223 lines
11 KiB
Markdown
223 lines
11 KiB
Markdown
# Who Backup Whom?
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> @published 2019/07/04, 10:00 {.published}
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Among publishers and readers is common to heard about “digital
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copies.” This implies that ebooks tend to be seen as backups
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of printed books. How the former became a copy of the original---even
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tough you first need a digital file in order to print---goes
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something like this:
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1. Digital files (+++DF+++s) with appropriate maintenance could
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have higher probabilities to last longer that its material
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peer.
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2. Physical files (+++PF+++s) are limited due geopolitical
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issues, like cultural policies updates, or due random events,
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like environment changes or accidents.
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3. _Therefore_, +++DF+++s are backups of +++PF+++s because _in
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theory_ its dependence is just technical.
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The famous digital copies arise as a right of private copy. What
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if one day our printed books get ban or burn? Or maybe some rain
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or coffee spill could fuck our books collection. Who knows, +++DF+++s
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seem more reliable.
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But there are a couple suppositions in this argument. (1) The
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technology behind +++DF+++s in one way or the other will always
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make data flow. Maybe this is because (2) one characteristic---part
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of its “nature”---of information is that nobody can stop its
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spread. This could also implies that (3) hackers can always destroy
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any kind of digital rights management system.
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Certainly some dudes are gonna be able to hack the locks but
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at a high cost: every time each [cipher](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cipher)
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is revealed, another more complex is on the way---_Barlow [dixit](https://www.wired.com/1994/03/economy-ideas/)_.
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We cannot trust that our digital infrastructure would be designed
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with the idea of free share in mind… Also, how can we probe information
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wants to be free without relying in its “nature” or making it
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some kind of autonomous subject?
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Besides those issues, the dynamic between copies and originals
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creates an hierarchical order. Every +++DF+++ is in a secondary
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position because it is a copy. In a world full of things, materiality
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is and important feature for commons and goods; for several people
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+++PF+++s are gonna be preferred because, well, you can grasp
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them.
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Ebook market shows that the hierarchy is at least shading. For
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some readers +++DF+++s are now in the top of the pyramid. We
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could say so by the follow argument:
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1. +++DF+++s are way more flexible and easy to share.
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2. +++PF+++s are very static and not easy to access.
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3. _Therefore_, +++DF+++s are more suitable for use than +++PF+++s.
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Suddenly, +++PF+++s become hard copies that are gonna store data
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as it was published. Its information is in disposition to be
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extracted and processed if need it.
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Yeah, we also have a couple assumptions here. Again (1) we rely
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on the stability of our digital infrastructure that it would
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allow us to have access to +++DF+++s no matter how old they are.
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(2) Reader's priorities are over files use---if not merely consumption---not
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on its preservation and reproduction (+++P&R+++). (3) The argument
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presume that backups are motionless information, where bookshelves
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are fridges for later-to-use books.
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The optimism about our digital infrastructure is too damn high.
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Commonly we see it as a technology that give us access to zillions
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of files and not as a +++P&R+++ machinery. This could be problematic
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because some times file formats intended for use aren't the most
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suitable for +++P&R+++. For example, the use of +++PDF+++s as
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some kind of ebook. Giving to much importance to reader's priorities
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could lead us to a situation where the only way to process data
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is by extracting it again from hard copies. When we do that we
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also have another headache: fixes on the content have to be add
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to the last available hard copy edition. But, can you guess where
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are all the fixes? Probably not. Maybe we should start to think
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about backups as some sort of _rolling update_.
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As we imagine---and started to live in---scenarios of highly
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controlled data transfer, we have to picture a situation where
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for some reason our electric power is off or running low. In
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that context all the strengths of +++DF+++s become pointless.
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They may not be accessible. They may not spread. Right now for
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us is hard to imagine. Generation after generation the storaged
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+++DF+++s in +++HDD+++s would be inherit with the hope of being
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used again. But over time those devices with our cultural heritage
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would become rare objects without any apparent utility.
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The aspects of +++DF+++s that made us see the fragility of +++PF+++s
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would disappear in its concealment. Can we still talk about information
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if it is potential information---we know the data is there, but
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it is inaccessible because we don't have the means for view them?
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Or does information already implies the technical resources for
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its access---i.e. there is not information without a subject
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with technical skills to extract, process and use the data?
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When we usually talk about information we already suppose is
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there, but many times is not accessible. So the idea of potential
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information could be counterintuitive. If the information isn't
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actual we just consider that it doesn't exist, not that it is
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on some potential stage.
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As our technology is developing we assume that we would always
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have _the possibility_ of better ways to extract or understand
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data. Thus, that there are bigger chances to get new kinds of
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information---and take a profit from it. Preservation of data
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relies between those possibilities, as we usually backup files
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with the idea that we could need to go back again.
