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<meta name="author" content="Terry Longstreth"/>
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<meta name="changedby" content="W. I. Longstreth, III"/>
<meta name="changed" content="2016-04-06T01:14:43.187000000"/>
<meta name="description" content="MOIMS-DAI working group discussion of Digital
Archiving with Vint Cerf"/>
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<h1 align="center"><font face="Arial"><font size="4" style="font-size: 15pt">Reflections
on Moims-Dai meeting at GSFC on 4 April, 2016</font></font></h1>
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<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">The
MOIMS-DAI working group met with Dr. Vint Cerf at Goddard Space
Flight Center in an unofficial but CCSDS sanctioned meeting on 4
April 2016. Vint was in town to give a lecture on his concept,
called Digital Vellum to the Goddard community. The MOIMS-DAI much
appreciated Vint's taking time to meet with us and share his
concerns about the future of OAIS and digital repositories in
general. </font></font>
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<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">In
his discussion with us, Vint asserted that the success or failure of
OAIS hinges on the existence of successful implementations,
analogous to the IETF philosophy of requiring demonstrations of
protocol implementations prior to approval of RFCs as Internet
standards. </font></font>
</p>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">There
is a conceptual gap between that model and the MOIMS intentions for
OAIS. </font></font>
</p>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">I
would maintain that the specific implementations, while they might
help an organization to satisfy the requirements of ISO 16363, are
not sufficient to demonstrate a repository's ability to safely,
stably, and indefinitely maintain and preserve a body of digital
data. Our society doesn't judge other repositories, such as
financial institutions, or banks for biologicals like tissue banks,
seed banks, blood banks, or libraries, by the nature of the software
that they use to manage and manipulate their holdings. Instead, we
insist on periodic inspections against an established and more or
less universal set of limits and capabilities descriptions. </font></font>
</p>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">Those
inspections are usually called Audits. </font></font>
</p>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">Whether
a warehouse uses Microsoft or Oracle software in pursuit of its
business goals is essentially irrelevant. The questions to be asked
are: can we find the widget on the shelf, and does the manager know
what to do if we can't? Or is a bank declared to be a reliable
custodian of our money because it has successfully installed
Diebold's system? </font></font>
</p>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">Another
aspect of Vint's presentation to us was his </font></font><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">expressed
</font></font><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">belief
that we could improve OAIS acceptance in the Archive Management
market by including provisions and metrics to increase the
interoperability potential among conformant repositories. This may
indeed be a worthwhile goal for the next editions of ISO </font></font><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt"><a href="http://www.iso.org/iso/home/store/catalogue_ics/catalogue_detail_ics.htm?csnumber=57284">ISO
14721</a> </font><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">and ISO
16363. However, for audit purposes, imposing a specific
interoperability protocol as a solution to some felt need for more
reliable (more reliable than what?) production of DIPs carries its
own risks. To explore those risks is beyond the scope of this note,
but converting an internal to an external inferface for managing the
archived material would clearly open a window for deleterious
accesses to the material itself, and inspecting for such risks would
undoubtedly increase the cost and time needed for audits. </font>
</p>
<p><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt">In closing, I do think
that MOIMS-DAI should address the conceptual gap between
Interoperable Implementations and Safe, Reliable, Long Term Digital
Preservation. I think that Vint and MOIMS-DAI see different horizons
when we look toward the future. I think his future is nearer than
MOIMS-DAI's, and his concerns are more imminent and urgent. I'm not
sure that MOIMS-DAI are in a position to propose architectural
solutions that would ease the implementation of processes required
for OAIS Metrics and auditing as described in ISO 16363. And
clearly, near term accessibility and use of a repository is of less
concern to us than some, perhaps minimal, facilities that would be
less easily corrupted or more easily interpreted to acquire the
information in an archive after hundreds or thousands of years. We
want to make it possible for some Information Archaeologist in that
far future to be able to access, but more importantly, interpret the
bits that have been archived under OAIS conditions. But we must
acknowledge that some will continue to implement long-term
repositories while emphasizing short term goals like
interoperability and fast access to DIPs. </font>
</p>
<p><font size="2" style="font-size: 10pt"><i><b>Terry Longstreth,
Laurel Maryland, 5 April 2016</b></i></font></p>
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