Father of the Internet warns of a ‘digital Dark Age’

Last month, Vint Cerf, one of the founders of the modern Internet and now an executive at Google, warned that digital documents and other files available today might be inaccessible in the future.
Constant updates to computer software and hardware could make older file formats unreadable years from now, Cerf said. If something isn’t done to ensure backwards compatibility to old file formats, we could be face a “digital Dark Age,” where much of the information from the 21st Century is lost, he said.
Cerf is promoting an idea called “digital vellum,” which involves preserving content by having software that can interpret old file formats.
With so much of our information – documents, photos, videos, etc. – stored in digital formats, it’s a scary thought that that information could be irretrievable in the future.

Related stories: 

Google’s Vint Cerf warns of ‘digital Dark Age’ (BBC; Feb. 13, 2015)

Why the ‘Father of the Internet’ Thinks You Should Print Out Your Photos (Time; Feb. 14, 2015)

Father of the internet: ‘If we don’t move now, we risk losing all the data we’ve created in the 21st century’ (Business Insider; Feb. 20, 2015)

Cerf Warns Of A ‘Lost Century” Caused By Bit Rot; Patents And Copyright Largely To Blame (Techdirt; Feb. 20, 2015)

Internet pioneer Vint Cerf predicts the future, fears Word-DOCALYPSE (The Register; June 5, 2013)

Will your Internet data still be there in 100 years? (CNN; June 22, 2012)

Photo: Light in the Darkness by Flickr user Martinak15.