[inforoots] "The digital Dark Age" (Sydney Morning Herald)

[Michael Hart]

On Mon, 26 Sep 2005, Curtis A. Jones wrote:

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Please note the above claimer no longer claims a copyright on our emails!

;-)


> A nice article on the challenge of 
> preserving data appeared in the 23 September 2005 Sydney Morning Herald: 
> "The digital Dark Age" 
> http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/the-digital-dark-age/2005/09/22/1126982184206.html?oneclick=true
>
> My wife found it at the Library Link of the Day
> http://www.tk421.net/librarylink/
> for 25 September.
> Curtis


As per all the doom-and-gloom boys saying that any one
medium for sending messages into the future might not
have great odds of success, they are totally correct.

However, they are failing to take into account multiple
media, many that have not been invented yet, for getting
this information to the future.

The major failure in all their methodologies is secrecy!

They want to keep the infomration secret for 50 years in
the case of the time capsule mentioned, and others want
secrecy for other reasons, but the truth is that these
people are creating their own Achilles heel, and then
complaining about it.

"Only wimps use backup: _real_ men just upload their important stuff
on FTP, and let the rest of the world mirror it ;)" - Linus Torvalds

If you really want something preserved for the future,
you simply give it to millions of people who value it
in one way or another, and THEY will convert it through
various media in the future.

For example, after one particularly hard all-nighter,
I posted three Project Gutenberg eBooks, two copies each,
on three different sites, all very far apart, as usual,
and then went to sleep.  When I woke up I found that all
6 copies had vanished, and never found out how or why,
even to this day.  I was distraught at the prospect of
having to do all that work all over again, and didn't
have the energy to do it all right away. . .so I asked
on some email lists if anyone had downloaded them before
they disappeared.  Sure enough, I got copies back right
away, and reposted them.

Project Gutenberg's "Unlimited Distribution" philosophy
is a perfect match for the Internet, as people copy all
our eBooks on a continuous basis, and thus it should be
the perfect way to send information to the future.

After all, how many sites do you know that still have a
copy of everything they posted since 1971?


Thanks!!!


So Nice To Hear From You!


Michael


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Michael S. Hart
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Project Gutenberg
Executive Coordinator
"*Internet User ~#100*"

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