Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2019 September 29

Welcome to the Wikipedia Computing Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

September 29

How to stay 100% anonymous online

If I speak against government then can I be tracked through TOR network? If I want to expose a powerful person, then how can I hide my IP address and never get caught?

Most VPN requires software download, and creates problem with Windows operating system. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tomrock9879 (talk • contribs) 02:41, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

For whistleblower actions, you might do best to go "old school" rather than use the Internet. For example, you could (snail)mail a copy of your proof to major news organizations. Chances are, if it was legit, some of them would publish it. (Don't put your real return address on the envelope.) SinisterLefty (talk) 03:39, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) If you want to remain completely anonymous online, you wouldn't be using Windows to start with. I don't mean to sound paranoid (although privacy concerns have been raised), what I mean is you cannot use Windows without leaving some trail exposed.

While I don't want to engage in product placement, there's plenty of legitimate VPN services out there that don't cause problems with Windows. In fact, if a VPN is causing trouble with Windows, it's probably malware.

And it also depends on which government you're speaking out against. Judging from your user name, I'm guessing you live somewhere in the Anglosphere. In the case of the Five Eyes countries, you generally have a guaranteed right to speak out against the government anyway. If what you need to expose contains confidential information, then you are in a position to file a whistleblower report. If what you are not in a position to file a whistleblower report, then there's no way you'd really know anything confidential. If you're really living in North Korea, then the fact that you're posting here was probably enough to get the government agents sent to your house. If you're talking about China, I guarantee that the computer you bought had backdoors pre-installed so it doesn't matter if you're using TOR over a VPN. Ian.thomson (talk) 03:51, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

TOR is probably insecure, but it's likely that government-level attackers reserve their exploits for high-level targets like terrorists. If they used them too often the insecurity would become apparent and people would stop using it. If it's the US government you want to criticize, their countermeasure will be less about going after you and more about drowning you out with the usual crap. If you have some specific evidence that you want to reveal, you might be better off leaking it to a sympathetic journalist or the like, since that's easier to keep anonymous than trying to broadcast through TOR. See for example how the Panama Papers were leaked. 173.228.123.207 (talk) 05:10, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Step (1): Definitely do not go to the #10 most popular website on the Internet, create an account, and post an irrevocably public, undeletable message outlining your intents. Oops. (Obligatory xkcd: "Sharing Options" Elizium23 (talk) 11:09, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

life duration of a self burn CD

I have read that a CD holds only about 10 years. I am asking, why the Data which is stored in it wouldn't be readable anymore after 10 years. Especially if I don't use the burned CD. Is there even a way to get over the 10 years? Putting the CD in a freezer maybe? -46.167.62.33 (talk) 23:48, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

The dye used in CD-Rs gradually degrades. See CD-R#Lifespan for a bit more info. Keeping in the freezer might technically slow down the aging of the dye, but I can almost guarantee that the temperature shifts between the freezer and the CD reader would put a lot of stress on the desk. Matt Deres (talk) 02:25, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Uh, "disk" (sigh). Matt Deres (talk) 12:28, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

I have CDs more than ten years old and they are still readable. I store them at a fairly constant cool temperature but definitely not in a freezer. CDs are cheap, so it is good policy to make copies, and to recopy every ten years or so. (That reminds me that I should copy some of mine, or just transfer the data to hard drives.) Dbfirs 07:28, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

I have some very old ones that I might try reading. They made "archival" ones that were supposed to be very durable and I used those for things that seemed important at the time (of course it is mostly crap). The disc media eventually become ridiculously cheap and I'm sure the quality suffered as manufacturers had to resort to crappier materials and processes to meet the pricing challenges. 173.228.123.207 (talk) 10:52, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

• Twenty years ago I worked on an archival project. As a result, I've stopped taking backups altogether.

If you want to keep it, keep it on spinning [sic] media and check it's still there. For most of us, Moore's Law is enough to make that workable.

