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chromas [soylentnews.org] writes:

While it might seem like the internet is leaving a detailed record of history, the world’s knowledge is all surprisingly vulnerable to being lost in a disaster. To help keep a backup, GitHub has now archived 21 TB of public open source data and buried it in a vault in the Arctic designed to preserve it for a thousand years.

[...] The Arctic World Archive is located in a decommissioned coal mine on an island in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard.

On July 8, 2020, GitHub deposited 21 TB of data into the Archive, beneath 250 m (820 ft) of permafrost. This data drop consisted of a snapshot of all active public repositories on GitHub as of February 2, 2020, encoded in the form of tiny QR codes imprinted on 186 archival film reels.

These specially-designed film reels are developed by a company called Piql. They’re made of silver halides on polyester and, according to simulated aging tests conducted by Piql, this material can last for up to 1,000 years.

GitHub's promotional YouTube video [youtube.com].

Original Submission