How Internet Backup Works
Over time, we may find that a web page that we used to visit a lot has ceased to exist. This can occur due to a change in trend, a product or service that is no longer used, etc. What about that page? That’s where this project to create a backup of the Internet comes into play. At least prevent websites from being deleted forever.
This project is known as internet archive or way back. It was created by Brewster Kahle and its goal is to create a digital library, a kind of record of everything that has been on the Internet at some point. At the moment it has been registering since 1996. Logically we can find historical sites that were once very famous and ceased to exist. We can see what they were like at the time and how the Internet has changed in recent years.
But how big is all this? Only the web archive has a few 45 petabytes, which is 4500 terabytes. But they also have the Internet archive, where they store programs that no longer exist, music, movie data, etc.
Logically they cannot store everything. It would be impossible. A clear example would be a web page where we can register and upload personal content. It doesn’t store that. They only record what they consider to be really important to everyone and what can preserve digital human history.
More projects to prevent the Internet from being erased
But this project is not unique, since others have appeared with the same objective: to prevent everything on the Internet, at least the most important, from being lost at some point. There are backups of Youtubefrom Wikipedia or from the popular internet forum Reddit. Of course, transferring such large files over the Internet is a complicated task.
This also presents certain problems for the Privacy, as you can imagine. Take for example a Reddit comment. A user can delete it, it no longer appears publicly on the forum, but it could be in the backup that they create and it would not be deleted there.
However, these types of projects are very interesting for prevent the internet from being erased. At least, when we refer to the most important. We can think of the vast amount of video content on YouTube. Very good tutorials, documentaries, information of all kinds… What if YouTube suddenly, for whatever reason, stops being profitable and they decide to close it? Videos of great value would certainly be lost.
In short, thanks to projects of this type it is possible to preserve a large part of what is on the Internet and prevent it from being deleted at any given time. In recent decades, a huge world library has been created, with content of all kinds and information of great value.
