Methods of Data Preservation in Event of a Global Power Grid Shutdown

Methods of Data Preservation in Event of a Global Power Grid Shutdown

Effects of a Catastrophic Global Power Grid Shutdown on Electronically Stored Data and the Means to Preserve Information

Sasha NowakIS455 A - Strategic Applications of ITMay 2015

Table of ContentsIntroduction Setting the Stage3When the Power Grid Fails4Methods of Preserving the Data (Information)6Wait... What about books?8Conclusion9Works Cited10

Introduction Setting the StageBefore the year 2000, information gathering was a lot more basic than what it is today. In a usual scenario, Jeff is watching a documentary on television when he stumbles upon a concept or topic that he has no idea about. He'd either go next door, down the street, or even call the friend that he trusts knows a particular bit of knowledge of one of those concepts, Mary. She's able to explain the idea to Jeff in a way that he can understand. That's a pretty basic way of finding more information about something. However, along with the 21st century, a new way of finding out info has taken effect. "This tendency to distribute information through what we call a transactive memory system developed in a world of face-to-face interactions, one in which the human mind represented the pinnacle of information storage. Yet this world no longer exists. With the development of the Internet, the human mind has been reduced from a powerhouse to an also-ran." (Wegner & Ward, 2013) With technology advancing every hour, people are more and more dependent on technology and the Internet to run their daily lives. In the same scenario, Jeff is watching a slightly different documentary on television about Sea turtles. He has have never seen a Sea turtle in his life, so it's only natural for him not to understand anything in the documentary as it keeps running. Although the option of contacting his friend who's a marine biologist is available, there is a different method of information gathering so many other people utilize. If at all, Jeff chooses to look the topic up using google.com, the world's most popular search engine (Krawczyk, 2014). Google presents him with links as to what Sea turtles are, how they live, how they breath, and how they pass on characteristics from generation to generation. As Jeff looks up information on Sea turtles using google.com, he begins to learn quite a bit, perhaps more than if he asked his marine biologist friend. Jeff then sees a book about Sea turtles in the search result and decides to purchase it. This purchase however, is popping up less and less nowadays. Paperback books are starting to become obsolete compared to the simplicity of looking up a book online and reading it in the same online format. This presents an interesting curiosity what would be the result of a global power grid shutdown and how people would react to it if they couldn't use the Internet or satellites? Can the world depend on books and data storage devices to process information so that we could preserve information to the next generation? It's going to have to, otherwise, civilization would collapse. In reality however, there will always be ways to preserve information so that it can transcend generations. In the event of a catastrophic collapse in the power grid, the infrastructure of the world would suffer quite a bit from the fallout. An event like this would also be tough to recover from since so much of the world depends on the power grid to operate and progress. Information preservation would take a hit as well, because today, the main methods of storing information today are set up by using the cloud over the Internet. Making physical backed up copies of everything would enable people to save information in the event of a world-wide disaster. By using this method, the information stored on the copies would be preserved for future generations to learn and maintain the knowledge.When the Power Grid FailsThe stage is set for the big event, as it has come at last. One day, the world-wide power grid shuts down and access to satellites and Internet are halted. A day goes by; people are in mass panic not sure of what else to do but to return to their families. This task would be a lot easier if not for a complicated obstacle: there is no communication. The biggest perk that the power grid provides is the ability for humans to communicate with one another utilizing it. Basic services such as text messaging, cell phone service, and phone lines would become unavailable. The reason for those services becoming unavailable is because the infrastructure behind those services is also part of the Internet. One might ask why they can't just use walkie-talkies to talk to each other. There would be no problem in trying to use them, they just wouldn't work efficiently because they can only be used within limited distances. If you can't talk to your family members from a long distance, it's harder to get to them since the travel path involved with getting to them requires some sort of communication. Utilization of vehicles would be hindered, but not halted, as gas is still available. Airports would be rendered practically useless from the fact that no link exists between the planes and the airport communication towers. If airplanes were to be used despite the catastrophe, passengers would need to put full trust in the pilot to get to their destination on their own without communication. Radio communication would pretty much be the only efficient method of communication and broadcasting. Ham radios would become mainstream devices of communication because of their usefulness when distance is an issue because they can be used anywhere. Since cell phone towers and telephone lines were affected in the catastrophe, people all would be forced to writing letters and using the post office to send them.In the event of a catastrophe involving the power grid, cable and satellite services would be unavailable. People could still get television programming if it was sent using broadcast towers, but they'd need an antenna. Since both cable and satellites were involved in the shut down, access to most of the channels would be lost. Social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter would be nothing. People would no longer be able to quickly go to an instant messaging service to check up on friends. As stated before, communication is huge to the infrastructure of every country. The military-related impacts of the absence of satellites and Internet access are almost endless. Military equipment would be manufactured a lot slower since a lot of the process includes some form of Internet connectivity. Operations in action at the time of the of the failure would be hard to complete or finish since there is no link to the headquarters. The men and women of the armed forces wouldn't have the ability to communicate with each other using regular radios. They'd have to be trained to use ham radios or take upon themselves to use walkie-talkies on the front lines. It would also be hard for those overseas and in war to contact their families in other countries.As the Internet has become so ubiquitous, countries have taken advantage of it and used it to gather information about other countries. Without the Internet, intelligence agencies such as the Central Intelligence Agency would practically become useless. Their place in investigating intelligence-based matters wouldn't be that big anymore since sharing information would become slow and difficult and thus not in many countries' interests to pursue.With the world absent of access to satellites and Internet, the economy of each country would feel the hardest impact. The treasury departments for the developed countries would have a harder time printing currency. Any automated system for printing money will be hindered due to there being no real automatic method of accountability for the amount of money being printed. On the topic of money, not much would be there to spare because once the Internet itself becomes inaccessible, it will take a long time to fund the issues from the aftermath. Credit and debit cards would become useless as there is no Internet to transfer payment from the card out of it into the seller's account. Everyone would have to use cash instead of those cards for payment. Not to mention, electronic banking and online payment services such as PayPal would be gone. Although the gaming industry isn't that crucial to countries', it's still worth mentioning how much this industry would be hit by the failure of the power grid. A report by Newzoo.com describing the global games market in 2013 stated that the gaming industry was worth over $75 billion. Regardless of what anyone says, $75 billion is a big chunk of our economy. Every country that takes part in the production of video games would have the development of any game they were in the middle of, stopped. There would be very little entertainment, however it wouldn't be the worst of the world's worries during a global power grid failure.

