Like every other dad with a digital camera, Kai Pommerenke started taking lots of photos after his daughter was born. But the more he researched, the less convinced he became that he could ensure those pictures would still be around when she grew up. Hard drives crash. CDs and DVDs warp. Companies that store your photos online can go out of business.

一如其他擁有數位相機的老爸，女兒出生後，波默倫科開始大量拍照（見圖／美聯社）。但他愈深入研究愈不相信可以確保女兒長大後，這些圖片仍可完整保存下來：硬碟機難保不會毀了，CD和DVD也會扭曲變形，幫你儲存照片的公司也可能歇業。

Rather than trust his most treasured digital mementoes to technology he saw as all-too-fallible, a team led by the University of California, Santa Cruz economist last month launched a nonprofit he calls the first online storage service to guarantee your data forever. “People definitely have a false sense of security,” Pommerenke says. “Digital data is fragile. You have to do something active in order to preserve it.”

與其把自己最珍藏的數位紀念圖像交給他認為朝不保夕的科技典藏，這位聖塔克魯茲加州大學經濟學家上個月帶頭成立第一家非營利線上儲存服務公司，可以確保永遠儲存客戶資料。波默倫科說：「一般人總有種虛幻的安全感，數位數據資料其實十分脆弱，你要有點積極作為才能妥善保存。」

The era of the analog photo has ended. Just before New Year's Day, the last photo lab in the world to process Kodachrome film stopped taking new rolls. That same weekend, Facebook said its users uploaded 750 million photos. But as our keepsakes all become encoded in bits and bytes, experts agree with Pommerenke that the risk of losing that data to the digital equivalent of a house fire runs higher than losing a shoebox of old prints to the real thing.

類比照片時代已經結束。就在元旦前夕，世上最後一家柯達彩色沖印公司已停止處理新底片。同一個周末，臉書聲稱，其用戶上傳7.5億張照片。但當我們的紀念文物都轉化為以位元格式編碼儲存時，專家同意波默倫科的看法：資料因相當於數位房屋失火而毀於一旦的風險，比一盒老照片毀於真正火災的風險大。

Digital preservationists say that no one can really guarantee that data will be preserved forever. Even for a boutique service like Pommerenke's that aspires to uphold best practices, computers have not existed long enough to be certain. You do the best you can, the experts say, but check back in 100 years. And the concern does not stop at photos. Audio, video, text, blogs, status updates — anything kept in a digital format is vulnerable. Universities and the Library of Congress have spent years investigating the best ways to archive their ever-growing collections of digital data. Pommerenke worries less about preserving important cultural or business information and more about saving the memories of milestones that make up a life.

數位文物保護專家指出，沒有人能真正保證數據資料可以永久保存。即使是像波默倫科這種精品服務所渴望標榜的最佳作法亦然，因為畢竟電腦存在的時間不夠久，誰也不敢掛保證。專家說：只能盡其在我，等百年後再檢驗。大家關切的對象不止限於照片、音頻、視頻、內文、部落格、狀態更新，任何以數位格式保存的東西都很脆弱。美國各大學和國會圖書館窮數年之力，想研究出最好的方式來儲存不斷擴增的數位存檔。波默倫科較不擔心儲存重要的文化或商業信息，反倒較擔心如何儲存生命中重大事件的記憶。

His service, Chronicle of Life, aims to ease that worry by devoting the same level of care to personal digital files that large institutions give to their own data. Pommerenke says his service will perform daily, weekly and monthly backups of all data to servers spread across the U.S. and in Ireland. Software checks all data regularly to make sure the files users uploaded have not been corrupted. If specific file formats such as the now-ubiquitous JPEG format used for digital photos ever become obsolete, Pommerenke promises the service will convert all uploaded files to whatever the new standard has become.

