Computer help: How do you future proof your digitally archived documents?
- 5/1/09 10:39 AM
There is one thing that's still around from 100 years ago...
by SD_DS - 5/16/09 1:31 AM In reply to: The future by GaryRichieIt's silver-based film! The photos of the Wright Brothers and Henry Ford were taken with silver-based film and printed on silver-based paper -- and you can still see them today. Properly stored negatives can still reproduce photos from that era.
Optics will always be around in some form, so anything that simply needs optical magnification to view or be translated back into binary should be able to be recovered. A media that requires a unique hardware configuration (tapes, laser-read media drives, punched paper tape) requires that hardware in the future. All you need with film is a curved glass and some good eyes. Of course, an optical scanner with a high DPI count would be more useful, but even a low tech method could get the job done, if necessary.
Storing music or movies digitally on film, uncompressed, with some text describing the sampling rates and amplitude of the signals, would only require a translation program to move that data to the latest output processing. Of course, it would be easier to filter the movies into the primary colors and store the red, green, and blue versions directly on silver film. Restoration would only require red, green, and blue filters during projection to restore the images to the proper colors. Again, a relatively simple optical process that can be performed at any time in the future that doesn't require high-precision, unique format, high-tech machines to last 100 years.
You are correct that there are few things from 100 years ago that have lasted and that's why it's important to remember the things that have, like silver-based film.
DIGITALLY ARCHIVING DOCUMENTS FOR PROSPERITY
by hir1pwr - 5/2/09 2:26 PM In reply to: How do you future proof your digitally archived documents? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Just to let you know there is a site www.LegacyLocker.com that is an incredible site. For me it was the answer for many things to save for the future and to leave my family all the necessary information when the time comes. It is definitely worth your time to check it out.
The safest policy is to keep up with them.
by john3347 - 5/2/09 9:13 PM In reply to: How do you future proof your digitally archived documents? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Doctor, as you surely have gotten from all the suggestions here, the only thing that is guaranteed here is change. friarchuck has probably given you the soundest advice of anyone but he/she has left out one critical item. Everyone has pointed out that no format or storage medium is totally safe for the next 10 years, let alone 25 or 50. If your information is really important to you, don't put it in a time capsule under ANY format or ANY storage medium! Plan to keep it current with whatever technology is safest at the current year. No format will disappear overnight and no medium will totally disappear overnight. (Example: .doc is now an "abandoned" document format..........but there is a transition period and transition software to update .doc documents to the current .docx format.) there will always be some reasonable transition period to spend a few minutes to a few hours or spend a few to a quite a few dollars to update your information every few years as technology and customs obsolete your current status at any given time.
In other words, plan to revisit your archived "stuff" every 3 to 5 years (or have someone else do it for you) and update it to whatever is the current format and archival medium at that time. It also goes without saying, make 3 or more copies on different medium (archival quality DVDs, external hard drives, even paper and ink) and save at different locations to protect from fire and vandalism damage. Just don't even hope to find a safe way to save a document, store it, and go back 30 years later and expect the document to be readable in whatever hardware and software is available after those 30 years.
Remembering Which File You're Looking For 20 Years From Now
by BilltheK - 5/2/09 9:42 PM In reply to: How do you future proof your digitally archived documents? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I'm surprised no one has mentioned how one indexes these files being archived so that they can find them n years from now. The more files you have, the harder that becomes, right?
Solution known for digital preservation technical aspects
by hmgladney - 5/3/09 7:40 AM In reply to: How do you future proof your digitally archived documents? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
In a nutshell, a complete solution is known for all identified technical aspects of long-term digital preservation. I believe that this solution addresses every technical requirement identified in the postings of this forum. It does not address the economic (marketplace) aspects. (Recall the first law of economics: "There is no free lunch.")
(1) The bit-strings with which files are represented will need to be copied to successor media types before those they are saved on become obsolete or degraded physically. See Web-accessible descriptions of Stanford University's LOCKSS (LOts of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe).
(2) To keep files useful, their representations need to be transformed to representations that will be forever intelligible. How to accomplish this is known, but somewhat arcane, depending on the Church-Turing thesis. For each file format, the necessary programming is estimated at about 10% of the cost of creating the editors and viewers of the file. (According to a U.K. National Archive survey about 5 years ago, some 500 to 1000 distinct file formats were in use at that time.)
(3) For some kinds of data, authenticity will be an issue (e.g., when their is a risk of fraud accomplished with unauthorized, malevolent data alterations). Protection against this class of risks can be accomplished with cryptographic message authentication and a public scheme of saving the public portion of asymmetric cryptographic keys.
(4) There are some other "ordinary" software-engineering issues--all with known solutions.
The open issues are not technical, but instead marketplace matters. Next to no-one cares enough about preserving digital information to pay a centime to accomplish it. (100 commentators on this Forum is next to no-one, compared to over 100,000,000 digital information users.) I.e., there is today no market for long-term digital preservation tools or services.