Figure 1. Changes in advertising medium. Businesses, the driving force behind the economy, would all be in trouble. Every business that depended on the Internet for operations, not just for their Website, would go into recession. Jonathan Strickland, a writer for howstuffworks.com explained in an article about what would happen if the Internet shutdown. "Think of the businesses that depend upon the Internet. Every Web site would be offline. Huge companies like Google or Amazon would become obsolete instantly." (Strickland) The search engine Jeff used to find more about Sea turtles, wouldn't be used at all and would be virtually worthless. The companies affected couldn't even hope to have more advertisements, since the majority of advertisements are displayed through the Internet. According to ZenithOptimedia, 24.6% of Ad space is used on the Internet (Figure 1) (Lunden, 2013).That percentage would practically go down to 0 during the power grid shutdown because no companies could use their advertisements online. Unemployment during the catastrophe would rise exponentially due to so many companies putting their faith in the Internet to operate their businesses. Thus, these companies go out of business so their employees become out of a job. Even if the organization didn't totally depend on the Internet for operations, there would still be some laying off since at least some part of the company has to have an online component. Jonathan Strickland also covered unemployment in his article of what would happen if the Internet was gone saying, "Assuming the collapse was either of a permanent or extended nature, many companies would go out of business. Hundreds of thousands of people would be out of a job." (Strickland) Not all would be lost in the job market, because with a problem that arises that causes unemployment, there's a remedy worth employing people to help find and solve it. A percentage of those people might be hired to research alternate methods of communicating information without the usual go-to method of the Internet. For example, more people can learn how to operate ham-radios since those are perfect in the event of a catastrophe such as the scenario is.Methods of Preserving the Data (Information)In the event of a world-wide power grid failure, specifically eliminating the use of satellites and the Internet, there must be a way to keep the information we have now so that future generations can use it. If we don't have a way to preserve the information, future generations aren't going to be as knowledgeable as the previous ones. It would be pretty embarrassing for a parent to not be able to pass on what (s)he learned in decades prior to their children.The oldest method of information preservation and storage in existence is writing. Writing the information down that you want to be able to pass on later in life to the next generation is 95% efficient compared to the rest of the methods. The reason for which is because the information won't be obfuscated because whatever is written on paper is what the person actually wrote. Of course forgery is always an option, but there really is no point in doing so when it's just material that one's learned in the past. Lists consisting of everyone they've met in their life that they can remember or even a grocery list for the month are two examples. The remaining 5% inefficiency is based off of human error and the possibility of the paper getting lost. The other reason for this method of information preservation being great is that if the writing fades, you can just write over it, it's not gone forever.Since laptops and computers will not be wiped out in effect of the global power grid failure, the use of CDs (Compact Discs) and DVDs (Digital Versatile Discs) is a viable option to back up and store information. Both of them offer a simple and safe way to back up important data. One of the positives of using either CDs or DVDs for digital storage is their affordability. A stack of either in bulk would only cost about 40 to 50 cents each. CDs and DVDs are easy to carry around and are fairly durable. Both mediums can withstand fire and being dropped. Not everything about CDs and DVDs is perfect however. CDs and extremely susceptible to scratches to the point that a single deep scratch can make it useless. CDs and DVDs should be used for everyday information storage, not large projects or files. USBs (Universal Serial Buses) are one of the more efficient mediums to store and transfer digital data. They are more durable than hard drives since they do not contain any moving parts. This contributes to the fact that USBs are easy to carry around. Also known as flash drives, they surpass many other storage devices due to the memory capacity and transfer speeds it provides. Assuming that the global power grid failure doesn't hinder USB development, USB 3.0 can offer its amazing transfer speed of 4.8 GB/sec (eBay, 2014). to those utilizing it for many decades. Even the best quality memory cards and hard-disk drives cannot match up to that speed. In terms of compatibility and popularity, the USB is one of the more common ways to connect a device to any type of computer. Specifically, netbooks, laptops, and desktop computers include multiple USB ports. It wouldn't be much of a surprise either so see the smallest notebooks having at least 3 USB slots. Some USB drives, ones that are a combination of memory card adapters and flash drives, can be used to read memory cards for users whose devices lack slots specific to memory cards. Thus, their compatibility is huge.External hard drives are a moderately effective medium of backing up, storing, and preserving digitalized information. Computers and laptops crash and die eventually, so when it's time to get a new computer or equivalent, you can apply your settings, documents, music, and pictures from the old computer to your new one. What sets the external hard drive from the other mediums of data storage, is the immense storage capacity it can hold. The storage capacity of external hard drives usually range from 2GB to 4TB with some companies putting, "...two 4TB drives in one chassis, creating an 8TB HDD." (Real, 2012) External hard drives are also capable of acting as boot drives, as they can make it possible to load a different operating system on your computer through the external, such as Linux. Unfortunately, it's on the more expensive end of the digital information storage mediums, starting at under $70 and can go upwards of $3,200. (Real, 2012) Even though the price could be an issue for those trying to recover from losses from the catastrophe, the storage capacity is what makes external hard drives worth the investment. Knowing that, it would provide future generations the maximum amount of knowledge possible to preserve for future generations using the external hard drive.Memory cards are another way to store digitized