Another of IBM great ideas!
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IBM Patents Idea of Making Your Data Crappier Over Time
Digital documents have, in IBM's view, a notable disadvantage. If the data is not corrupted, the data remains the same for as long as it exists. However, there is now an idea how to change that.
Enjoy!
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So many kneejerk reactions..
Such utterly one-sided "reporting" (not even a link to IBM's explanation)...
Not worth my time.
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@dhromed said:
So many kneejerk reactions..
Such utterly one-sided "reporting" (not even a link to IBM's explanation)...
Not worth my time.
Ohhh, you are a pussy! Who cares about reason or the truth? Let us have fun bashing IBM!
But ok, the patent (ohhh so boring) http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2011/0282838.html
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The patent text doesn't help their case. I can only see one very vague niche market - those where it makes sense to degrade data (particularly image data) that hasn't been accessed in a long time because it will probably never be accessed again. Think Facebook photo albums for people who have been dead for years. The same concept might be applicable to personal data stores as a sort of replacement for a dead-man's switch for the paranoiacs and pedophiles.
Any SERIOUS data being degraded is just completely pointless in every possible way, though.
Of course, IBM has been known to patent some very stupid ideas from time to time just to bury them.
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If you work in a company like this you're encouraged to file as many patents as possible for any possible idea. And they'll make it clear to you that you're never going to be promoted beyond a certain level if you haven't accumulated a certain number of patents filed (think 10, 20, 50 or even 100+ patents).
It's probably a small group of 2 or 3 people who made a writeup, submitted it to a lawyer, the lawyer decided it was novel enough to get through the patent office, then a review board looked it over and found no obvious flaws or prior art that would sink it, then the same laywer did the grunt work to submit the filing. The engineers, lawyers, and executives are all happy because their number of patents submitted went up for the year.
The only real answer is to abolish software patents and come up with some kind of alternative within the trade to protect small guys with new ideas over the short term -- I don't know what that is. But since that isn't going to happen, dumb software patents are going to go on for another 20 years or more and it's barely worth noticing.
Not that this patent is automatically terrible, it sounds like something I might come up with a use for while I'm in the shower or something.
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Considering they encourage employees to come up with new patents, I can see how such a stupid idea came up published.
I just hope this will never be made into an actual product. Not only it's ridiculous by itself, but requiring a remote server to process the aging introduces a SERIOUS security hole. Just think about it: a "fake" aging server capturing files, acting as your good ol' aging server, but sending the information to somewhere else... That's bound to be exploited and causing havoc!
