The Internet Is My Hard Drive February 20, 2008
Posted by Matthew Woolums in Articles/Videos, Opinion.trackback
Bruce Schneier has posted an interesting commentary on Wired that essentially says the Internet is becoming more and more our hard drive. As that happens, we are subject to intermittent drive failures and some of our ‘data’ is lost. This can happen when a site is hacked and there is no backup, or when a service goes off-line like my Blackberry did last week.
I guess it is inevitable that the more stuff I keep on the Internet, or on any technology, the more susceptible it is to getting lost. Still, it isn’t like I go around and record every conversation I have for future playback, or commit every thought to paper ‘just in case’ I might need to remember what I was thinking. As I get older, and am more likely to forget something, I don’t see rediscovering already discovered ground as such a big deal. I’m getting more comfortable with it in fact.
I would have to say that the risk of losing something is more than balanced out by the benefits I gain by keeping something on the Internet in the first place. I get access to it from anywhere I can access the Internet. I can connect my ideas to the ideas of others and extend those ideas in new ways. Others can connect to my ideas and do the same. I also benefit from the process of writing itself.
So I guess I’m good with the idea that ‘my stuff’ on the Internet isn’t permanent, that it is still subject to the randomness of life. Even if I woke up tomorrow and all of my web pages and blogs and wikis were gone, it was all worth it. And just in case, I’m going to see if I can find a way to back up my blog before I go to bed tonight!
http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2008/02/securitymatters_0221
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