information. They're small storage devices, capable of storing backups containing text, pictures, audio, and video. Apart from older ones, newer models are lighter, smaller, and more compact with a higher storage capacity; they can store up to 512GB in the form of SD cards. Memory cards are also highly portable and compatible due to them being able to be used in small, lightweight, and low-power devices, such as laptops, cameras, cell phones, and tablets. They also allow for more immediate access by being able to fit in memory card slots in different devices and are easily removable. Memory cards such as SD cards don't need much organization and thus are easy to keep track of. Compared to other storage mediums, the price range for these cards is fairly moderate, meaning it isn't too expensive, but higher priced than USBs. There are a few disadvantages to them though. For instance, as with a lot of lightweight storage devices, they can break easily. Memory cards can also get lost, misplaced, or even smashed. In addition, the cards are susceptible to electronic corruption, making the entire card unreadable. The memory card would definitely be able to transcend the future from generation to generation. The size factor of the card itself is a huge plus which contributes to its versatility in so many devices that'll be still available long after the catastrophic shutdown of the power grid.Some of the methods and mediums of data storage can thrive in the future, while the others probably woudn't. In terms of logistics, how the world-wide power grid shutdown affects the development of the storage devices is important. The effectiveness of those mediums in this case is dependent upon whether or not it's able to transcend generations knowing the aftermath of the epidemic. With external hard drives, although the storage capacity is the largest of the mediums, it's also the least affordable option. Thus, it wouldn't be the most efficient medium to provide digitally stored information to future generations. CDs and DVDs seem like methods of the past to store digital data. Sure it's extremely affordable, but the storage space just isn't enough to pass on to the next generation. USB storage on the other hand, seems to be the most effective and efficient medium of data storage. It's affordable, has decent storage capacity, can also be used as a bootable drive. Therefore, it would be the best device, along with memory cards for data storage and for providing future generations with the knowledge they need to pass it on themselves. The two characteristics the memory card has that make it qualify for the future are its small size and decent storage capacity with moderate affordability. Writing the information down is also a pretty effective method that will last. Although it's the old school way of learning concepts, it's one of the more efficient ways to preserve stored information. The only reason for it to not work is if the paper the information is written on gets lost or damaged. Wait... What about books?There is one method of preserving information that hasn't been mentioned yet, books. Books have been around for over several centuries, however with the advent of technology advancing each day, a purchase of a physical book is rare to see. Books as a form of media have quickly devolved into the primitive way of delivering content. As technology has been developing over the years the use of e-books, search engines, and e-discovery has steamrolled its place into the market. What used to take hours or even days of searching in physical books can now be extracted in a matter of seconds. The speed is not the only benefit, the entire content delivery model has scaled into a more economically viable way to publish at faster rates. People can rent or purchase electronic media without needing to actually print the text. With the use of technology the publishing industry still has a lifeline. During the innovation of search in the late 1990s people quickly stopped purchasing books and used online references instead. Once e-commerce was integrated into the Internet it allowed companies to direct their sales onto websites instead of book stores. Sites like Amazon.com are open 24/7 compared to stores like Barnes and Nobel that are only open from 7am-10pm. Technology has the ability to transform industries but the information itself has changed very little. Delivery, affordability, and search is the future of books and print media will see its way of the dinosaurs.In the aftermath of the global power grid shutdown, technology won't be as robust as it was before the event. Books will see a new light to shine again. People will take advantage of the eBooks they have and read them all until they're bored of them. They will have no choice but to revert back to books and spend more time with their family while doing so. Perhaps books don't seem so useless. The fact remains: books have preserved knowledge from generation to generation throughout the past, all that changed before the catastrophe is that the Internet overshadowed it. Now that technology isn't as enduring as it used to be, books can make their way next to USBs, memory cards, and writing information down to make sure that the information can transcend the future from generation to generation.ConclusionAs the aftermath of the global power grid shut down ensues, so many different parts of each country's infrastructure will take some time to recover. Money will have to be salvaged, as with the remaining electronic devices since technological advancement is halted. In the meantime, it's important that the information in the world transcends the future so that the next generation learns that information and passes it on themselves. To do this, reliable storage mediums will need to be able to hold onto that information throughout decades without much development of them. Memory cards will be able to provide future generations with information due to their lightweight versatility and compatibility with a wide variety of devices. USB storage devices will definitely transcend future generations because of their popularity, affordability, storage capacity, and unrivaled transfer speeds. The oldest method of information preservation, writing the information down on paper and passing it down is especially capable of providing the next generation with that knowledge. Books saw better days long before the shutdown of the world-wide power grid, but now they've been able to prevail. The reason for them being able to shine in the light of society now is due to the power grid shutdown hindering technological development. For over 2 decades, technology has held books behind. Now that technology is behind, books are able to serve their purpose with more popularity. Literature can now transcend future generations and provide them with the knowledge to learn, relearn, backup and pass on the information.

