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Ask HN: Best way to host a website for 500 years?

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Re: Ask HN: Best way to host a website for 500 years?

#482
I think we can look to the way we archive any other information, which tends to be libraries and archives. So in the first instance, make sure the Internet Archive has a copy. If you want to be even more sure, find a friendly library of record (British Library, Bodleian, Library of Congress, that kind of thing) and see if they archive digital documents and give them a copy. Perhaps with a financial contribution guaranteeing retention?

Re: Ask HN: Best way to host a website for 500 years?

#484
post #16

How do you know what the internet will look like in 500 years? Sites from 20 years ago are broken, you can expect that unless you’re using plain text and html that standards will change in 500 years and people will not be able to access your site. Then there’s issues with domains. You’d have to setup a trust and again assume we will still be using domains in 500 years. If you use something like S3 then you’ll have to…

Broken but not illegible. I feel like you're arguing that because the world may forget how to read some data 500 from now, storing the data is worthless. But that's just not true. Archeologists find meaning in writings they've never seen before all the time.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to host a website for 500 years?

#487
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be a balance between readability, findability and integrity. I would not bet on the btc blockchain for it. Its relativly complex to use, its very niche, it is already 360gb big and there might be a time were it either disappears or gets optimized and your information will be gone.

The first blockchain will almost certainly be preserved for historic significance

We thought that about Usenet.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to host a website for 500 years?

#488
People have been doing this for a while now; in their tombstones. I live next to a cemetery, sometimes I go there and read some. Most are written by grieving families - a couple phrases and that's it. The ones written by their occupants are invariably the most interesting ones.

You could even make it a bit of a puzzle: "There is a secret message in your great grandparent's tomb, but only visible during the Summer Solstice, on sunset". It would require some math and some careful placement, and durable materials. It could be a nice activity for your offspring.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to host a website for 500 years?

#489

The world wide web is only 28 years old. We've had computers for 76 years at this point. We're discussing this topic in modern English, but if you look back 500 years William Shakespeare wouldn't be born for another couple of generations: vocabulary and grammar have changed a lot since then, and if you look back a further 500 years (to 1021AD) the "English" spoken in those days was a lot closer to Frisian than anythi…

Create nuclear blasts that encode the information in short microbursts. Info will be available in the carbon record and in tree rings around the world .... profit?

Re: Ask HN: Best way to host a website for 500 years?

#490

Print it out on acid-free paper with a stable, acid-free ink. Have it bound as a hardback, and seal it into a waterproof container. Entrust it to one of your children, tell them to keep it in a safe-deposit box and take it out once a year to share with their children, and to pass it on to their children with the same instructions. If you have it electronically, the absolute best case in 500 years is that it will be a…

> “What was there to say? Civilization was like a mad dash that lasted five thousand years. Progress begot more progress; countless miracles gave birth to more miracles; humankind seemed to possess the power of gods; but in the end, the real power was wielded by time. Leaving behind a mark was tougher than creating a world. At the end of civilization, all they could do was the same thing they had done in the distant…

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