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Geek Culture / A powerful magnetic storm can break down all digital equiopment and erase all data. How can normal people protect their data/equipment?

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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 7th Feb 2012 15:13
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I was told once that there was an extremeley powerful magnetic storm that happened sometime in 19th century. There was no technology back then aside from the telegraph that nobody really cared about and was easy to replace.

Apperentley It was an extremeley rare anomaly that could destroy all electronic equipment and digitally stored data in earth.

Since that time in 19th century, there was no magnetic storm that came even close to the the power and magnitude, but there is no doubt it could happen again and we dont know when.

Sure there are underground facilities protected by 10m- thick layers of lead proboly built for government supercomputers during the cold war era.

But what about us normal people? And is anyone really even prepairing for such a scenario?

I imagine that restoring electronics industry would not be a big deal if you dont mind waiting a few years (i imagine it would be kinda like the current worldwide harddrive shortage but on a bigger scale, they say, the harddrive manufacturing problem should be fixed by 2013)

As for loosing the data would be a real problem as many people have years of info stored on their harddrives as well as projects that people put sweat and blood into. All of that could be destroyed in a matter of a few days to a few hours and an entire era of internet and computers would be gone and we wouldnt even have anything left to remember it from.

Personally for the last few yearsa genuine fear of any kind of worldwide cataclysm has been clawing at the back of my scull when i realized that an end of the world scenario is closer to reality than i previosly thought. and if i had the resourses, i would build myself an underground bunker under a 10m layer of lead.

Latley, the end of the free internet scenario is already getting pretty real and i started slowly hoarding data and bying harddrives whenever i can afford them. But the thoughts of a powerful magnetic storm would make my efforts pointless.

So anyone have any thoughts on how us normal folk can protect our data from a powerful magnetic storm?


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bitJericho
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Posted: 7th Feb 2012 16:55
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CDs, DVDs, etc are not magnetic, those are safe, but they too have a limited life (decades? Less?)

There's these babies if you're really worried.

So while equipment to read them would take years to come back, your data will be there.

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Kevin Picone
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Posted: 7th Feb 2012 17:12
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we could return to stone tablets...

Quote: "As for loosing the data would be a real problem as many people have years of info stored on their harddrives as well as projects that people put sweat and blood into."


Forget the dooms day scenarios, people are going through such loss of data situations of varying degrees every day. Just prior to Christmas 2011, my external HD dropped dead. But thankfully the loss was mitigated from some regular dump to DVDR sessions.


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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 7th Feb 2012 17:58
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its one thing to have a harddrive crash, If lucky you can recover your data or you might have a backup of your work on another harddrive, All my harddrives that i get for storage are WD green, as far as i am concerned they never crashed, neither any of my friends WD green crashed, so for now, i think i have nothing to worry about in terms of regular HDD crashes


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Quel
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Posted: 7th Feb 2012 19:57 Edited at: 7th Feb 2012 19:59
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That "storm", which was caused by a solar flare, harmed electric devices which were powered up.

To be exact, horrible things happened to everything which was under power, fires, explosions, such a hell broke loose just because a couple telephone lines and stuff, and still almost nobody knows about it today.

The point is that if such a thing hit Earth again, forget about data loss, i would rather consider serious, a very serious loss of lives all over the Globe.

Not exactly sure, if there is ANYTHING you can do against it, though maybe turning your stuff off when you start experiencing something that resembles to this phenomenon may help.

The storm will destroy all the power systems on the planet, but if it will ever gonna be brought back, you are ready to go again.

(if it ever gonna be back, i mean you know there was so much hype because in Japan a reactor was - still is, but not interesting anymore, so it's suddenly not dangerous - in danger, i'm not exactly sure what would happen here if all the nuclear power stations blew up at once...)

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Slow Programmer
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Posted: 7th Feb 2012 21:08
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A Faraday Cage should be fine if you are paranoid Most issues on the earth's surface should arise due to induction of currents through long runs of wire (or other conductor). Small electronics would be unlikely to amass enough charge to be harmful, but if they were connected to a longer conductor they could be damaged. Look up EMP (electromagnetic pulse) as it causes similar effects. Plus you will have something else to be paranoid about

There are two kinds of computer users. Those that use Macs and those that wish they did.
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lazerus
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Posted: 7th Feb 2012 22:04
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Lead box everything.

