digital genome' that will provide the blueprint for future generations to read data stored using defunct technology. The sealed box containing the key to unpick defunct digital formats will be locked away for the next quarter of a century behind a 3-1/2 ton door strong enough to resist nuclear attack at the data storage facility, known as the Swiss Fort Knox. The capsule is the culmination of the four-year 'Planets' project, which draws on the expertise of 16 European libraries, archives, and research institutions, to preserve the world's digital assets as hardware and software is superseded at a blistering pace. The project hopes to preserve 'data DNA,' the information and tools required to access and read historical digital material and prevent digital memory loss into the next century."

8 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. Quick... destroy it!. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Future generations of purist can use it as a reference for "cleansings".

    1. Re:Quick... destroy it!. by spazdor · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Let's be real here. We're doing this so that anthropologists from other spacefaring civilizations will be able to read all the stories about us plowing ourselves to hell.

      --
      DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
    2. Re:Quick... destroy it!. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      They are saying we will die off to unsustainable farming?

  2. What if... by EdtheFox · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What if future generations never find it after the apocalypse? After all, it is in a secret bunker deep in the Swiss Alps

  3. Does this include the DRM keys? by DadLeopard · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Does this include the DRM keys to all the defunct DRM schemes that were supposed to let you access the songs, video and books that you had bought, but went out of business and took the keys to your data with them! Or is this just a copy of the DVD Rebook and other such information on the various and sundry formats!

  4. Hope they don't lose the key to the door by petes_PoV · · Score: 4, Interesting
    It's all very well having nuke-proof bunkers and thick steel doors. But at some point someone's gotta get in there (presuming they think out digital formats are worth decoding - they could be in for a bit of a disappointment) to get the keys. If the future society gets into such a state where it's lost all the external copies of these keys it's probably not going to be too good at looking after physical means of access.

    I can just imaging after the next war / asteroid / depression / pandemic all these people standing outside this massive steel door, wondering what the hell was inside it?

    --
    politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
    1. Re:Hope they don't lose the key to the door by richard.cs · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I remember reading in some sci fi book about a vault that was sealed by attaching a chunk of a long-lived radioisotope to the back of a tight fitting steel door such that the heat released caused the door to expand and jam tightly into the frame. The idea was that it could only be opened by a fairly advanced civilisation that was capable of artificial refrigeration, plus of course able to recognise what was needed. I always found that an intriguing idea although anyone sufficiently determined could probably get in anyway

      Don't suppose anyone knows what book that was? I've been trying to find it for years now.

  5. Obligatory xkcd reference: http://xkcd.com/593/ by zill · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In 3010 AD, archaeologists discovered a sealed vault hidden deep under the Earth - full of technologies that are defective by design, algorithms engineered to restrict the users on how they can enjoy their own media, even rootkits disguised as music CDs.

    What did they find? DRM Hell.