These brief notes summarize a topic that has been carefully studied and written about. Forum readers might be interested in a 2007 book, Preserving Digital Information, and also in articles published in the refereed scholarly press and identified at http://home.pacbell.net/hgladney/hmgpubs.htm#preserve .
Public or private criticism of these publications would be welcome.
Check out these Formats
by PsychGen - 5/3/09 11:01 AM In reply to: How do you future proof your digitally archived documents? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
There is a standard, it lies it physics. Based on the vibrations of certain atoms found commonly through out the universe. Presumed to be understood by any civilization advanced enough to understand physics.NASA used it to encode a record it attached to the two Voyager spacecraft that left this solar system some years ago. Http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/goldenrec.html
Barring encoding your data at the frequency of the hydrogen atom on a gold record (Diamond may be a better substrate and available soon) there is always the self decoding code. Http://www.fourmilab.ch/goldberg/setimsg.html based on mathematics.
Both formats should stand the test of time and guarantee that your data and documents will be able to be reconstructed by ambitious archeologists several eons from now. Although, neither can be read by the average monkey. 
Brilliant! That's it!
by mikefxlee - 5/3/09 1:26 PM In reply to: Check out these Formats by PsychGenNow preserve the skill to read it through oral tradition music and stories -myths and folklore and I think you hit it!
I do have an applied physics degree so I have some clue what you refer to.
Rosetta's stone
by alexanderpas - 5/4/09 1:52 PM In reply to: How do you future proof your digitally archived documents? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
first of all, the best way to store any information is plain text.
secondly, learning from the old egyptians, the best way to future proof anything is translating it.
now, back to the digital age:
first we take a piece of paper (or a rock), where we write down some lines:
the first line will have the numbers 1-9 (not using zero here.)
the second line will have 1-9 scratches below the numbers.
then there will be some calculations using only these numbers.
next up, some calculations involving 0. (introducing zero here)
and finally basic negative numbers.
now we've done basic calculations with positive and negative numbers and also introduced zero.
now we're going to do some more calculations with two digit numbers and finally three digit numbers.
that takes care of the numbers (easy part.)
now we go to the letters, which is slightly more difficult.
on a second sheet of paper (or another rock) we put down our complete alphabet, putting capitals on the first line, and non-capitals on the second line.
now we include a dictionary, taking care of words.
we're now done with the non-electronic area, let's move to the electronic area.
first we include examples of the SI units, and other standards, and a document explaining those units and standards.
secondly, we include paper drawings of a stand-alone media reader and an example of such reader.
Also included with this physical stuff is a medium containing all previous information in plaintext (confirming to those who read the medium, they've successfully cracked the code.)
taking care of that, we can now transfer ourself to the digital area:
now, taking care of the previous (tedious) steps, the fun part begins.
for each standard, there will be a plain text document documenting the standard and the same document formatted in that specific standard.
if using compression, all previous informations should be stored both compressed as well as uncompressed.
first we take care of audio, as that needs to contain all previous information. (yes, i'm suggesting an audio dictionary here.)
for text, any format that encodes the formatted text in plaintext (html, xml, odf, etc.) is good as long as the standard is completely open and completely documented.
for images, the first format needs to be lossless, and again completely open and completely documented. (yes, text inside an image.)
the second format for images may be any (including lossy) format, however, care should be taken that the documentation of the format is both in the lossy format, as well as the lossless format (and as usual plaintext.)
also included in both image format standards, will be a testing image, containing all basic colors etc. (key confirmation.)
video will be an extension to the image + audio formats.
Rosetta's stone: a misleading message
by hmgladney - 5/4/09 2:26 PM In reply to: Rosetta's stone by alexanderpasThe posting just made asserts that "first of all, the best way to store any information is plain text".
That is plain and simple nonsense. If followed, for many types of information, it would foist unaffordable burdens on anybody who might otherwise want to exploit saved information 50 years from now. Suppose that you want to save a favorite computer game for your grandchildren? How would they play it from a plain text rendition (in the unlikely circumstance that you can figure out how to save it in plain text)?
Just consider the challenges of using plain text descriptions/listings of computer programs, engineering drawings, control programs for machining tools, video/audio recordings of favorite opera broadcasts and family picnics, simulations of military situations, and so on.
One might guess that an amended statement, such as "the best way to record information that is mostly text is with plain text". However, this is likely to lose formatting information that makes the text readable, internal links within a set of related texts, and many other features that are critical to supporting a host of interactive features that scientists, other scholars, and "just plain folk" find valuable and pleasurable.
Future proof for digitally archived documents
by patternbikeparts - 11/12/09 10:17 PM In reply to: How do you future proof your digitally archived documents? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
you need to store it in either PDF or TIFF format. I would utilize the TIFF format for long term storage, personally, as Adobe does change the PDF format on a regular basis.
http://www.patternbikeparts.com/
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