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SanDisk WORM SD Card Can Store Data For 100 Years
CWmike writes "SanDisk has announced a 1GB Secure Digital card that can store data for 100 years, but can be written on only once. The WORM (write once, read many) card is 'tamper-proof' and data cannot be altered or deleted, SanDisk said in a statement. The card is designed for long-time preservation of crucial data like legal documents, medical files and forensic evidence, SanDisk said. SanDisk determined the media's 100-year data-retention lifespan based on internal tests conducted at normal room temperatures. The company said it is shipping the media in volume to the Japanese police force to archive images as an alternative to film. The company is working with a number of consumer electronics companies, including camera vendors, to support the media."
Hello millions of tiny SD cards.
.. then they started to rot at 3-5 years, in my experience..
Post this again in 100 years, until then, it's just more bullshit marketing.
Until you realize that the last reader for it will be extinct in 20.
I'll buy one so I can put it in my time capsule along with my 8" floppy and punch cards.
Extrapolation is a dangerous and deceptive marketing strategy. If it is supposed to last 100 years, they should test it that long.
"write once, read many." you mean like a cdr? Big whoop. I'm holding out for the "write once, read once" variety like on "mission impossible" where devices melt down after playing the message...
card is 'tamper proof' and data cannot be altered or deleted, SanDisk said in a statement
To what value of highly funded and motivated attacker? They left that part out of the marketing hyperbole.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
Good for 100 years or your first fire, flood, or other natural disaster that destroys the physical media.
Also, even if these do last for 100 years, it's a certainty that there won't be any hardware left that's capable of reading SD cards. Even if there's some piece of hardware in a museum, it won't be able to interface with existing technology. Given the rapid pace of the tech industry, anything beyond 25 years is just fodder for marketing.
Paper (at least according to Wikipedia
Okay seriously I've just run out of pointless things to say.
A large portion of RIAA's and MPAA's distributors rely on people buying copy after copy of the same media as it gets damaged or lost.
Having a protected copy to hand down over 5 generations will SERIOUSLY cut into that profit margin.
Sony's bestselling cd is AC/DC "Back in Black", Imagine if dad has it on one of these sd's.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
You should consider logging in Mr. Coward.
What an unfortunate name.
"And now we have here a priceless artifact from the year 2010...it seems to be some kind of computer storage device...plug it in the All Illumintating Slot down on the bottom, Zeth...no, wait, it says WORM on it. NO ZETH, DON'T DO IT, IT'S A WORM! No, Zeth, you may have destroyed us all!"
how do they test this?
So they state 100 years, based on tests at room temperature. Can we assume that the media will always be stored at room temperature in 100 year period? My experience generally shows this is wishful thinking, because air conditioning breaks down, heating fails, the room is not always dark, can have direct sunlight etc. Provide me something that can last a 100 years in conditions of, at least, 30 degree centigrade variation, and then it might be interesting. Certainly I won't be around to appreciate the end results, but for archival this is a requirement, IMHO.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Y'know..couldn't anything at all last for over one hundred years if you seal it away somewhere? Even a piece of paper cold last forever if you hid it in a vacuum chamber. :)
Wow, I submitted that like a week ago.
Your submission was undergoing testing for the last week at room temperature and the editors are now confident enough that it will be acceptable.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Since this technology is still transistor-based, wouldn't it be susceptible to damage from an electromagnetic pulse, either from a high-energy radio frequency device or (less likely, I hope) a nuclear weapon? EM radiation can travel much farther than the actual blast radius, leaving these cards physically intact, but electrically unusable. If true, then why not stick with optical media such as a DVD or CD, which is more durable and offers similarly complex tamper protection (not to mention a larger capacity at a lower price)?
This looks like a solution in search of a problem.
A large portion of RIAA's and MPAA's distributors rely on people buying copy after copy of the same media as it gets damaged or lost.
Or the shellac breaks in transit to the record store.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
...since the 'other news' today says that's all we have left [ http://www.physorg.com/news196489543.html ]...
Would it not be possible to specifically and intentionally (meaning specify in law or company policy that the funding would remain in place) plan to make sure that these were accessible and usable in 100 years. Archives and Archivist have already been doing this same thing for many years for other mediums. It would seem perfectly reasonable that if we as humans in current modern society are capable of data storage and retrieval from 100 years ago that it would be possible to do the same with new media for the next 100.
On the other hand, this could be useful for them, assuming the cost can be bought down to CD/DVD equilavence.
