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Archiver > APG > 2000-05 > 0957530387


From: "Richard A. Pence" <>
Subject: Re: [APG] archival photos nearly lost due to virus
Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 08:39:47 -0400


Michael Neill wrote:

> CNN is reporting that the Norwegian War Archives may have
> lost some photos due to the recent virus.
> http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/05/04/iloveyou.02/index.html
>
> One more reason to back things up.

Mike:

There are a gadzillion reasons for backing up . . . but I have read
and reread this CNN story and can't figure out what in the dickens is
going on.

First off, it appears the photos were *from* the Norwegian Archives
and the Archives itself was not involved.

Second, it looks like what happened is that the particular agency
involved may have lost some of its copies of certain digital images.

To suppose that the only copies of these photographs were on the
server hit by the virus would require one to believe that (a) as soon
as the Norwegian Archives digitized these photos it destroyed them and
(b) any digitized image that is "in transit" no longer exists on the
transmitting computer.

It takes an awful stretch to conceive of either of these possibilities
being true.

This appears to be just another of CNN's alarmist ill-informed (and
poorly written) headline-grabbing computer horror stories.

Either that or all those jokes about Ole are really true! <g>

Regards,
Richard Pence
[whose maternal grandmother was Lena Iverson]

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