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+# Who Backup Whom?
+
+> @published 2019/07/03, 13:00 {.published}
+
+Among publishers and readers is common to heard about “digital
+copies.” This implies that ebooks tend to be seen as backups
+of printed books. How the former became a copy of the original---even
+tough you first need a digital file in order to print---goes
+something like this:
+
+1. Digital files (+++DF+++s) with appropiate maintenance could
+   have higher probabilities to last longer that its material
+   peer.
+2. Physical files (+++PF+++s) are limited due geopolitical
+   issues, like cultural policies updates, or due random events,
+   like environment changes or accidents.
+3. _Therefore_, +++DF+++s are backups of +++PF+++s because _in
+   theory_ its dependence is just technical.
+
+The famous digital copies arise as a right of private copy. What
+if one day our printed books are ban or burn? Or maybe some rain
+or coffee spill fuck our books collection. Who knows, +++DF+++s
+seem more reliable.
+
+But there are a couple suppositions in this argument. (1) The
+technology behind +++DF+++s in one way or the other will always
+make data flow. Maybe this is because (2) one characteristic---part
+of its “nature”---of information is that nobody can stop its
+spread. This could also implies that (3) technology can always
+destroy any kind of digital rights management system.
+
+Certanly some dudes are gonna be able to hack the locks but at
+a high cost: every time each [cipher](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cipher)
+is revealed, another more complex is on the way---_Barlow [dixit](https://www.wired.com/1994/03/economy-ideas/)_.
+We cannot trust that our digital infraestructure would be designed
+with the idea of free share in mind… Also, how can we probe information
+wants to be free without relying in its “nature” or making it
+some kind of autonomous subject?
+
+Besides those issues, the dynamic between copies and originals
+creates an hierarchical order. Every +++DF+++ is in a secondary
+position because it is a copy. In a world full of things, materiality
+is and important feature for commons and goods; for several people
++++PF+++s are gonna be preferred because, well, you can grasp
+them.
+
+Ebook market shows that the hierarchy is at least shading. For
+some ereaders +++DF+++s are now in the top of the pyramid. We
+could say so by the follow argument:
+
+1. +++DF+++s are way more flexible and easy to share.
+2. +++PF+++s are very static and not easy to access.
+3. _Therefore_, +++DF+++s are more suitable for use than +++PF+++s.
+
+Suddenly, +++PF+++s become hard copies that are gonna store data
+as it was published. Its information is in disposition to be
+extracted and processed if need it.
+
+Yeah, we also have a couple assumptions here. Again (1) we rely
+on the stability of our digital infraestructure that it would
+allow us to have access to +++DF+++s no matter how old they are.
+(2) Reader's priorities are over files use, not on its preservation
+and reproduction (+++P&R+++). (3) The argument presume that backups
+are motionless information, where bookshelves are fridges for
+later-to-use books.
+
+The optimism about our digital infraestructure is too damn high.
+Commonly we see it as a technology that give us access to zillions
+of files and not as a +++P&R+++ machinery. This could be problematic
+because some times file formats intented for use aren't the most
+suitable for +++P&R+++. For example, the use of +++PDF+++s as
+some kind of ebook. Giving to much importance to reader's priorities
+could lead us to a situation where the only way to process data
+is by extracting it again from hard copies. When we do that we
+also have an other headache: fixes on the content have to be
+add to the last available hard copy edition. But, can you guess
+where are all the fixes? Probably not. Maybe we should start
+to think about backups as some sort of _rolling update_.
+
+![Programando Libreros while she scans books which +++DF+++s are not suitable for +++P&R+++ or are simply nonexistent; can you see how it is not necessary to have a fucking nice scanner?](../../../img/p004_i001.jpg)
+
+As we imagine---and started to live in---scenarios of highly
+controlled data transfer, we have to picture a situation where
+for some reason our electric power is off or running low. In
+that context all the strenghts of +++DF+++s become pointless.
+They may not be used. They may not spread. Right now for us is
+hard to imagine. Generation after generation the storaged +++DF+++s
+in +++HDD+++s would be inherit with the hope of being used again.
+But over time those devices with our cultural heritage would
+become in rare objects without any apparent utility.
+
+The aspects of +++DF+++s that made us see the fragility of +++PF+++s
+would dissapear in its concealment. Can we still talk about information
+if it is just potential information---we know the data is there,
+but it is inaccessible because we don't have the means for view
+them? Or does information already implies the technical resources
+for its access---i.e. there is not information without a subject
+with technical skills to extract, process and use the data?
