# 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)