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"I think we're still on that topic, still trying to figure out what computers are, how they change us, why we use them."
- Neal Stephenson
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| Data Haven | ||
| A place where data that cannot legally be kept can be stashed for later use; an offshore web host. |
This is an interesting topic; companies often need information that they are not legally allowed to know. For example, some hospitals are not allowed to mark patients as HIV positive (because it stigmatizes patients); staff members create codes or other ways so they can take the necessary steps to protect themselves. This idea of information being lifted clear of the data networks is also explored at length in Shockwave Rider, by John Brunner.
| …Laura had never realized the profit to be gained by evading the developed world's privacy laws. Thousands of legitimate companies maintained dossiers on individuals: employee records, medical histories, credit transactions. In the Net economies, business was impossible without such information. In the legitimate world, companies purged this information periodically, as required by law. But not all of it was purged. Reams of it ended up in the data havens, passed on through bribery of clerks, through taps of datalines, and by outright commercial espionage… The havens were bootstrapping their way up to Big Brother status… |
| Technovelgy from Islands in the Net,
by Bruce Sterling. Published by William Morrow in 1988 Additional resources -
|
If information is really the currency of the future, why not keep a copy of your data stashed in an offshore web host, one that is not recorded. In the event that you lose your company and its information, you could resurrect it from your other host.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Islands in the Net
More Ideas
and Technology by Bruce Sterling
Tech news articles related to Islands in the Net
Tech news articles related to works by Bruce Sterling
Data Haven-related
news articles:
- The Pirate Bay Wants Data Haven On Sealand
- Google Navy: Water-Based Data Centers
- Cultybraggan Nuclear Bunker Perfect For Data Crypt
| Project Silica Offers 'Long-Term' Digital Storage |
| Lonestar Offers Lunar Storage For Ultimate In Security |
| 100X Improvement In DNA Information Storage |
| Twist Bioscience High Density Digital Data On DNA |
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'A broken circle with arrows pointing to a right-hand flow appeared in the chalf.'
'The object seemed melted together like wax — nothing was distinguishable.'
'Midges have many capabilities. To the untrained eye, they look like sparrows.'
'I made disks of my own voice to the number of five hundred very carefully chosen words.'
'His sensors out and working, and the whirring of the tape that sucked up sight and sound and shape and smell and form...'
'It sounds to me as though you had invented a kind of metal earthworm.'
