24 Apr
2008
24 Apr
'08
11:39 p.m.
On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 07:30:58AM -1000, Tim Newsham wrote:
PGP successfully did this (primarily to work-around US crypto laws):
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=7024
Archiving digital data is actually a major problem: Not only do you
need to be able to physically read the media but you need to be able
to interpret the bits that you read. This probably means access to
the software that was used to create it (more data to archive) running
on the relevant OS (yet more data) and hardware (you might be able to
emulate this if someone archive a good-enough description).
--
Peter Jeremy
Please excuse any delays as the result of my ISP's inability to implement
an MTA that is either RFC2821-compliant or matches their claimed behaviour.
I guess we
need to start archiving all software on acid-free archival
paper, then. It's the only way it'll survive.
And not necessarily in human readable form -- how about some format
that is very easy to ocr with minimal errors and error correcting codes?