And the Net forgets: The Utopia of the Eternal Memory
The Internet offers undreamt-of possibilities. But it is not permanent. What can be found online today will disappear tomorrow in digital nirvana - with serious consequences, especially for journalism.
The Internet forgets nothing, so the widespread belief. But appearances are deceptive. While we type, scroll, wipe, liken and post and drive the digital knowledge store to new, dizzying heights day after day, its foundations rot faster than they can be saved from decay. Old websites disappear, links lead nowhere after just a few years. This will have dramatic consequences for journalism and public memory in particular. Digital journalism is a fine thing. However, it is not constant in time.
To understand why, it is worth taking a look into the past. The mass loss of information is not a phenomenon of modernity, it can be found again and again in history. The cause does not lie in a lack of knowledge about correct archiving, but in our attitude. The reliable protection of information over long periods of time is a deliberate act. It requires the awareness that something should be preserved and decisions about what should be preserved and how.
The beginning of book printing in the West in the 15th century is a good example of this. Many early books were found on paper on a medium that, compared to parchment, does not necessarily stand for longevity - they were often not considered valuable enough to be preserved due to their mass availability. Accordingly, little has been preserved of them. Even in monastery libraries, for many the ultimate repository of knowledge, not everything was preserved. Old manuscripts or early printed books were often exchanged for newer ones and the old copies were then misused, for example as basic material for book covers or inner book covers.
The drama was repeated in modern times. Large parts of the American film stock from the first four decades of cinema are now considered lost. In particular, films made before the beginning of the sound film era around 1928 have hardly survived - some estimates speak of just 10 percent that have survived. Here, too, an insecure carrier medium is to blame. The nitrate film used was highly flammable and often went up in flames by itself. But here, too, the well-known lack of interest in preservation is to be found. The studios needed space in their camps, silent films were considered almost worthless in the age of sound film. What one could get rid of was wasted, the rest destroyed.
Paper lives longer
So it seems we've made the same mistakes over and over again. The web is no exception. Digital data may be tempting at first glance - they can be copied endlessly, are machine-readable, can be stored in large quantities in the smallest space - but what is lost here is usually irretrievable. Even paper beats the longevity of a server hard disk by several hundred years.
Read more (English):
https://t.me/BlackBox_Archiv/334
Source and original text:
https://www.nzz.ch/feuilleton/internet-und-datenspeicher-das-nerz-vergisst-doch-ld.1476987
#report #thinkabout #eternal #memory #why
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_DE
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_EN
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_ES
The Internet offers undreamt-of possibilities. But it is not permanent. What can be found online today will disappear tomorrow in digital nirvana - with serious consequences, especially for journalism.
The Internet forgets nothing, so the widespread belief. But appearances are deceptive. While we type, scroll, wipe, liken and post and drive the digital knowledge store to new, dizzying heights day after day, its foundations rot faster than they can be saved from decay. Old websites disappear, links lead nowhere after just a few years. This will have dramatic consequences for journalism and public memory in particular. Digital journalism is a fine thing. However, it is not constant in time.
To understand why, it is worth taking a look into the past. The mass loss of information is not a phenomenon of modernity, it can be found again and again in history. The cause does not lie in a lack of knowledge about correct archiving, but in our attitude. The reliable protection of information over long periods of time is a deliberate act. It requires the awareness that something should be preserved and decisions about what should be preserved and how.
The beginning of book printing in the West in the 15th century is a good example of this. Many early books were found on paper on a medium that, compared to parchment, does not necessarily stand for longevity - they were often not considered valuable enough to be preserved due to their mass availability. Accordingly, little has been preserved of them. Even in monastery libraries, for many the ultimate repository of knowledge, not everything was preserved. Old manuscripts or early printed books were often exchanged for newer ones and the old copies were then misused, for example as basic material for book covers or inner book covers.
The drama was repeated in modern times. Large parts of the American film stock from the first four decades of cinema are now considered lost. In particular, films made before the beginning of the sound film era around 1928 have hardly survived - some estimates speak of just 10 percent that have survived. Here, too, an insecure carrier medium is to blame. The nitrate film used was highly flammable and often went up in flames by itself. But here, too, the well-known lack of interest in preservation is to be found. The studios needed space in their camps, silent films were considered almost worthless in the age of sound film. What one could get rid of was wasted, the rest destroyed.
Paper lives longer
So it seems we've made the same mistakes over and over again. The web is no exception. Digital data may be tempting at first glance - they can be copied endlessly, are machine-readable, can be stored in large quantities in the smallest space - but what is lost here is usually irretrievable. Even paper beats the longevity of a server hard disk by several hundred years.
Read more (English):
https://t.me/BlackBox_Archiv/334
Source and original text:
https://www.nzz.ch/feuilleton/internet-und-datenspeicher-das-nerz-vergisst-doch-ld.1476987
#report #thinkabout #eternal #memory #why
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_DE
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_EN
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_ES