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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."
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.
It means serving patrons in a world in which government surveillance is not going away; indeed it looks like it will increase.
Why didn't they start this years ago when Obama extended and expanded the Patriot Act? Sounds like more leftist hypocrisy and hyperbole to me.
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!
Seastead this.
Nah. Put it in Mexico; it will be protected by a big wall.
Really to protect from Trump? I'm not a supporter, but the paranoid reactions to his presidency are just insane. If that truly is the reason, it is just nuts.
That should have been done years ago. It's stupid to keep something unique, important, and easily duplicated in a single country. The "Trump" point is that some people think he's got a low regard for constitutional rights, and will pack the Supreme Court to this end. This could make it possible (and legal) for the government to effectively revise history by editing the archives.
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.
The progressive elements have become nothing if predictable. It wasn't that long ago that Obama got the Nobel Peace prize simply for being elected President. Now we have the opposite but equal over-reaction with. Instead of Obama saving the world, we have Trump destroying it. I have no doubt that just like Obama didn't earn the Nobel Peace prize, Trump won't earn the terror his election has triggered.
-- Slashdot, making the Left look conservative since 1997.
How about Russia?
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
See that "Preview" button?
I've decided to build a giant dome with battery powered artificial "sunlight" as I heard Trump is going to outlaw the sun. I've also added some support braces into my home's roof in case the sky does actually fall, and I've heard a credible rumor that he may in fact be a transgendered succubus.
Geez people get a grip. It's like half the population of the country is throwing a temper tantrum like a toddler who acts like the world is ending because they can't get the toy they want. Under a Trump presidency - some things will not go the way you want. That $15 minimum wage ain't happening and student loans for useless degrees aren't going to be forgiven. Overall though - things aren't going to change much.
Sit back, and relax. Maybe you'll like the way he handles the country, but probably not. Regardless, the country isn't going to fall apart.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
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.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I'll ignore all the political aspects of this discussion and simply point out that this is a rather expensive proposition. I don't see a recent size estimate, but we know that the site increased from 10PB to 15PB between 2012 and 2014, so it's reasonable to estimate that it's around 23PB today.
How expensive is 23PB of storage, including the serves themselves? If we use BackBlaze's cost estimates (they build custom high-density chassis) of $0.036/GB, we get a figure of roughly $868k USD spread across 49x4U servers. Of course, that's just the hardware. The colocation space (including power and connectivity) would be at least $10,000 CAD per month.
We do not have 1/4 the free speech laws as America. In fact right now we are looking at Bill C-16, which may class improper pronoun use as harassment. Making it entirely possibly that every time someone transitions, all archives of their past gender would need to be updated or erased. While I am not positive this one law is a serious threat to The Internet Archive operating in Canada, it shows how tenuous their situation would be if they operated in Canada.
This is as ridiculous as American citizens talking about moving to Canada. You already need id to vote here and we do not allow illegal immigrants to stay in the country. We are the exact thing all these people do not want America to become.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
isnt canada still technically ruled by the queen of england??
No Canada is technically ruled by the Queen of Canada. The title is held by the same person but it is entirely separate and equal to her title as the Queen of England. The Canadian and UK Parliaments are equal but separate: no law passed by the UK parliament affects Canada and no law passed by the Canadian parliament affects the UK. But please don't let these facts get in the way of a good rant...
The trouble with Trump is that between his complete lack of experience in government, and his continued declarations of clearly unconstitutional ideas, he's an unknown. Most people don't have a reason to be terrified of anything, this is true. However, it gives people an opportunity to take stock of things and do a little risk assessment.
In this case, I think it's a good move. Not because Trump will ruin the world, but becuase "Oh, hey, now that you mention it, all this really really important information in a single country is a pretty dumb move, because, laws and stuff can change."
The only reason Korematsu hasn't been overturned is that it hasn't come under judicial review. The actual conviction was overturned in 1983 because the government knowingly submitted false information. The Department of Justice issued a notice confirming that the solicitor general at the time was in error. If the ruling were to come under review, it's generally agreed that it would be overturned. Instead of explicitly overturning it, it just never gets cited as president.
Even if Korematsu vs. the United States was initially ruled unconstitutional, the president still would've had the power to set up the camps until that ruling (and the other before it) told him to knock it off. That's the concern.