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The Internet Archive Is Building a Canadian Copy To Protect Itself From Trump (theverge.com)

The Internet Archive, a digital library nonprofit that preserves billions of webpages for the historical record, is building a backup archive in Canada after the election of Donald Trump. The Verge adds: Today, it began collecting donations for the Internet Archive of Canada, intended to create a copy of the archive outside the United States. "On November 9th in America, we woke up to a new administration promising radical change," writes founder Brewster Kahle. "It was a firm reminder that institutions like ours, built for the long-term, need to design for change. For us, it means keeping our cultural materials safe, private and perpetually accessible. It means preparing for a web that may face greater restrictions. It means serving patrons in a world in which government surveillance is not going away; indeed it looks like it will increase."

12 of 590 comments (clear)

  1. Valid by TFlan91 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    With Trumps position on libel laws, smart move to project against legal action.

    Still need to project against the ever-in-the-news cyber vulnerabilities. In today's world, physical location only goes so far.

    1. Re: Valid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Wrong. The Queen is Canada's head of state. And she rules with Divine Authority meaning God IS the ruler of Canada. It's right in the preamble of our Constitution. I took an oath to that withered old clam when I joined the Canadian Armed Forces. I didn't take one to the PM or Canada. Get your facts straight.

  2. Who Will Protect the Internet Archive Itself? by Baldrson · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you have a domain name under which you have a lot of content -- an example is kuro5hin.org -- and, after a decade or so you find yourself impoverished and stressed to the point that you can't renew the domain registration (as did Rusty Foster), a domain squatter jumps on it and holds it hostage for thousands of dollars. When that happens, frequently even "The Wayback Machine" is told to deep-six the archived content by the simple expedient of placing a robots.txt file in the home directory of the hijacked domain. "The Wayback Machine" then dutifully removes public access to the content. OH but the fun doesn't stop there! So now let's say you fork over the ransom money to the domain squatter, get the domain name back and remove the robots.txt. Of course "The Wayback Machine" then restores public access to all those articles... right?

    WRONG!

    archive.org does keep it stored and it is accessible to those with insider status, but no more public access EVER.

    There really is value in hoarding history and if you can get away with it by doing it "on accident" all the better!

  3. Is Canada Better? by slashkitty · · Score: 1, Interesting

    It's going to have to be in all in french now, right? And, aren't some of their harassment laws much worse? Some of this internet archive certainly offends some minority.

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    -- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
  4. Surprised they aren't doing this already by Solandri · · Score: 4, Interesting

    They should be keeping copies of the archive in multiple locations, along with parity files which can be used to validate potentially compromised and reconstruct corrupted data. That way if one location goes down or is destroyed (fires happen), you still have copies elsewhere. If one site gets hacked and the data changed, you can cross-reference the parity info with other sites to determine which is real and which is modified, and revert the changed data. Kinda like a worldwide ZFS or RAID 5.

    Trump makes for a convenient excuse. But given that they're literally keeping snapshots of history, they should already be taking these steps just to safeguard the integrity of the data.

  5. With a USB-3.0 3TB drive for less than $100?... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I would think a more decentralized solution would be in line. Home servers, or for the oppressed low cost ISP tier masses, "peer to peer"..., or for the really oppressed, "sneakernet".

    Having the internet archive in a single place, with any sort of centralized authority was a bad idea from the beginning. Centralized services are targets, end of story, game over.

  6. I'll move out of the country if Trump wins! by bobbied · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Don't let the door in that big beautiful wall hit you on the way out with all that data..

    Seriously? You are doing this because you are worried Trump might make you destroy your data or what? Where do folks get such foolishness into their heads.. I get the impression that, like the pending vote recounts going on what will accomplish nothing of importance (Trump will still be president come January), this is really just a scam to get attention, funding or both...

    BTW, you really SHOULD have multiple copies of your data already. If it's your company's life blood you had better have as many copies as you can afford to keep in varying geographic locations and an active program to keep said backups freshened, tested and ready to keep you in business should some natural, or man made disaster take out your primary business location. If you don't, you are stupid... More stupid than this little "Trump scares me" press release is.. Come on, you need a business continuity plan here, and not because of who's going to be president, but because the world is a dangerous place and you never know when the HQ server farm will end up a pile of ashes or spread out over a few square miles by a really strong wind.

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    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  7. One little problem by Orgasmatron · · Score: 4, Interesting

    America is the only place in the world where it is legally permitted to criticize anyone and everyone.

    See, for example: The creepy tyranny of Canada's hate speech laws

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    See that "Preview" button?
  8. Re:Well then... by HornWumpus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    At least three backups, Iceland, Russia and China. Not that Russia and China are great, their data will likely have to be encrypted...but they are among the few that won't just take an American order and execute.

    Each should have a provision for marking part of its dataset 'edited by court order' (in the foreign copies, so out of the crooked courts reach).

    Canada's hate speech laws are awful, almost rival Muslim nations for 'worst practice'.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  9. Re:What's Trump Got To Do With It? by HiThere · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yes, but that's a part of the consistent pattern. The Democrats use a need of the people to create enhanced government power. (Never mind whether it's a real need of the people, it just needs to be sold as one.) Then the Republicans take power and use that increased power for elitist ends. Then the Democrats take power and use a need of the people to create enhanced government power.....

    At no point in the cycle is the government power decreased, despite the rhetoric sometimes used by the Republicans.

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    I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  10. Re:Well then... by DarkOx · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Sadly its not hyperbole, this probably does need doing. The reason its happening now is because there are lots of lefty looser in tech, they made some token gripes about the surveillance stuff going on but mostly they were okay with it because 'their guy' was in charge.

    Now that someone else is in charge, suddenly they are scared. Hopefully they will learn a hard lesson about big government, hint: your party is not always in power!

    All and all though the threats to internet freedoms are real, and I don't see Trump (who I did vote for in the general, for other reasons) as likely to be someone who will reverse that trend. I also don't believe Hillary would have done anything but make matters in that regard worse either.

    This is the same deal as with the differed action people. Personally I think illegal are just that criminals and should be deported! Yes even people brought here as children! I would support the idea that people brought here as children should be allowed to apply for legal re-entry without prejudice however but they should go. Trump really ought to use the DOCA list as a road map for rounding them up. Hopefully that would make an impression on the left about the wisdom of allowing the federal government to register people and property!

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    Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
  11. Wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Lincoln didn't have the power to suspend Habeas Corpus. Roosevelt didn't have the power to send American citizens of Japanese-decent to internment camps.

    You are wrong, the Supreme Court said that he did and it was Constitutional, and that's the only legal opinion that matters. In addition Korematsu v. United States has not been overturned.

    You are also wrong about Lincoln suspending Habeas Corpus; that is explicitly allowed by the Constitution: "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it" The Civil War was most certainly rebellion; thus explicitly allowed.

    Congratulations on batting 0 for 2. (I'm in no way stating that I agree with the laws; only that the actions were lawful according to the court case and letter of the law. )