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History repeats: will government data be the next to burn?

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by Amiga, Feb 5, 2025.

  1. Amiga

    Amiga Member

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    12th–14th century – Burning of Byzantine texts
    1258 – Destruction of the House of Wisdom in Baghdad
    16th century – Destruction of Mayan texts
    1860 – Burning of the Library of Hanlin Academy in China
    1933–1940s – Burning of Jewish books
    2012 – Burning of Timbuktu's ancient manuscripts
    20th century – "Burning" of literature, historical records, and scientific research by Communist regimes (Stalin, Mao)


    I hope the digital and hard copy data in our government - research, policies, historical records, and more from agencies like the CDC and EPA - are not permanently erased.

    https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/a-look-at-federal-health-data-taken-offline/

    https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/public-health/removal-pages-cdc-website-brings-confusion-dismay
     
    FranchiseBlade likes this.
  2. El_Conquistador

    El_Conquistador King of the D&D, The Legend, #1 Ranking

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    We are all listening intently!

    [​IMG]
     
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  3. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Member
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    lol
     
  4. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Member
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  5. Amiga

    Amiga Member

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    You are in very good company. The future HHS secretary:

    [​IMG]
     
  6. Amiga

    Amiga Member

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    Trump administration's data deletions set off 'a mad scramble,' researcher says | AP News

    “Taxpayers paid to collect those data, to analyze those data, and to make them public for people to use,” explained Abigail Norris Turner, an Ohio State University medical researcher who is the association’s president.

    “Executive orders don’t change who has STIs or who needs evidence-based care for them,” she added. “We wanted to make sure that rigorous information continued to be available to people to provide the best possible care.”

    The U.S. statistical system is considered the best in the world and researchers fear that the removals will undermine trust and put the integrity of the data at risk.

    “This sets a really dangerous precedent that any administration can come in and delete whatever they don’t like,” said Beth Jarosz, a senior program director at the Population Reference Bureau. “Regardless of your politics, this should alarm you since this is taxpayer-funded data and it belongs to the public.”
     
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  7. Os Trigonum

    Os Trigonum Member
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    so how do I get that data? do I file a FOIA request and just ask for "all the data"? #confused
     
  8. Amiga

    Amiga Member

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    You could try, but we really don't know yet what happened to the data. Are they simply removed from user-facing web pages or actually deleted?

    (LOL at your new avatar)
     
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  9. Rocket River

    Rocket River Member

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    This sh*t is insane

    Rocket River
    [​IMG]
     
  10. ROCKSS

    ROCKSS Member
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    It may take years to figure out what the doge team is doing with our information, talk about an assault on our freedoms, these "kids" nor musk was appointed by congress to do anything. I guess well move to more of an isolationist country where it's me, me, me.....unless king trump wants to develop Gaza, buy Greenland or the Panama canal, then its hell yea LOL. Him and his billionaires will profit, and the middle and lower class will bear the brunt of this. We have a cabinet who will do his bidding and a majority in Congress who will look the other way why folks like elon threaten departments like the CIA....................quick note, this is why you cant run a country like a business, people`s lives are involved, we are the shareholders. Do I think we can do better in almost any department, hell yes, but you don't go in guns a blazin end eliminate the entire department and then figure out what we will do after the fact. I mean, if he is going to fire 1000`s of FBI agents and the CIA as a whole then who the F is watching over the country, couple that with trump talking out his azz about gaza and we could have a real issue. trump is not going to allow congress or the courts stop him, and for those that think this is a good thing...............I think in a few years you're going to be sorry, but hey, at least you're owning the libs. So much of what's happening today may not affect many tomorrow or next week, but information is currency and none of us know how exposed the real king, elon, is going to do with it. Do these "kids" on his team have any legal standing to gather such sensitive info?
     
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  11. JuanValdez

    JuanValdez Member

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    I suspect Google has a copy of everything the govt ever published. Aside from them, companies interested in this or that data have downloaded it by the bake. As someone who uses govt data for work, more problematic is when they decide to stop collecting something they used to collect. You build systems relying on getting a consistent data feed and then they stop and you can't do what you used to do.
     
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  12. Amiga

    Amiga Member

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    Search engine crawl and index publicly available web pages. However, they do NOT store full copies of all content. Instead, they index text and metadata to make it searchable. They store cached copies temporarily, but these are then overwritten or deleted.
     
  13. Invisible Fan

    Invisible Fan Member

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    Our Intel agencies employed a 100000 people with clearance to our data in 2005. I don't think massive privacy violations will increase though putting a butchers cleaver to everything will be damn painful and they know it
     
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  14. Rocket River

    Rocket River Member

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    This is the 1st BIG step to where Capitalism becomes anti-innovation
    Stifling technological advancement
    because not
    We have handed it over the oligarchs.
    Which means they pick and choose who gets to know thing
    Collective knowledge is not being limited
    If there is 4 peices needed to cure cancer. . . welll . .they are not in 4 different places
    that cannot communicate with each other . .. unless someone . . .say Elon allows it

    Elon and his minions can not cut funding or connections to what ever
    they can hold these things hostage
    they can sell it to China. . . .

    Seriously if these guys give China and Russia a back door into these systems
    WHO THE F*CK WOULD WE KNOW?????

    Rocket River
     
  15. ThatBoyNick

    ThatBoyNick Member

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    [​IMG]
     
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  16. Amiga

    Amiga Member

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    Inside the race to archive the US government’s websites | MIT Technology Review

    Data archiving is generally considered to be nonpartisan, but the recent actions of the administration have spurred some in the preservation community to stand up.

    “I consider the actions of the current administration an assault on the entire scientific enterprise,” says Margaret Hedstrom, professor emerita of information at the University of Michigan.

    This hodgepodge of data means that in addition to using web crawlers, which are tools used to capture snapshots of websites and data, archivists often have to manually scrape data as well. Additionally, sometimes a data set will be behind a login address or captcha to prevent scraper tools from pulling the data. Web scrapers also sometimes miss key features on a site. For example, sites will often have plenty of links to other pieces of information that aren’t captured in a scrape. Or the scrape may just not work because of something to do with a website’s structure. Therefore, having a person in the loop double-checking the scraper’s work or capturing data manually is often the only way to ensure that the information is properly collected.

    “It’s our library; it’s our history,” says Richards. “This data is funded by taxpayers, so we definitely don’t want all that knowledge to be lost when we can keep it, store it, potentially do something with it and continue to learn from it.”
     
  17. Ottomaton

    Ottomaton Member
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    Step 1:
    Purge the Government data.

    Step 2:
    Take over and purge the private data.

    Step 3:
    Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.


    [The Atlantic] Elon Musk Wants What He Can’t Have: Wikipedia


    Musk and other right-wing tech figures have been on a campaign to delegitimize the digital encyclopedia. What happens if they succeed?



    more at the link.
     
  18. deb4rockets

    deb4rockets Member
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    Musk wants to control everything in the world. He's a man obsessed with control, power, media, and money. He and Trump are two peas in a pod that way.
     

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