If they use the 1GB capacity models for music, then they don't need to go to the expense of glass masters, and benefit from smaller packaging. If these can be mass produced cheaply in their initial state, then this allows them to publish localised versions, special editions et al. at a lower cost than CDs.
If the capacity can be improved in line with existing SD cards, then there's the potential for this to replace DVD and BD - with the packaging and transport savings that entails. As before, there'd be no need for glass masters. No glass masters means that they could potentially do small runs of niche titles that simply aren't cost effective with the current disc based media - which opens up the market to indies. If the mainstream publishers play their cards right, they could use this to their advantage.
Of course, this all assumes that the cost can be bought down. If that happens I've no doubt that EMI and the Ministry of Sound will be quick to take advantage of things - I'm not so sure about the other publishers though.
don't forget to proofread...
To me this is kind of a technology regression, unless one is only concerned with archiving. I used to work at a Title Company where scanned documents were stored on a WORM drive in the mid-90's. WORM as a technology in itself tends to err on the side of retention time vs. speed. Think about it, CD-R, DVD-R and every other -R is technically WORM media.
In 1000 years humans will be crawling out of caves and bunkers to repopulate the surface from whatever disaster has befallen the Earth and wonder, "Why didn't those idiots in the 20th and 21st century use film? What are we supposed to do with these key chain fobs masquerading as 'archives?'"
My first thought: WTF? Archival storage implementing DRM?
This thing is useless anyway since copyright terms now last longer than 100 years (depending on the age of the author).
Yes, all "SD cards" include CPRM; that technology never introduced into hard-disks because of a consumer backlash.
with a useless bit of trivia
Kodak- 100+ years
http://www.kodak.com/global/en/service/faqs/faq1632.shtml
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
At a glance I thought I was reading about Write Only Memory
No it's not. This is a high priced flash-based SD card with only 1GB of storage that requires you to write to each card. It's too small for video, too expensive for consumers, and not useful for media mass production.
Besides, if the content mass production industry wanted to use a transistor-based solution they'd just mass produce a much cheaper ROM cartridge. But they won't, since DVDs and Blu-Ray disks can be pressed for pennies.
I'd buy that for a dollar!
What is this, Byte Magazine in 1993?
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
We've seen a lot of discussion about "file and forget" digital storage methods. I haven't seen one that I'd trust over even a 10 year time period. The only practical solution is to periodically move your data over to the latest, long term storage medium. Make multiple copies each time, and store them in separate physical locations. I make sure to store all of my personal/financial/etc data along with family pictures and videos. I challenge you to go more than five years without wanting to watch your kids walk for the first time. This helps remind me when it's time to update.
Bad timing on your part, better luck next time.
funny how people feel they own a story because they found it on the internet, when it was a journalist who wrote the article.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
. . . we called them PROMs. If you have an original IBM PC, its BIOS was in PROM. I bet most PROMs still are readable.
Only 100 years?
Now if they had announced 1010 years then, yeah, that would have been interesting.
What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
"Your computer had a worm, but we've quarantined and destroyed it for you."
regards, IT security dep.
Those temperature fluctuations are likely to increase over time as people's patience for retaining the data wanes. Engineering is rarely the culprit for something to be destroyed or torn down. The Astrodome in Houston was designed to last 200 years, but people got bored with it and the city built a new stadium. Now they just have sporadic rodeos there and people are always talking about tearing it down.
Over time, it's likely people will eventually stop caring about the data archived on these memory cards and throw them out of the temperature-controlled storage facility.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Some medical devices used Magneto-Optical media for recording huge data examination.
But... builder for media and reader said it will stop this technology (too old).
So, how long will we have de devices to read all these media ?
How long will they produce the media to fill in still running devices ?
A study for archiving nuclear location informations conclued that the better solution was... paper (not common paper, but paper with just printed and eye readable informations).
-- Laurent Pointal
The WORM (write once, read many) card is 'tamper-proof' and data cannot be altered or deleted, ...
This is not for governments.
Anybody remember the term "Water Proof?". You think we'd have learned a few things by now and be using "Tamper Resistant" instead of "Tamper Proof."
Interfaces to hardware last 3-5 years. Specifications for digital formats are not designed for long term as they do not include any ECC. 1 bit flip and you are dead. This is marketing hype geared to the IT unaware.
It's too small for video
Security camera video can be useful at 320x240, 15fps. Encode it at 256 kbps and fit a whole 8-hour day on a card.
Besides, if the content mass production industry wanted to use a transistor-based solution they'd just mass produce a much cheaper ROM cartridge.