Portfolio; Arthiccup.com
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Wolf
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Posted: 7th Feb 2012 22:06
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XD Kids, if it happens, your toys are FUBAR... deal with it.

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes, art is knowing which ones to keep.
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Dark Java Dude 64
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Posted: 8th Feb 2012 08:17
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Quote: "long runs of wire"
A good point is arisen here! Long pieces of wire will indeed create a much larger current than a microscopic 45 nanometer wide component. Then though, the issue is the relatively enormous (1mm wide) wires the transistors are connected to on the PCB and inside the IC package... A computer might be fine, the power lines though will be destroyed. However, due to our incredibly large dependence on electricity, i wouldnt doubt that everything would be close to normal again within 3 months of the incident...

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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 8th Feb 2012 13:47
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also i am not sure if keeping your electronics off will keep it from getting damaged, (at least not form the kind of magnetic storm we are talking about)


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zenassem
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Posted: 8th Feb 2012 15:58 Edited at: 8th Feb 2012 15:59
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The obvious answer.....

http://www.geekologie.com/2010/07/when-a-helmets-not-enough-a-ti.php






=)~

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JRH
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Posted: 8th Feb 2012 23:32
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Quote: "CDs, DVDs, etc are not magnetic, those are safe, but they too have a limited life (decades? Less?)"

I agree, go with optical storage. Although, the average life of a disk is 10 years...

I don't quite like the idea of storing my several hundred gigabytes of data on disks though... by the time I finish one backup it would be time for the next one

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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 9th Feb 2012 20:20 Edited at: 9th Feb 2012 20:51
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I dont see where else you can store them other than a Disk drive. It took me about 2 days to orgonize and backup about 2 TB of data, CDs and DVDs are not really an option as i already have a hard time finding a single undamaged archive on DVDs i burned 5-7 years ago. Not to mention many of the old game/movie disks i bought are corrupt as well.

Also, Tin foil seemes to be too weak for the kind of storm i am talking about but otherwise its not a bad solution if youre afraid of things like large speakers too close to the harddrives... i should do that, i have 2 external drives 20 cm away from some speakers and i am worried

So far i like the idea of those writable disks that dont degrade over time unlike CDs and DVDs. i only wish i knew where to get them around where i live as well as the equipment that makes them, i am guessing they need some special kind of burner


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Kevin Picone
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Posted: 9th Feb 2012 22:21
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Quote: "All my harddrives that i get for storage are WD green, as far as i am concerned they never crashed, neither any of my friends WD green crashed, so for now, i think i have nothing to worry about in terms of regular HDD crashes"


Which is the all too common "it'll never happen to me" rationalization we all use at one time or another.

But, prevention is better than the cure.


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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 10th Feb 2012 02:54
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I have a lot of faith in the modern harddrive industy, I had many harddrives since 2003. I had MANY harddrive crashed (especially WDs) but in the last 3 years since i moved to russia (where Malasia is the dominant HDD supplier), i remember buying at least 7-9 (i lost track of them as i also literally lost a few by leaving them at peoples homes) harddrives, and 5 more devices with harddrives like laptops. Not a single harddrive crashed in the last 3+ years since i bought them. My faith in WD is restored, as not a single HDD i had before lasted me more than 2 years, most notebook HDDs lasted less than 1 year. And suddenley after 2009 not a single one crashed and i do abuse my laptops really bad (thank god acer is tough enough to survive my abuse) And 3 of my external harddrives are currentley about 10cm away from 20W speakers (i know the danger level is not that high in the first place but still...) on both sides and they have been here like this for a year so far all 3 are 1tb-2tb WD HDDs. I also have this 250g external seagate i bought 2 years ago for work which involved carrying it around all day every day in a bag full of parts and tools as well as hazqardous enviroments like rush hour subways where my bag was the only shield against the weight of dozens of people, And i dropped this Seagate MANY times and i am talking about about 1/.5 meter drops on hard surfaces like floors and pavement. THE THING STILL WORKS TO THIS DAY! I remember around 2005 i bought an external HDD and on the first day i accedentally dropped it from my bed on the wooden floor from around 30cm height, and that one drop broke it, the arm got damaged and it ended up only clicking. the thing was completley new too and i ended up barganing for it at STAPLES as i was some 30cents short since in america they charge you tax for computer hardware and i forgot about that (the thing was about $70.
also, several times when i was at work the last three years, my blind grandma accedentally wondered into my room and completley trashed it trying to get out. among the stuff that she knocked over were my 2 desktop computers that stood on the table 70cm above the floor. The shock of such fall according to my logic should have broke the harddrives. To my surprise the harddrives were not damaged and still work even after the second time grandma trashed my room and knocked over the same computers off the same desk. The system i am typing this from right now is installed on a WD-blue bought in late 2009 and survied 2 violent falls off the table.
So i think the harddrive industry perfected the HDD technology in the last 4 years as they have been the most stable years of my life in terms of harddrives (about 15 HDDs in the last 3+ years not a single one broke! they all still work!).
Am i just extremeley lucky? or did harddrives get extremeley good? Either way i highly doubt they can survive an extreme solar magnetic superstorm that occurs once in a hundred+ years (its been more than 100 years since the last such magnetic storm).


