With things shifting around the internet the past year, and also just…Having been on the internet for awhile now, I feel like this saying, while decent as a cautionary measure…May not really hold up past that. Am I being a little naive though?
Is some decade(s) old post of mine from some old forum really still floating around somewhere out there on some random old server chugging along?
I feel like even in the corporate web, a bunch of that old data’s probably been long lost courtesy of costcutting measures and businesses going under.
I think it’s less that it DOES exist forever and more that it CAN exist forever
You can’t guarantee that every copy was deleted, even if you can’t find it with a Google search.
Say you were able to check every accessible location on the internet, and you made sure it was deleted, you can’t guarantee that someone didn’t save it locally only to upload it again at a future date.
Anything that you want disappear will exist forever. Anything you want preserved will disappear tomorrow.
It depends, I think. If it’s a scurrilous, untrue rumour about your sexual habits, then it will be preserved indefinitely. If it’s some critical information, that is only published in one place, and you need to cite it for a paper, then it’s either gone or modified beyond recognition.
If it’s some critical information, that is only published in one place, and you need to cite it for a paper, then it’s either gone or modified beyond recognition.
So the critical information may be best preserved if in some way associated with unscrupulous, dubious information? Or in other words, the tried and true folktale/embellishment transmission method?
Did you know I have a tattoo on my breasts? It’s the full text of “New Economist Intelligence Unit Report: Open Banking – Revolution or Evolution?” from Temenos.
Sometimes entire journals disappear (or maybe they never existed to begin with)
https://blog.computationalcomplexity.org/2023/12/where-do-journals-go-to-die.html
The things on the Internet are forever… except for that one thing you saw years ago that you can’t find anymore. Everyone has their Internet white whales (or Holy Grails).
I think it still holds as a metaphor.
Pencil strokes can be erased easily, but pen strokes can’t. They will still fade over time, or the library can catch fire, but it’s not under your direct control.
