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Warning of data ticking time bomb
BBC ^ | 03 July 2007 | Unknown

Posted on 07/05/2007 9:30:29 AM PDT by ShadowAce

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1 posted on 07/05/2007 9:30:33 AM PDT by ShadowAce
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To: rdb3; chance33_98; Calvinist_Dark_Lord; PenguinWry; GodGunsandGuts; CyberCowboy777; Salo; Bobsat; ..

2 posted on 07/05/2007 9:30:57 AM PDT by ShadowAce (Linux -- The Ultimate Windows Service Pack)
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To: ShadowAce
"We cannot afford to let digital assets being created today disappear. We need to make information created in the digital age to be as resilient as paper."

Well, that's quite obvious. It's much easier to destroy a compact disc than to shred an entire encyclopaedia set which is equivalent to the amount of data the disc is capable of containing.

3 posted on 07/05/2007 9:34:36 AM PDT by CarrotAndStick (The articles posted by me needn't necessarily reflect my opinion.)
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To: ShadowAce

Well, there’s always .txt.

Even with this fancy formats, you can always cat them on a Unix box, or edit in vi.


4 posted on 07/05/2007 9:34:46 AM PDT by proxy_user
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To: ShadowAce
"If you put paper on shelves, it's pretty certain it is going to be there in a hundred years."

If I wrote a telephone number on it - shelf life won't reach 100 seconds.

5 posted on 07/05/2007 9:40:13 AM PDT by norton
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To: proxy_user

LOL! My thoughts exactly


6 posted on 07/05/2007 9:42:40 AM PDT by ShadowAce (Linux -- The Ultimate Windows Service Pack)
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To: ShadowAce

This is a very serious issue complicated by the fact that there is a growing tenancy to require businesses to retain records for longer periods of time. This is often an issue not realized by the business until too late.

My recommendations to a business that faces a 5 year or greater records retention need is to create a “record” - actually an image of the standard operating system loaded with all of the appropriate applications necessary to read any of the file formats for that year. Then, during the annual records archival process, store that image along with the data.

This then creates an image for each year stored on a CD or DVD. But what happens for systems say 10 years down the road when CD players are no longer available? While this does tend to solve the software issues, what do you do about hardware compatibility?

I know one company that buys new PC hardware every 2 years and replaces 1/3 of their companies PCs at that time. What they do is buy an extra system and mothball it right away in their archives room. Brand new PC, sitting there doing nothing .... just for the purpose of having a working system to read old files / software programs.


7 posted on 07/05/2007 9:43:59 AM PDT by taxcontrol
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To: proxy_user
It doesn't even have to be .txt, though it would be simplest.

We just need a format in which the document does not have tons of arcane formatting codes. The simpler the better.

8 posted on 07/05/2007 9:44:25 AM PDT by ShadowAce (Linux -- The Ultimate Windows Service Pack)
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To: taxcontrol
But what happens for systems say 10 years down the road when CD players are no longer available?

With the price/gigabyte falling as fast as it has the past few years, why depend on CD? A good SAN with RAIDed drives should keep data safe. As one HDD in the SAN fails, merely replace it. The RAID system will rebuild the new drive without any fuss.

9 posted on 07/05/2007 9:49:23 AM PDT by ShadowAce (Linux -- The Ultimate Windows Service Pack)
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To: taxcontrol

How common is record retention on CD or DVD? I thought many backups were on hard disk and/or tape.


10 posted on 07/05/2007 9:53:44 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
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To: ShadowAce

Some programs are better than others at this. The current WordPerfect can still read early ‘80s Wordstar. Even a brand new machine can boot into DOS, and run old copies of Multimate . For the really hard up, there are conversion services. We’ve been through this before . . . punch cards, DEC tape, paper tape anybody? How about 9 track? The really important stuff has been moved onto optical disc already. You can find old CPM , Atari and Commodore stuff on FTP servers anywhere. The old Unix stuff never even went away.

Currently, we have a newly mature industry. Yeah, we have trubles reading old compugraphics diskettes, and forget those 160MB tape cartridges! However, PDF, HTML and XML are industry wide standards. PDF in particular, is not going anywhere for a long, LONG time (for one thing US Gov issues docs in that format, and the readers are free).


11 posted on 07/05/2007 9:54:12 AM PDT by sittnick (There is no salvation in politics.)
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To: ShadowAce

The same problem exists with photos. Photos taken during the Civil War are more permanent than those taken since the fifties. Inks fade and disappear whereas those old silver emulsions never fade.
I recently transferred about 800 kodachrome and ektachrome slides taken in Viet Nam to digital format. About 2/3’s of them were OK, but the remaining 1/3 were color faded in all but the reds. By faded, I mean there was no trace of any color except red.


12 posted on 07/05/2007 9:55:00 AM PDT by BuffaloJack
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To: norton
If you put paper on shelves, it's pretty certain it is going to be there in a hundred years.

Apparently, this woman has never heard of Sandy Berger.

13 posted on 07/05/2007 9:55:04 AM PDT by KevinB
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To: proxy_user

Wow, another vi user!! Thought I was the last one! ;o)


14 posted on 07/05/2007 9:55:33 AM PDT by LIConFem (Thompson 2008. Lifetime ACU Rating: 86 -- Hunter 2008 (VP) Lifetime ACU Rating: 92)
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To: stainlessbanner

Data is normally kept on tape - true. But most OS or system image software is currently designed to burn ISO images to CD or DVD.


15 posted on 07/05/2007 9:55:39 AM PDT by taxcontrol
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To: sittnick

Are zip drives now dead? I still have backups stored on zip disks. I would presume the external drives can still be found and installed on a port?

F


16 posted on 07/05/2007 10:01:54 AM PDT by Frank Sheed (Fr. V. R. Capodanno, Lt, USN, Catholic Chaplain. 3rd/5th, 1st Marine Div., FMF. MOH, posthumously.)
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To: stainlessbanner

Have you ever had stuff on a CD or DVD?
The recording is made on a laser sensitive dye backed with aluminum. Take a CD or DVD and put a piece of tape on the label side. Leave it a day or two then remove the tape. The tape will pull off the label, and aluminum layer and the disk will be shot. A big gouge on the record side is easily buffer out and repaired, a tiny scratch on the label (like writing with a ball point pen) will render the disk un-usable. The atmosphere can slowly corrode the aluminum right through the label, rendering the disk useless in a few years. Any time you record a CD or DVD make two copies because you don’t want to depend on these disks to archive data.


17 posted on 07/05/2007 10:03:27 AM PDT by BuffaloJack
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To: LIConFem

vi is the only thing you can count on when you log into a strange Unix box.

If you are bought in a lot to look at other’s problems, it’s the only way to go. That, and ‘find . * | xargs grep somthing’


18 posted on 07/05/2007 10:04:14 AM PDT by proxy_user
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To: LIConFem
Thought I was the last one! ;o)

Nope--I'm here also.

19 posted on 07/05/2007 10:04:39 AM PDT by ShadowAce (Linux -- The Ultimate Windows Service Pack)
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To: CarrotAndStick

However its much easier to have a redundant off site copy of every CD you have then every book..


20 posted on 07/05/2007 10:07:49 AM PDT by N3WBI3 (Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak....)
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