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Dark Java Dude 64
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Posted: 10th Feb 2012 03:52
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My only concern is the online servers, especially those that store extremely important bank account info, etc.

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PAGAN_old
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Posted: 10th Feb 2012 05:35
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^ that too could be a problem, but those types of places and orgonisations can proboly afford a protected underground data storage. Normal folks like us cantand some of us might loose a lot more from all of the harddrives that you own getting bricked than from your banks loss of data. You might have expensive software on your computer that you use to program or make 3d models or something that you put serios sweat and blood into. Its becoming a bad idea to keep your money in digital accounts and banks, and you can still keep your money in an old-school paper checking account which is solid proof of your finances and the banks may as well explode but they will have to give your money despite of all computer systems destroyed by a magnetic superstorm because guess what! Cash is a real physical object! so is your checking book that has real writing/print on it documenting your withdrawls and deposits and amount of money and signed and verified by a real human bank employee, there is no argument against that. If they think they can deny you your money, you can sue them. But all the money thats inside your paypal account, Guess what That money isnt real. Its a file/array insidea haddrive in a server somewhere. That money is not even real because it physically dosent exist in our world and cannot physically manifest itself in the physical world as physical matter cannot be destroyed or created. Inside a computer however it can freely do both limited only to the amount of disk space. Pretty much your paypal money isnt really supposed to be worth anything since in the real world if duplication/deletion of matter was possible, everything would be worthless. (would be cool if i could get myself Ferrari at a click of a mouse)
Computer world is an illusion but our societiy depends so healiy on them that it became real to us especially when computers are used to emulate such real physical enteties like money. the infinite possibilities of digitalization gave us possibilities that were either impossible or hard to acheve in the real world, eg i dont have enough money space and resourses to paint a physical picture of something. Paint is expensive, Brushes are expensive, I have to spend time to go to a store to buy it. I love painting and i want to do it but i cant afford it. But i can use a computer program to paint a digital painting almost as good as the real thing and the time and effort i put in a digital painting or a 3d model or whatever, imposes us to put value on our digital work, even tho typically digital art takes less time and effort and uses 0 resourses than a real painting or a real sculpture. The value we give it is only measured by the amount of time and effort we dedicated (either way, it will always be cheaper than the real thing) which is an abstract unit of value.
So i guess we got so detached from the physical world that to many people the contents on their disk drives is worth more than a big portion of their physical environment.
The reason i started this thread in the first place is because, if such magnetic superstorm occurs and all my data is lost, I would be devastated even tho, in the physical world nothing will change significantly, and most people wont be physically effected, yet a lot would proboly be emotionally devastated like myself.


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bitJericho
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Posted: 10th Feb 2012 16:30
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Quote: "My only concern is the online servers, especially those that store extremely important bank account info, etc."


If we're hit with solar flares powerful enough to destroy hand-held electronics, you'll have much more to worry about than your bank account

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rolfy
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Posted: 10th Feb 2012 17:07
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I think everything would go down with such a flare, your money would be worthless (try finding a bank thats open during such a crisis, who are you going to complain to, where are you going to spend it), rioting, looting, murder and mayhem would be the order of the day, if you really believe your going to be worried about your hard drive losing data I dont think you have actually thought it through.
Of course its hard to imagine how it would go, but think about it, no communications between cops,military and all the way down to little organisations needed to set things right, not to mention transport being knocked out.....I wont be worrying about my software or data loss, only where my next meal is coming from and how to find my family. Thats when you would see your government slinking off to the bunkers they have prepared for such events, you really think they willl give a toss about the few bucks you had in the bank, those rich guy's will be sitting down there with them.

