THIS...
I would be curious to know how NOAA is currently archiving and maintaining the integrity of the current climatology dataset. One of the reasons my primary business services is data protection is because over my entire career, I've never seen this done 100% properly. Not because people didn't know certain tasks were required but because those tasks could not be efficiently carried out. This is still a problem today but if anyone can and has the resources to do this mostly right, its at the sovereign level.
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Keith C. Perry, MS E.E.
From: "Paul Walker" <pjwalker76@gmail.com>
To: "Philadelphia Linux User's Group Discussion List" <plug@lists.phillylinux.org>
Sent: Sunday, December 18, 2016 4:29:28 PM
Subject: Re: [PLUG] Wanted: volunteers with bandwidth, storage, coding skills to help save climate data
Can we steer the conversation back to the topic at hand? I am curious about the possibility of large amounts of "controversial" data being sequestered or destroyed. Certainly the liquidation of entire classes of data (and of human technical talent) has been undertaken before in the name of political expediency. I'm thinking of Argentina, Iran, etc. I'm curious given the particular skill-set of our group what people's opinions are regarding the plausibility of such a thing happening -- politically yes, but also technically. Are these large data sets vulnerable? Assuming there is a massive interest in skewing the conversation about climate change, does it not seem at least plausible that someone would undertake to modify, corrupt or delete the underlying data, whether they were state actors, unaligned and anonymous hackers, corporate interests or others? Doesn't it make sense to have the strongest data redundancy possible in place for irreplaceable data that has been gathered over decades by scientists, satellites, the noaa, etc. Is it paranoid to think that this body of knowledge is extremely valuable and potentially vulnerable? Are there technical solutions that our community could be a part of to help ensure that these collective resources are not endangered by sharp political swings or other unforseen circumstances?
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