Ask Slashdot: Protecting Data From a Carrington Event?

kactusotp writes "I run a small indie game company, and since source code is kind of our lifeblood, I'm pretty paranoid about backups. Every system has a local copy, servers run from a RAID 5 NAS, we have complete offsite backups, backup to keyrings/mobile phones, and cloud backups in other countries as well. With all the talk about solar flares and other such near-extinction events lately, I've been wondering: is it actually possible to store or protect data in such a way that if such an event occurred, data survives and is recoverable in a useful form? Optical and magnetic media would probably be rendered useless by a large enough solar flare, and storing source code/graphics in paper format would be impractical to recover, so Slashdot, short of building a Faraday cage 100 km below the surface of the Moon, how could you protect data to survive a modern day Carrington event?"

Comments

How to stop Carrington events

[maroberts]

how could you protect data to survive a modern day Carrington event?

Ban reruns of Dynasty on TV?

Pray, Mr. Babbage...

[Samantha Wright]

To paraphrase:

On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if the surface of the Earth is fried by a solar flare and all computers are rendered inoperable, how can one protect a video game?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a need.

Re:Don't panic!

[flyingsquid]

TRANSCRIPT: EMERGENCY STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE BY ALL NEWS AGENCIES AND EMERGENCY BROADCAST CHANNELS. "My fellow Americans. I stand before you as President to tell you that at 12:03 AM Eastern Time, a massive asteroid over ten miles in diameter impacted the coast of the North Sea at a speed of over 50,000 miles per hour. This asteroid caused a blast equivalent to over one million of our most powerful H-bombs. At least 100 million souls were killed by the shockwave, but even as we speak, a mile-high tsunami is sweeping across Europe, drowning thousands of years of civilization in the blink of an eye. Molten debris is now being sent hurtling towards us in suborbital trajectories, and will soon ignite wildfires across the globe. Any of you who are unfortunate enough to survive the coming inferno will face an earth that has become a ruined hellscape. With ash blotting out the skies, all crops and plants will wither and die, and the unlucky survivors of civilization will descend into an orgy of cannibalism as they desperately try to consume their friends and families to survive the freezing snows and darkness of our Apocalypse. But I have saved the worst news, the most bitter tidings, for last.

"For with the destruction of Finland, the source code for 'Angry Birds Rio' has been lost to us. Forever. I ask that you now observe a moment of silence. [chokes back tears]. Perhaps we could have carried on otherwise. Perhaps we could have found the will to carry on. The United States as we knew it would never have survived this catastrophe, but perhaps we could have saved the species, and rebuilt something from the ashes. But not now. With the loss of Angry Birds Rio, all hope has been extinguished. There is simply no reason to carry on living. Even if we could save the species, what would be the point? And so I have decided that, with our remaining resources, the American Government will distribute cyanide capsules to help ease your passing. I will now commit suicide live on camera, to demonstrate to you the proper way to consume the cyanide poison capsule. God have mercy on our souls."

Re:Don't panic!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can arrange for 30 days of potable water...

Can't all water be put in pots?