Wednesday, August 31, 2016

[ajrgaunx] Human scale data storage

Reliably storing information "forever" is a formidable task: people, institutions, civilizations, and protons die in time.  A seemingly less difficult task might be to store data for the length of a human lifetime, either the average lifetime, or a person storing data for their own lifetime.

There is tremendous difficulty for a business or organization to credibly offer to do this, so no such credible service exists, even though there seems to be consumer demand.  It seems almost possible to do it with current technology, perhaps cloud data storage, replicated across many services and sites, funded by an annuity, along with perhaps physical media in storage also funded by an annuity.  Previously similar.

Another approach is to store the data physically on the person, perhaps implanted media interfaced by induction.  We probably need significant advances in technology for such a device to reliably function for an entire lifetime.

A very old technology does already exist along these lines: tattoos can store information for as long as a person lives.

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