Long term publicly accessible backups [Was: Uncorrupted A/UX 3.1 Update] - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

18 Jan 2011

Clint writes:
...
  For a while now I have been pondering Usenet as a long
term, offsite, 
 distributed backup facility. Most of the premium servers are over two
 years of archive, with pretty decent reliability. Spot checks of 
 files posted over two years ago still indicate 100% article availability.
 Basically, I propose we select a low-traffic group which is available on 
 most premium servers, and start posting software/documentation to it in a 
 standard rar/par2 format. And somewhat standardized naming conventions.
 If a file was posted two or three times over the span of a month, then 
 reposted every year we can be almost assured the files would be available 
 to enthusiasts for many years to come. 
Seems to me, not that different than Cantor and Siegel's Usenet Spam. As in, it's
technically possible to do something, so it's OK to do it.

Misusing Usenet, not a good idea.

Now posting it to a binary warez newsgroup, I don't see much harm in that. Worst case,
somebody might complain that what you're posting is not illegal or a copyright
violation and therefore you shouldn't do it.

Tim.