Critical web data is vanishing. Researchers warn that historical network logs, traffic measurements, and infrastructure records are being lost due to a lack of structured preservation.
The Problem: Vanishing Digital Records
Valuable datasets are disappearing as projects end or companies are acquired. Two major examples include:
- PingER: A 30-year project tracking internet response times that ended in 2024 without a storage plan.
- Renesys: A leader in network infrastructure data that lost significant fragments of its history following corporate acquisitions.
Without intervention, we lose the ability to analyze how the internet evolved alongside social and technological changes.
The Solution: Internet History Initiative
To combat this, scientist Jim Cowie launched the Internet History Initiative. This project aims to identify, recover, and archive decades of network data.
Key features of the initiative:
- Collaboration: Working with established archives like RIPE NCC and RouteViews (which preserves BGP routing data).
- LOCKSS Principle: Using "Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe" to ensure long-term survival through distributed and offline storage.
- Recovery: The project has already successfully recovered portions of the PingER dataset.
The initiative is currently seeking institutional support and funding to scale its efforts and protect the digital heritage of our connected world.
