World's Most Critical Software Is Safe In A Deep Mine For 2000 Years, Next To Global Seed Vault
The Global Seed Vault in Norway is something like the last bastion of man. In the event of an apocalyptic incident, it holds duplicate samples of a wide variety of seeds so man can regrow crops. Now Microsoft wants to do something similar with code.
The Global Seed Vault in Norway is something like the last bastion of man. In the event of an apocalyptic incident, it holds duplicate samples of a wide variety of seeds so man can regrow crops.
Now Microsoft wants to do something similar with critical source code and software.
The Global Seed Vault - Reuters
Back in October 2018, Microsoft acquired GitHub, the open-source platform that allows developers to work on and share their code. So in the event of something like a nuclear war, where man is humanity is crawling out from under the ashes of civilization, Microsoft wants us to be able to have access to all of this code, so we can rebuild our technology too. So they've been building up a repository for all this code.
Since 2017,the Arctic World Archive has set up shop in an abandoned coal mine near the Global Seed Vault. The group has been storing digital records of note, including movies, the Vatican archives, and much more. Now, Microsoft has also begun downloading all of GitHub's source code and putting hard copies into this vault. That way, even without a computer, it can all be perused with nothing but a magnifying glass.
Render of the Arctic World Archive - Piql
The open-source community is often taken for granted. Because of how these developers give away their work for free, they don't often make for multinational digital corporations. However, a number of tech giants use this source code, including Facebook, Google, and Amazon, just to name a few.
Additionally Svalbard itself, where the Seed Vault and Arctic World Archive are, is protected. There are treaties in place to keep the location neutral in times of war, and the permafrost covering the land makes for a limited amount of natural protection. Both vaults are also underground, to avoid damage to them.
Deep within an Arctic mountain in Svalbard, Norway your open source code can be stored for generations to come in the GitHub Arctic Code Vault.
¡ª GitHub (@github) 13 November 2019
Get your code in by 02/02/2020. #GitHubUniverse pic.twitter.com/7pTP73vza0
The code being deposited there is encoded onto what looks like movie reels, basically high-durability microfilm. Supposedly, it should be able to keep the data on it intact for 750 years in normal conditions, or up to 2,000 years in the cold, dry cave it's in now.
So if a global catastrophe ends up destroying or wiping all of the world's hard drives and servers, it's heartening to know GitHub's data will still be secure, a thousand or so kilometres from the North Pole.