The moment you put stuff onto "backup media" and store it away in a vault somewhere, it's not going to work when you go back to it. The media has died in storage. Your archaic playback device has died. You've lost tape #13 of 23 and it's the crucial one. Something ate it. There are no drivers for the modern OS and the old device. Backup media in vaults are dead, and not to be relied upon.

If you do have old media, form a strategy for test-reading them, and re-writing them onto something more modern. Everything I ever did up to 2000 now fits on a single USB stick (and there are several copies). Andy Dingley (talk) 11:46, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

More information at Digital dark age.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:03, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Best option today?

On a related topic, what is the best option today for storing digital data that you want to be around for a few decades? I'm guessing an external USB SSD or maybe USB thumb drive. I alto thought of the cloud, but a future generation might not know it is there. What should be the best choice today? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 14:57, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Traditional hard drives might not be a bad option either. They fail from usage, but if you just seal one in a plastic bag with some desiccant, they seem to last indefinitely. I've hooked up old hard drives that are a couple decades old, and have still been able to access the data on them. SinisterLefty (talk) 17:30, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Of course, whatever the device is, you also have to have a computer that it's capable of being hooked up to. Unfortunately there is no way to know which interface standards are likely to fall by the wayside over decades... --76.69.116.4 (talk) 06:08, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

You can store an old computer, too. That's what I do. But, standards that are widely used are also more likely to last than some rarely used formats. SinisterLefty (talk) 06:12, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

I have old computers around, but they don't always boot. And there are uncertainties as to how long would it be usable and would I be able to transfer to a newer computer in the future. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:35, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

SSD or especially thumb drives are a BAD idea. They rely on distinguishing between tiny amounts of charge (the cheap ones are 4 bits/cell (QLC), so 16 levels at each cell) and retention is dubious. Back in the day magneto-optical disk was supposed to have good persistence. Hard drives are bad, they fail in storage all the time. Lubricants dry up, motors get stuck, etc. Tape is good but expensive. How much data are you talking about? What is your budget? 173.228.123.207 (talk) 18:18, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

A few terrabyes - under 4TB at present. I'm a person, not a company, so something not wildly expensive. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:35, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Tape drives are expensive. Byte for byte tape medium is much the cheapest. Tape is designed for data centres producing TiB or PiB per day to be sent off site. The latest LTO8 cartridges hold up to 30 TB (compressed) and retail for around $150. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 21:12, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

But magnetic tape deteriorates over the years, and will there be an interface for it in the future. Back in the 1990s I had a built-in tape backup in my computer. I had tapes to fail. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:37, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

It's not as bad as it used to be. Back in the days of open reel tapes I used to do a refresh every couple of years. Having said that, with luck you could mount 10 year old tapes and read them, error correction tracks saved many an operator's bacon. Modern LTOs reckon to have a shelf life of 30+ years, that's why they are used by business for things like mortgage information and life policies. Again though, it's horses for courses. A 1990s built in tape recorder in a PC was built down to a price. I too had one and they were only a little better than using an audio cassette player as I did on my ZX80. A 2010s commercial tape system is built up to a standard. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 09:39, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

For anyone as baffled by that UK expression as me: wikt:horses for courses. I imagine that started out as "(Use) different horses for different (race)courses", which is similar to the (dated) US version: "Different strokes for different folks" (although the usage of "strokes" there is also somewhat baffling, apparently meaning punches: [1]). SinisterLefty (talk) 14:24, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I didn't realise the expression was unknown across the pond. You're quite right in your interpretation, as Wiktionary says: "or the best means to achieve a specific end". BTW wikt:different strokes for different folks explains your "different strokes for different folks" to mean "Different people like different things; there's no accounting for taste", so (normally) not punches! Regards, Martin of Sheffield (talk) 16:40, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

I just found this and have started to read it. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:40, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

And this. M-DISC may be the way to go. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:45, 4 October 2019 (UTC)