+
+When we usually talk about information we already suppose is
+there, but many times is not accessible. So the idea of potential
+information could be counterintuitive. If the information isn't
+actual we just consider that it doesn't exist, not that it is
+on some potential stage.
+
+As our technology is developing we assume that we would always
+have _the possibility_ of better ways to extract or undestand
+data. Thus, that there are bigger chances to get new kinds of
+information---and take a profit from it. Preservation of data
+relies between those possibilities, as we usually backup files
+with the idea that we could need it and go back again.
+
+Our world become more complex by new things forthcoming to us,
+most of the times as new characteristics of things we already
+know. Preservation policies implies an epistemic optimism and
+not only a desire to keep alive or incorrupt our heritage. We
+wouldn't backup data if we don't already belive we could need
+it in the future.
+
+With this exercise could be clear a potentially paradox of +++DF+++s.
+(1) More accessibility tends to require more technical infrastructure.
+This (2) could imply major technical dependence that subordinate
+accessibility of information to the disposition of technical
+means. _Therefore_, we achive a situation where (3) more accesibility
+is equal to more technical infrastructure and---as we see nowadays---dependence.
+
+Open access to knowledge involves at least some minimum technical
+means. Without that, we can't really talk about accessibility
+of information. Contemporary open access possibilities are restricted
+to an already technical dependence because we given a lot of
+attention in the flexibility that +++DF+++s offer us for _its
+use_. In a world without electric power, this kind of accessibility
+becomes narrow and an useless effort.
+
+![Programando Libreros and Hackblib while they work on a project intended to +++P&R+++ old Latin American cifi books; sometimes a V-shape scanner is required when books are very fragile.](../../../img/p004_i002.jpg)
+
+So, _who backup whom?_ In our actual world, where geopolitics
+and technical means restrics the flow of data and people at the
+same time it defends internet access as a human right---some
+sort of neo-Enlightenment discourse---, +++DF+++s are lifesavers
+in a condition where we don't have more ways to move around or
+scape. Let's nor forget that open access of data can be a course
+of action to improve as species but also a method to perpetuate
+social conditions.
+
+Not a lot of people are as privilege as us when we talk about
+access to technical means. Even more concerning, they are hommies
+with disabilities that made very hard for them to access information
+albeit they have those means. Isn't it funny that our ideas as
+file contents can move more “freely” than us? I desire more technological
+developments for freedom of +++P&R+++ and not just for use as
+enjoyment---no matter is for intelectual or consumption motives.
+I want us to be free. But sometimes use of data, +++P&R+++ of
+information and people mobility freedoms don't get along.
+
+With +++DF+++s we achive more independence in file use because
+once it is save, it could spread. It doesn't matter we have religious
+or political barries; the battle take place mainly in technical
+grounds. But this doesn't made +++DF+++s more autonomous in its
++++P&R+++. Neither implies we can archive personal or comunity
+freedoms. They are objects. _They are tools_ and whoever use
+them better, whoever owns them, have more power.
+
+With +++PF+++s we can have more +++P&R+++ accessibility. We can
+do whatever we want with them: extract their data, process it
+and let it free. But only if we are their owners. Often that
+is not the case, so +++PF+++s tend to have more restricted access
+for its use. And, again, this doesn't mean we can be free. There
+is not any cause and effect between what object made possible
+and how much subjects want to be free. They are tools, they are
+not master or slaves, just means for whoever use them.
+
+We need +++DF++s and +++PF+++s as backups and as everyday objects
+of use. The act of backup is a dynamic category. Backed up files
+are not inert and they aren't only a substrate waiting to be
+use. Sometimes we are going to use +++PF+++s because +++DF+++s
+have been corrupted or its technical infrastructure has been
+dissapear. In other occasions we would use +++DF+++s when +++PF+++s
+have been destoyed or limited.
+
+So the struggle about backups it is not around the “incorporeal”
+realm of information, nor on the tecnhinal means that made data
+possible, neither in the laws that transform production into
+property. The way we backup things shows a lot about how we see
+us. Make backups it isn't an ordinary monotonous process.
+
+![Due restringed access to +++PF+++s, sometimes is neccesary a portable V-shape scanner; this model allows us to handle damaged books while we can also storage it in a bagpack.](../../../img/p004_i003.jpg)