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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."
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.
I don't know. On the other hand, the industry has gotten a lot better at reusing connections and being backwards-compatible. USB 3.0 is backwards compatible with USB 1.1, I believe. Serially attached SCSI uses the same connection as SATA. We haven't moved beyond 24 pin motherboard power connectors for ages. The new SDXC standard still accepts regular SD cards. The examples go on and on.
This signature serves no purpose other than to help you see which posts were made by me.
"Until you realize that the last reader for it will be extinct in 20."
Not necessarily. They still make turntables for LP records.
Also, if the specification is well documented, then someone can always build a reader if it really matters. File formats are likely to be more troublesome.
They have interfaced SD card readers to the ZX Spectrum which is more like 30. Beyond that there are not really any computers worth mentioning. It's not impossible that you will be able to read it for quite long.
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.
...since the 'other news' today says that's all we have left [ http://www.physorg.com/news196489543.html ]...
It's not as simple as stating paper. There is good and there is bad paper when it comes to longevity. Papyrus (dead sea scrolls) and lint paper are good, but paper used in newspapers is decaying. The yellowish color that it gets over a few years is an indication of it's decay. It can be stopped, but at a cost.
Even laser printed paper have problems - the printed text is only sticking to the surface of the paper. Ink penetrates the paper more and bleeds into the fibers. But some ink is better than other so the ordinary inkjet ink may not be a good choice anyway. A classic ink based on metal (E.g. iron) may be a choice since even though it may change over time the print will last.
Laser etching in a glass pane would probably be safe from decay but would be hard to store safely - and be expensive. At least it would probably last long enough to allow the world to forget that this civilization did exist.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
You're not being imaginative enough. One very hot topic of research in reliable computing right now are self-describing file formats. They are less space-efficient but they should effectively solve the software-side problem of long term storage. Interesting enough, the US National Archive is one of the biggest players on the block when it comes to thing kind of research.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Egyptians mostly used papyrus, it was the Sumerians who used clay tablets for documents. If baked, they are virtually indestructible (there are plenty 5 or 6 thousand years old) and museums now have millions of them slowly being collated and translated.
You should buy better media. My oldest CD-Rs (Mitsui Gold, Philips/Ritek) were burned 02/1998. All of them still read perfectly.
Except historically, it's not been character encoding that's the problem. It's been lifespan of suitable media reading equipment.
I defy you to find a cheap, easy way to read 50 year old media, even if the media itself is in pristine condition. Hell, I'll even make it easier for you and set the limit at 30 year old media. There are one or two companies around that specialise in getting data from old media onto newer media, and they charge an arm and a leg. There's a reason for this.
You apparently didn't bother to read the link in the parent. It specifically refutes your example and the method under which you claim it operates.
If you'd like to refute the link feel free, but please cite credentials at least as authoritative as C. Wu, Science News, Vol. 153, No. 22, May 30, 1998, p. 341 or Zanotto, E.D. 1998. Do cathedral glasses flow? American Journal of Physics 66(May):392, as the linked page does.
The tl;dr version, if my memory serves me accurately:
The panes of glass which are thicker at one side are the side effect of the imprecise glass manufacturing skill of that time. The panes were usually installed thickest-side-down because that is the most sensible from an engineering point of view: center of mass as low as possible for the most stability. However, some examples have been found of glass that was installed upside-down (thickest side at the top, either by accident or by chance), refuting the notion that the thickness at the bottom is caused by the glass deforming slightly over time.
You could probably verify all that by looking online for an article that doesn’t require subscription to access but I’m to lazy to bother right now...
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Summary is misleading. TFA doesn't go into detail about age testing. I imagine they temperature test these chips by "aging" them in an oven at 250C for several days.
We do that with the chips we make at my company. It's a pretty reliable indicator of data longevity.
Very informative. I'm usually pretty good about avoiding urban legend. TY