他一手創辦的「生命紀事」服務公司，旨在藉由投入相當於大機構處理本身數據資料的心力，來保護個人數位檔案。波默倫科說，只要是美國和愛爾蘭全境的伺服器，他的公司可以天天、周周、月月把所有數據資料做好備份。軟體並可定期檢查所有數據資料，以確保用戶上傳的文件沒有任何毀損。如果特定文件格式，像現在普遍用來儲存數位照片的JPEG檔一旦過時，波默倫科承諾，該公司將把所有上傳的檔案轉到新規格。

More than any other measure, digital preservationists cite the importance of keeping multiple copies of data in multiple places. Even then, relying only on your own media such as hard drives, CDs or flash drives have their own pitfalls. “Time alone is a factor in your data breaking down,” says Bill LeFurgy, who manages digital preservation projects for the Library of Congress. “The lifespan of most physical media is pretty limited.”

比起任何其他措施，數位保護專家強調，在多個地方多留資料備份的重要性。即便如此，只靠自己的媒介，像硬碟機、光碟或隨身碟仍各有其缺陷。負責管理美國國會圖書館數位保存計畫的勒佛吉說：「時間本身就是造成數據資料崩毀的一大因素。大部分有形媒介壽命很有限。」

Backing up data to an online service can help avoid the issue of media breakdown, but relying on a company to keep files safe carries its own risks. “They may promise they're going to do this for a long time, but it's not assured,” LeFurgy says. Chronicle of Life claims to overcome this problem by working as a nonprofit. While companies can change their business models at will if they're not making money, Chronicle of Life by law must commit all the money it raises to its promised mission of preserving data forever, Pommerenke says.

由線上服務負責數據備份，有助於避免這些媒介損毀問題，但單靠一家公司專責維護檔案安全也有其風險。勒佛吉說：「他們可能答應長期經營，但沒有人能保證。」生命紀事公司聲稱，為了解決這個問題，他們以非營利組織方式經營。波默倫科說，如果不賺錢，公司雖可隨意改變商業營運模式，生命紀事依法仍必須把所募得的錢，全部投入其所承諾的「永遠保存數據資料」的使命中。

Yet even a nonprofit must raise enough money to keep operating. Chronicle of Life charges one dollar per megabyte of data stored, about the size of an average digital photo. Users must buy at least 10 megabytes. That's a huge markup over the cost of storage on today's hard drives or flash drives, which run to a small fraction of a cent per megabyte. For-profit companies offer unlimited online storage of photos and other data for much less. Chronicle of Life's pricing serves as a reminder that Pommerenke intends the service as storage for a carefully chosen selection of a person's most important files, not an all-purpose backup. Three-quarters of all payments received go into an endowment that sticks to conservative investments like government bonds to make the service self-sustaining.

但即使是非營利事業，也要有足夠的資金，才能繼續經營。每儲存相當於1張普通數位照片大小的百萬位元數據資料，生命紀事公司收費1美元，用戶至少要買10兆位元。和今天存在硬碟或隨身碟的資料，每百萬位元只要1美分相較，這個代價無疑是一大負擔。營利公司則提供無限上網儲存照片和其他數據資料，要價低廉得多。生命紀事公司收費機制主要在提醒大家，波默倫科提供這項服務，是為了儲存個人精心篩選後最重要的檔案文件，而不是一般備份。公司3/4收入投入一項信託基金，堅持購買政府債券等保守投資，以便維繫服務持續不墜。

Tom Coughlin, a Silicon Valley data storage consultant, points out that some of the most primitive data records of all — the clay tablets of ancient Sumer and the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt — survived for millennia with virtually no maintenance at all. “I think what we've shown is that with some good practices it is possible to keep this information alive,” Coughlin says. “But it's a much harder job than, say, maintaining the pyramids.”

矽谷數據儲存顧問考夫林指出，有些最原始的資料紀錄，像古蘇美人的泥板和古埃及象形文字留傳數千年，幾乎完全未經任何維修。考夫林說：「我想，事實證明，只要做法正確，就可以使這些信息活著。但這是個非常困難的工作，甚至比維修金字塔還難。」