Works CitedBorenstein, S. (2012, January 19). Online Piracy Debate Has People Asking: What Happens If Internet Goes Down? Retrieved May 5, 2015, from TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/19/no-wikipedia-what-if-the-internet-went-down_n_1215131.htmleBay. (2014, April 9). The Benefits of Using a USB Flash Drive. Retrieved May 28, 2015, from eBay: http://www.ebay.com/gds/The-Benefits-of-Using-a-USB-Flash-Drive-/10000000177629636/g.htmlKrawczyk, K. (2014, July 3). Google is easily the most popular search engine, but have you heard whos in second? Retrieved May 27, 2015, from Digital Trends: http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/google-baidu-are-the-worlds-most-popular-search-engines/Lunden, I. (2013, September 30). Digital Ads Will Be 22% Of All U.S. Ad Spend In 2013, Mobile Ads 3.7%; Total Global Ad Spend In 2013 $503B. Retrieved May 28, 2015, from Tech Crunch: http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/30/digital-ads-will-be-22-of-all-u-s-ad-spend-in-2013-mobile-ads-3-7-total-gobal-ad-spend-in-2013-503b-says-zenithoptimedia/Newzoo BV. (2014, May 15). Global Games Market Will Reach $102.9 Billion in 2017. Retrieved May 28, 2015, from Newzoo: http://www.newzoo.com/insights/global-games-market-will-reach-102-9-billion-2017-2/Real, N. (2012, December 9). HOW TO BUY AN EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE. Retrieved May 28, 2015, from Digital Trends: http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/how-to-buy-an-external-hard-drive/SafeBACKUP Consult Ltd. (n.d.). CDs and DVDs for Data Storage? Retrieved May 28, 2015, from databackuponlinestorage: http://www.databackuponlinestorage.com/CD_and_DVD_for_Data_StorageStrickland, J. (n.d.). What would happen if the Internet collapsed? Retrieved May 5, 2015, from HowStuffWorks: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/basics/internet-collapse2.htmWegner, D. M., & Ward, A. F. (2013, November 19). The Internet Has Become the External Hard Drive for Our Memories. Retrieved May 26, 2015, from Scientific American: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-internet-has-become-the-external-hard-drive-for-our-memories/?WT.mc_id=send-to-friend

Copyright 2015 Sasha Nowak. All rights reserved.Page 1

Copyright 2015 Sasha Nowak. All rights reserved.Page 9