Hackers wanted to save civilization.
From Wired comes this story of hackers, scientists, and students who are rescuing recently banned scientific data from the bowels of the Internet. One of the administration's first directives, an act of virtual book burning, was to delete scientific data bought and paid for by the taxpayers from government websites. This action is a blatant and outright attack on science itself and little could be more dangerous to the future of humanity and the planet.
It is said that nothing ever completely leaves the Internet but that doesn't mean it’s easy to find and restore. They say they don’t even know if the hard won and expensive data was even saved before it was deleted from websites or if so to where.
Enter hundreds of good guy hackers in 20 cities so far who are legally combing the net and retrieving scientific data and moving it to private servers from a mishmash of archive sites and formats.
Diehard Coders Just Rescued NASA’s Earth Science Data
...instead of enjoying the beautiful day, 200 adults had willingly sardined themselves into a fluorescent-lit room in the bowels of Doe Library to rescue federal climate data.
Diehard coders are building robust systems to monitor ongoing changes to government websites. And they’re keeping track of what’s already been removed—because yes, the pruning has already begun.
This reminds me that there are hundreds of ways to resist that are not always obvious.
Here is a list of 198 non-violent actions and we can now add rescue librarians as another. There have been many attempts to destroy knowledge, the destruction of the Great Library in Alexandria Egypt in 43 BC is one of the most noted and there have also been hundreds of unknown heros have rescued precious copies for posterity. They were patriots not of a nation but of civilization.
If you have computer skills you might be willing to join the effort. If not don’t hesitate to be creative. Consider how effective a swarm of angry hornets is in defending its precious nest. Multiple attacks from different directions are extremely hard to counter. There is something that each one of us can do. Collective action matters. RESIST