How do you know DS, DSi, and 3DS games don't already use OTP tech similar to this for games expected to have a smaller print run?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
And to read them you need a windowx XP 32 bit driver. :P
...the PCI bus has just been EOL'ed by Intel.
Wow, what a poor name choice for safe digital archiving.
I read the headline and thought "Oh no, more SD cards have been shipping with malicious code!"
The SD specification is worse than being undocumented: it's proprietary, and disclosed only under NDA. If the SD foundation ever goes bankrupt or gets bought by ${EVIL COMPANY}, the likelihood of obtaining a copy is rather small.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Will the readers or format survive 100 years? Answer: No.
Pardon me while I head down to Future Shop to pick up my new mechanical phonograph to read my phonograph cylinders I have hanging around the house...
Nobody is going to sue in 100 years anyway...
You must be new here.
So now we know which technology Scientologists will likely choose to replace those golden tablets etched with the "teachings" of L. Ron Hubbard...
You forget that most legal cases don't involve high paid defense lawyers who hire experts to check out all the evidence. Tampering that has been exposed doesn't always create scandals - that is partially just luck. Remember in the USA one judge was purposely putting children in prison for kickbacks from the prison company! That scandal did not get the attention it deserved and it took YEARS before a pattern emerged.
A new generation of cops may produce new techniques for tampering with evidence; one can't simply assume they will always do things the old fashioned way or that the low failure rates are due to a working system OR that other governments around the world are as equally honest.
Other motives include political scandals, corporate spying (which is a booming field,) ass-covering employees or civil servants.
Other data such as RECORDS and transcripts can end up becoming quite significant.
Just as detection software can be purchased... so will counter-forensic software. It doesn't have to be complex to use and simply because some trace may be left doesn't mean the proper detection software and VERSION will be used. I've rarely seen police or cities up to date.
Respectfully submit that those who are obsessed with the scientific laboratory definition of 'room temperature' are missing the meaning in this context:
It is *not* an ultra-cold storage device with expensive cooling requirements, useful only for the long-term archival needs of Deep Pockets. It is a room-temperature (in the common meaning of the phrase) storage device that is within reach of Shallow Pockets consumers.
I, for one, have been yearning to store my photos until I'm old and need to draw on them for happy memories. For my 90-year-old withered carcass, the loss of past photographs means the loss of memories. Huzzah for advancements in LT storage.
With all these malicious worms which were coming on the solid state disks to call a SSD technology a "WORM"? Was not possible to select another name?
I work in the Electronic Discovery field and see a major drawback to the adoption of this by the legal industry, in that the law is relatively forgiving of evidence that is lost, as long as firms make a "reasonable effort" to preserve it. So if we archive a case to DVD (or 10 more commonly), and then 5 years later that evidence is requested but we can't produce it because the disc is damaged, we can dodge the liability, because at least we tried. We would of course be a market for better storage media down the road once those media become common, but we are not early adopters.
SanDisk has announced a 1GB Secure Digital card that can store data for 100 years, but can be written on only once. ...
Great - Now to find a foolproof way to...
Ensure that when you are burning an ISO, it really does write the disk image. Coz trust me if I find another disk with only a single ISO file, its going to be a sorry 100 years.
..is if they invented a TIME MACHINE!! Alternatively they've been hiding their now-modern (previously hyper-advanced) computer in a cave and they've just now reached the 100 year mark. We need to start spelunking to find someone testing out a 500 Year SD Card...
Store the data in active storage (tape, disk, whatever you're using)
And keep migrating it along with the rest of your storage (to prevent bitrot)
For hedging bets against obsolescence, Encode it a few different ways and pray emulation will rescue you.
Actually, store your data in an SNES ROM. Lord knows every generation will clamor for an emulated Zelda goodness.
It's rather telling that this is only being rolled out for static crime scenes and other forensic photography. Japan has a long running problem with police abuse of suspects, detainees, and arrested persons. There is no mandated recording of interrogations, only occasionally "convenient" videos of confessions. There is zero continuity of video evidence in that regard. The police also engage in coercive tactics regarding access to legal counsel, also unrecorded. Japan has a thin democratic veneer over a moderately well run corporate driven government (Hybrid fascist and socialist?) and woe to those who fall victim to law enforcement. One of the underlying reasons for the high conviction rate in japan, is that being arrested generally means conviction is a forgone conclusion, and now you're merely haggling over the sentence based on your "sincerity" of atonement and self-incrimination. If the japanese public understood the extent of the police state they live in, coupled with the abuses of the police, they would actually get off their asses and do something about it. Right now, it only draws out some uncomfortable laughter, like you made some sort of off-color joke in polite company.