Fast Changes

I really liked the discussion of the challenge of how to archive a constantly changing beast. Due to the ever expanding size of the internet, it’s really difficult to view it as discrete states. Instead, we have to “approximate” our archives by taking snapshots at discrete intervals. While this seems to be effective, we may miss out on materials, and it is a brand new issue due to the vastly larger amounts of knowledge that we are putting into recordable forms (this is not a problem–it’s what is going to drive humanity forward together).

The legal issues surrounding international archives prompted some questions from me. Why are international archives different from book archives? And how do governments expect to regulate reading of public information? Also, how could archives be used as an informational weapon (kind of like the Russian interference in the 2016 elections).

Since the internet is really a first stab at a global collection of knowledge, I am surprised a larger governing body like the UN or something of the sort (maritime court is the only other one that comes to mind) has not made a bigger attempt to record changes to this knowledgebase. It appears that private companies have made the best attempts so far, even though long-lasting archives have historically been managed by governments. This also prompts another question: who is best to trust with this important task?

Side Note

This article was particularly funny to me since I’ve known of Brewster in a social setting through my mom’s friend group from when she was a student here.