Where Web Sites Go to Die
When a Web site dies, it goes to Web heaven -- Archive.org.
The Internet generally has complete disregard for keeping records or charting its past. Once a Web site it gone, it seems to disappear into the digital ether.
But with its "Wayback Machine,"http://www.Archive.org seeks to bring posterity to the Web by archiving Web sites with the help of Alexa Internet, a search service that records Web traffic and features a "crawler" tool to capture pages.
A message on Archive.org says that with the large amount of public records and information moving online, Internet libraries have become necessary to maintain the public's "right to remember": "The Internet Archive is working to prevent the Internet -- a new medium with major historical significance -- and other `born-digital' materials from disappearing into the past."
The nonprofit site, which has logged more than 55 billion Web pages, was founded by Brewster Kahle in 1996 and collaborates with the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian. It doesn't index sites that are password-protected or blocked to the public.
Though the amount of text recorded by Archive.org is greater than the collection of the Library of Congress, the site also stores live music (especially Grateful Dead shows), old video and movies that have passed into public domain, like 1922's "Nosferatu" and the 1949 noir "D.O.A."
The legal admissibility in court of old sites saved by Archive.org is an interesting legal battle likely to emerge more frequently. Earlier this year, a health care company named Healthcare Advocates Inc. sued Archive.org after it lost a 2003 case that turned on the evidence of Healthcare Advocates' old Web site (saved on Archive.org).
Archive.org isn't the only site trying to save the ever-changing Web. Wikipedia.com, which constantly regurgitates itself with user-inputted data, is now being watched by wikidumper.blogsot.com.
Any information not truthful enough to make it into Wikipedia is probably dubious twice over, but Wikidumper helps provide some oversight to the editors of Wikipedia, who can take down an entry for any number of reasons.
All of which goes to show, be careful what you type and publish -- it might be out there forever.
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The Internet generally has complete disregard for keeping records or charting its past. Once a Web site it gone, it seems to disappear into the digital ether.
But with its "Wayback Machine,"http://www.Archive.org seeks to bring posterity to the Web by archiving Web sites with the help of Alexa Internet, a search service that records Web traffic and features a "crawler" tool to capture pages.
A message on Archive.org says that with the large amount of public records and information moving online, Internet libraries have become necessary to maintain the public's "right to remember": "The Internet Archive is working to prevent the Internet -- a new medium with major historical significance -- and other `born-digital' materials from disappearing into the past."
The nonprofit site, which has logged more than 55 billion Web pages, was founded by Brewster Kahle in 1996 and collaborates with the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian. It doesn't index sites that are password-protected or blocked to the public.
Though the amount of text recorded by Archive.org is greater than the collection of the Library of Congress, the site also stores live music (especially Grateful Dead shows), old video and movies that have passed into public domain, like 1922's "Nosferatu" and the 1949 noir "D.O.A."
The legal admissibility in court of old sites saved by Archive.org is an interesting legal battle likely to emerge more frequently. Earlier this year, a health care company named Healthcare Advocates Inc. sued Archive.org after it lost a 2003 case that turned on the evidence of Healthcare Advocates' old Web site (saved on Archive.org).
Archive.org isn't the only site trying to save the ever-changing Web. Wikipedia.com, which constantly regurgitates itself with user-inputted data, is now being watched by wikidumper.blogsot.com.
Any information not truthful enough to make it into Wikipedia is probably dubious twice over, but Wikidumper helps provide some oversight to the editors of Wikipedia, who can take down an entry for any number of reasons.
All of which goes to show, be careful what you type and publish -- it might be out there forever.
* __
posted by Mr Farnham at
2:51 PM
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