Internet Archive

[e_dog]

anybody know anything about the Internet archive at www.archive.org.

the way back machine has archived versions of some of the Studioeight pages from October which is apparently the last time they came round. however either they did not search deep enough to get to the actual posts to the bulletin board or else the bulletin board posts are not archivable or maybe there was an exclusion?

i know almost nothing about this technical stuff, but wouldn't it be cool to have the Studioeight discussion boards archived on the net?

[Doreen Peri]

I've never heard of this!

What is it? They archive everything that's on the web?

If so, what if someone puts something on the web and then changes their mind and removes it?

Does this mean that everything that goes up on the web will be available anyway, even if it's removed?

I gotta check this out. I haven't clicked the link yet.

What do you mean, "the last time they came around"? Does someone physically tour the net then archive sites they like or is it arbitrary and done with a bot?

Maybe all these questions will be answered if I took the time to click the darn link. LOL!

Thanks for pointing the archive site out, e-dog!

[Doreen Peri]

wowowowowow!!!

It's got my original front page on there!

This is creepy! This means everything you put on the net can be recorded and you can't remove it and change it later.

I think that's what this means, anyway.

I'm creeped out!

lol

[e_dog]

it is kind of creepy, indeed.

yeah, they send around robots (again i don't know exactly what this means in technical reality) that scan the internet and record what is there.

but actually they allow people to request to have something removed. also, you can somehow tag a website (i dont know the technical lingo) to refuse the robots.

now, this seems very creepy, but their purported intention is precisely to counteract the Orwellian scenario whereby history disappears down the memory hole, where big brother can rewrite the past by, for example, have MiniTrue edit the past editions of newspapers to make the record of events conform to the current party line.

whether there are other nefarious unintented consequences of this procedure is unclear. in any event, i suspect that the copyright fanatics are going to get this project shut down eventually, for some reason, even tho the Archive has a policy of trying to respect copyright and the law more generally.

[e_dog]

also, i haven't looked yet, but it may be possible to find the Mindless Chatter bulletin board from the old-style Litkicks, which has apparently not found its way into the Litkcis archive.

[Doreen Peri]

What happened to mindless chatter? That's not still up on the web somewhere?

Yeah, really creepy... The thing about adding a robot stopper file is... would that mean google couldn't find you? Not good, if so! We have some bots hit this site all the time and register fake names... not real people. I can always tell because the accounts never get activated and the language in the profile shows as Russian and the link in the profile to their website is either a porn site or a hub of some sort. I could install a robot blocker but I was afraid it would block a google search which I don't want to do.

I have to think more about why I think this is so creepy.... but I do.

That's interesting about the idea that they want to protect the real news and make sure history isn't altered by lies.

But still... who's to say that what's up on the web today is real news anyway? Maybe it's all a lie. LOL!

[e_dog]

this is a real big project, with literally millions of dollars in funding for the various stuff they work on: the web site documenting Way back Machine is only one aspect of the internet Archive project which sees itself as nothing less than a digital age library of Alexandria.

for example, say the government has a website that says X on day 1. then one day 50, after someone's superior says 'our office cannot say X; say Y instead" but they don't notify the public that they are revising the orginal briefing, the machine may be able to have a copy and see how the government changes its tune.