This is the credo of the
Archive Team, whose existence was brought to my attention by a post in The Long Now Blog,
Where does the data go when the host dies?
In the wake of the crumbling Yahoo! behemoth and the clamor of mass Delicious data dumps, it’s worthwhile to stop and ask ourselves just how “archived” is the data that we create and share in these free hosting sites? What kind of promises do these sites make to preserve our information and to care about the hundreds of hours we spend uploading, tagging, and arranging it? In the case of Yahoo! and all of its affiliate sites, none whatsoever.
The funny thing is, we were warned about this over two years ago. In January 2009, the Archive Team said in no uncertain terms, “Please do not use Yahoo or Yahoo-owned sites for any non-retrievable personal data.”
From the Archive Team page,
Why Back Up?
- Because they don't care about you
- Disaster will strike
- But there is still hope
Luckily, a few basic (and cheap) precautions can bring the long-term care of your data into your own hands, away from the short-term world of the Internet.
More "Ideas about Long-term Thinking" related to digital technology may be found at The Long Now Blog category
Digital Dark Age.
No comments:
Post a Comment