Awesome! Its one of those threads.
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Dark Java Dude 64
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Posted: 11th Feb 2012 03:30
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Quote: "powerful enough to destroy hand-held electronics"
See here is where i think some people are at a misconception. Large power lines have a very large mass and therefore will create an enormous current during such event and that will destroy any device plugged in. However, a smaller, battery operated device likely will not have enough metal in it to generate a voltage capable of killing any components. Perhaps as said before, disconnecting your comp from power by turning it off IF it is not battery operated could save it. As for magnetic storage, there is still and issue there... Im not sure about flash memory though.

Quote: "only where my next meal is coming from and how to find my family"
Unfortunately, (i say that because it is true) a good point is stated here. As it stands now, we all rely on computers, many of which are servers plugged into mains power and will thus be destroyed by such events... Food depends on it, you cant start the car and go get the last food the store has because the car relies on electronics. Hard for power companies to fix stuff as there would be no way of getting all of the workers to know what to do... And so forth. I think and know that things will return to normal, just not for a while i suppose. And most importantly of all, lets just hope this never happens! What about some sort of awareness campaign that would get people and corporations to protect themselves and prepare for the worst if said event does happen?

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SpyDaniel
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Posted: 11th Feb 2012 10:26
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If there is any warning at all, I'm sure the power would be shut off to save most things, it'll be the idiots in vehicles who don't take any notice who find their cars don't work mid journey. If I had warning I would power off all my stuff and just go see people.

Urm, what would happen to people with electronic devices keeping them alive, like pacemakers, life support etc? Guessing if they are important enough they will be moved to a secure area.
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Dark Java Dude 64
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Posted: 12th Feb 2012 02:18
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Quote: "just go see people."
Probably the best thing to do i suppose!
Quote: "pacemakers"
I dont see these being at risk being that they have so little amounts of conductor in them. Your brain probably can generate more current than all the conductive traces in a laptop can during a magnetic storm and yet nobody had a neurological issue from that other storm there was a while back. I think only stuff plugged into mains power will be at risk. Im wondering, in such an event, theoretically only a pulse of current will be generated seeing as a conductor will only generate a voltage in a CHANGING magnetic field, therefore only when the storm arrives will it generate a large amount then as it grows and shrink in size, it will generate only smaller voltages... Theoretically of course. Perhaps it would be good if a minor one hit us the only did a little damage but raised awareness enough ti get people prepared for a much larger one if it were to happen. Right now we are at the highest risk as the sun is currently on the high part of its 11 year activity cycle.

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SpyDaniel
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Posted: 12th Feb 2012 03:58
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I basically had a look and there have been minor storms already this year and there are more planned on hitting, some may be major, think it said about 12-13 storms will hit in 2012.
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Dark Java Dude 64
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Posted: 12th Feb 2012 04:15
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Quote: "already this year"
And im sure it happens all the time, just never gets noticed as it doesnt do anything. the on back in 18~~ must have been an exceptionally rare and powerful one!

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MrValentine
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Posted: 12th Feb 2012 21:45
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and theres me thinking about building a data cluster of hard drive arrays...

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Dark Java Dude 64
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Posted: 13th Feb 2012 03:19
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Quote: "and theres me thinking about building a data cluster of hard drive arrays..."
I wouldnt let that stop you... We might as well all just stop developing new technology all together!

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MrValentine
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Posted: 13th Feb 2012 04:01
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sorts off topic

DBD do you think FreeNAS would suffice? I used it years ago and it was soso... but I am looking to create a multi terrabyte with expansion cluster... [say 12TB+] would it be a good idea? [or anyone care to step in?]

cheers

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Dark Java Dude 64
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Posted: 13th Feb 2012 04:41
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Not quite sure what FreeNAS is but yah, that sounds like a splendid idea! 12 TB is a lot of data!

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MrValentine
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Posted: 13th Feb 2012 05:03
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12TB with me is a walk in the park in one day to be frank

but I want to use it for future expansion to safely store data but this topic =

but you =
Quote: "I wouldnt let that stop you... We might as well all just stop developing new technology all together!"
= me =

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Dark Java Dude 64
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Posted: 13th Feb 2012 06:18
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Exactly!!!!!!

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