Europeans Bury "Digital DNA" Inside a Mountain 161
adeelarshad82 writes "In a secret bunker deep in the Swiss Alps, European researchers deposited a 'digital genome' that will provide the blueprint for future generations to read data stored using defunct technology. The sealed box containing the key to unpick defunct digital formats will be locked away for the next quarter of a century behind a 3-1/2 ton door strong enough to resist nuclear attack at the data storage facility, known as the Swiss Fort Knox. The capsule is the culmination of the four-year 'Planets' project, which draws on the expertise of 16 European libraries, archives, and research institutions, to preserve the world's digital assets as hardware and software is superseded at a blistering pace. The project hopes to preserve 'data DNA,' the information and tools required to access and read historical digital material and prevent digital memory loss into the next century."
Quick... destroy it!. (Score:1, Interesting)
Future generations of purist can use it as a reference for "cleansings".
What if... (Score:2, Interesting)
Does this include the DRM keys? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Quick... destroy it!. (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's be real here. We're doing this so that anthropologists from other spacefaring civilizations will be able to read all the stories about us plowing ourselves to hell.
Hope they don't lose the key to the door (Score:5, Interesting)
I can just imaging after the next war / asteroid / depression / pandemic all these people standing outside this massive steel door, wondering what the hell was inside it?
Re:Quick... destroy it!. (Score:1, Interesting)
They are saying we will die off to unsustainable farming?
Obligatory xkcd reference: http://xkcd.com/593/ (Score:3, Interesting)
What did they find? DRM Hell.
Re:Hope they don't lose the key to the door (Score:3, Interesting)
I remember reading in some sci fi book about a vault that was sealed by attaching a chunk of a long-lived radioisotope to the back of a tight fitting steel door such that the heat released caused the door to expand and jam tightly into the frame. The idea was that it could only be opened by a fairly advanced civilisation that was capable of artificial refrigeration, plus of course able to recognise what was needed. I always found that an intriguing idea although anyone sufficiently determined could probably get in anyway
Don't suppose anyone knows what book that was? I've been trying to find it for years now.