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Our world become more complex by new things forthcoming to us,
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most of the times as new characteristics of things we already
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know. Preservation policies implies an epistemic optimism and
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not only a desire to keep alive or incorrupt our heritage. We
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wouldn't backup data if we don't already believe we could need
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it in a future where we can still use it.
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With this exercise could be clear a potentially paradox of +++DF+++s.
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More accessibility tends to require more technical infrastructure.
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This could imply major technical dependence that subordinate
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accessibility of information to the disposition of technical
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means. _Therefore_, we achieve a situation where more accessibility
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is equal to more technical infrastructure and---as we experience
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nowadays---dependence.
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Open access to knowledge involves at least some minimum technical
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means. Without that, we can't really talk about accessibility
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of information. Contemporary open access possibilities are restricted
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to an already technical dependence because we give a lot of attention
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in the flexibility that +++DF+++s offer us for _its use_. In
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a world without electric power, this kind of accessibility becomes
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narrow and an useless effort.
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So, _who backup whom?_ In our actual world, where geopolitics
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and technical means restricts flow of data and people at the
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same time it defends internet access as a human right---some
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sort of neo-Enlightenment discourse---+++DF+++s are lifesavers
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in a condition where we don't have more ways to move around or
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scape---not only from border to border, but also on cyberspace:
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it is becoming a common place the need to sign up and give your
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identity in order to use web services. Let's not forget that
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open access of data can be a course of action to improve as community
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but also a method to perpetuate social conditions.
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Not a lot of people are as privilege as us when we talk about
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access to technical means. Even more concerning, they are hommies
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with disabilities that made very hard for them to access information
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albeit they have those means. Isn't it funny that our ideas as
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file contents can move more “freely” than us---your memes can
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reach web platform where you are not allow to sign in?
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I desire more technological developments for freedom of +++P&R+++
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and not just for use as enjoyment---no matter is for intellectual
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or consumption purposes. I want us to be free. But sometimes
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use of data, +++P&R+++ of information and people mobility freedoms
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don't get along.
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With +++DF+++s we achieve more independence in file use because
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once it is save, it could spread. It doesn't matter we have religious
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or political barriers; the battle take place mainly in technical
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grounds. But this doesn't made +++DF+++s more autonomous in its
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+++P&R+++. Neither implies we can archive personal or community
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freedoms. They are objects. _They are tools_ and whoever use
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them better, whoever owns them, would have more power.
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With +++PF+++s we can have more +++P&R+++ accessibility. We can
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do whatever we want with them: extract their data, process it
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and let it free. But only if we are their owners. Often that
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is not the case, so +++PF+++s tend to have more restricted access
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for its use. And, again, this doesn't mean we can be free. There
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is not any cause and effect between what object made possible
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and how subjects want to be free. They are tools, they are not
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master or slaves, just means for whoever use them… but for which
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ends?
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We need +++DF+++s and +++PF+++s as backups and as everyday objects
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of use. The act of backup is a dynamic category. Backed up files
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are not inert and they aren't only a substrate waiting to be
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use. Sometimes we are going to use +++PF+++s because +++DF+++s
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have been corrupted or its technical infrastructure has been
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shut down. In other occasions we would use +++DF+++s when +++PF+++s
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have been destroyed or restricted.
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So the struggle about backups---and all that shit about “freedom”
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on +++FOSS+++ communities---it is not only around the “incorporeal”
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realm of information. Nor on the technical means that made digital
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data possible. Neither in the laws that transform production
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into property. We have others battle fronts against the monopoly
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of the cyberspace---or as Lingel [says](http://culturedigitally.org/2019/03/the-gentrification-of-the-internet/):
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the gentrification of the internet.
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It is not just about software, hardware, privacy, information
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or laws. It is about us: how we build communities and how technology
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constitutes us as subjects. _We need more theory_. But a very
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diversified one because being on internet it is not the same
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for an scholar, a publisher, a woman, a kid, a refugee, a non-white,
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a poor or an old person. This space it is not neutral, homogeneous
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and two-dimensional. It has wires, it has servers, it has exploited
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employees, it has buildings, _it has power_ and it has, well,
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all that things the “real world” has. Not because you use a device
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to access means that you can always decide if you are online
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or not: you are always online as an user as a consumer or as
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data.
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_Who backup whom?_ As internet is changing us as printed text
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did, backed up files it isn't the storage of data, but _the memory
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of our world_. Is it still a good idea to leave the work of +++P&R+++
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to a couple of hardware and software companies? Are we now allow
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to say that the act of backup implies files but something else
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too?
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