Offline Long-Term Digital Archival - Archiving data for when the Internet cannot be depended on.

[Preacher ✝]

I have 2 20TB HDDs, one backing up the other, and nearly full with movies and tv shows. More media than anyone can watch in a lifetime.

 

[QE65]

General plug for the Monolith command line utility. Creates a standalone HTML local archive of a website with a bunch of additional options. Great for having a fully offline archive.

 

[Scatty]

I started building a series of what I call "data vaults". Get a hard drive, fill it up with what you want, including both PC and Android readers/players for the files, label it vault v1-1, then mirror that onto another identical drive and call it vault v1-2. Put the second on in a faraday cage.

At some point, pick up a bigger drive and label it vault v2-1 and start adding to it, and repeat forever.

Also make sure to include low-power devices in the faraday cage along with USB solar panels. For example, put your old phone in there when you upgrade. This will ensure that if shit really gets fucked, you can play banjo kazooie in bed while the troons set each other on fire.

 

[Boggy B]

HTTrack can be used (with varying levels of success) to archive websites

If you have trouble with this, set winhttrack's browser agent to 'ie6'; basically no website turns away Grandma's 2001 dial-up with Niggernet Exploder 6.

 

[Sperg_rancher]

Nobody's mentioned it yet- GitHub is storing code on reels of film in Svalbard, article says under 800 feet of permafrost: https://archiveprogram.github.com/arctic-vault/

looks like the medium is optical, and is stable for over 1000 years. each reel is 120 GB. so if you're looking for long term, there ya go.

 

[Squishie PP]

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is how to locally mirror software repositories, which would eventually be a requirement for getting new OS installs up and running in a scenario where the Internet is unusable. There is a good guide for doing this across a number of different Linux distros available here: https://www.dbi-services.com/blog/using-offline-repositories-and-local-packages-for-installation/
The basic summary of this process is that you use one computer to mirror the software repositories, then use that computer as a repository mirror that others can install software from over LAN.

This only applies to Linux, since current versions of MacOS and Windows are too dependent on the Internet to even be usable in this scenario. I am sure something similar can be done with BSD too, but that is outside my knowledge. And perhaps Windows XP, Vista, and 7 would still be installable offline, though I can't say I have tried at all.

 

[geckogoy]

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is how to locally mirror software repositories, which would eventually be a requirement for getting new OS installs up and running in a scenario where the Internet is unusable. There is a good guide for doing this across a number of different Linux distros available here: https://www.dbi-services.com/blog/using-offline-repositories-and-local-packages-for-installation/
The basic summary of this process is that you use one computer to mirror the software repositories, then use that computer as a repository mirror that others can install software from over LAN.

This only applies to Linux, since current versions of MacOS and Windows are too dependent on the Internet to even be usable in this scenario. I am sure something similar can be done with BSD too, but that is outside my knowledge. And perhaps Windows XP, Vista, and 7 would still be installable offline, though I can't say I have tried at all.

The enterprise side respects closed networks, so its possible to set up an offline domain controller and push updates to windows through it (this was done at both the places I worked). Its almost certainly true of osx as well. As far as home networks go I think both companies stance is 'i hate you and hope you die' so you are pretty much stuck with linux there

 

[Squishie PP]

The enterprise side respects closed networks, so its possible to set up an offline domain controller and push updates to windows through it (this was done at both the places I worked). Its almost certainly true of osx as well. As far as home networks go I think both companies stance is 'i hate you and hope you die' so you are pretty much stuck with linux there

Precisely. So for Windows users, keeping software is going to be a lot more of a manual process; it will require keeping all the installer files for the software you want to use, and verifying that each installer actually works while offline. Many don't nowadays, in which case you will just have to copy the entire CProgram Files directory to the target machine.
Security updates may or may not be as important in this scenario, depending on whether or not the internet is completely dead or just requires your hardware to be coupled to your Mark of the Beast™ to use at all.

 

[Jotch]

@Null you recently eluded to having a massive archive of quality Internet video, would you care to share any videos/info? Or is it all on /archive/?

 

[Xarpho's Return]

@Null you recently eluded to having a massive archive of quality Internet video, would you care to share any videos/info? Or is it all on /archive/?

I would assume it's here. Though /Zoosadism seems to be deleted, it used to have a big warning page that said this was bad stuff and illegal to view in certain jurisdictions like Oregon.

 

[ChefBourgeoisie]

On the bulk/archival side, nanoetched quartz discs are a possibility that could store hundred of terabytes "forever" but aren't going to be rewritable. To repl

No one really needs them to be rewritable. Much of what I want to store is in its highest resolution, final format. Books, flac audio. If it was bulk enough, I'd be getting 4k bluray rips. And price isn't an issue either, even if a drive cost $50,000... I would make it work. My great-great-nth-grandchildren would cherish the library I put together for them. But I think the science fiction technologies are going to be out of reach forever.

Technology is, unfortunately, a function of population size. Network effects explode as population grows... if you have 4 supergeniuses in a population of 4 billion, and (on average) 8 in a population of 8 billion, you don't double the world capacity of supergeniuses. They're smarter together, way more than double when you just had 4. Medical advances, science, everything is tied to population size. So, what's going to happen with our now shrinking population? Well, we'll struggle to even hold on to what we have. Who had "underpopulation" on their doomsday bingo card? Anyone?