Internet Archive opens Vancouver headquarters, meeting space for the tech world

The linked article mentions “There will also be servers in the building.” Here’s a bit more information from the invitation I received last week to the Internet Archive’s event marking the launch of their new Canadian headquarters:<p>“The Canadian Data Center is a secure and sustainable back-up for the entire Archive. Our goal is to continue providing access to knowledge for decades to come, and this ensures we can and will. This Data Center stores everything in our Archive – as a back-up. It’s a full, second live copy preserved outside the US — which ensures our data cannot be compromised by threats to a single system or location.”<p>The Internet Archive is a nonprofit charity and welcomes donations:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.org&#x2F;donate&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.org&#x2F;donate&#x2F;</a>

For the purpose of avoiding court orders, it would be better to have two or three complementary organizations that are nominally unrelated:<p>Archive 1: Located in the US, hosts most of the content<p>Archive 2: Located in Russia, hosts content that the US has problems with, such as copyrighted material or government secrets.<p>Backups: Located in some relatively neutral countries, probably somewhere in the Middle East, like UAE.

Located in the &quot;The Permanent Building&quot;, it couldn&#x27;t be more appropriately situated. Steps away from the library too.<p>A great presence in the city!

Another good location would be in India. I hope, Internet Archive considers this option to geographically hedge potential risks of destruction.

Putting servers in Canada is a good idea but Vancouver is in the same seismic zone as San Francisco.

I give them $5&#x2F;month. You&#x27;re welcome

That building is somewhat reminiscent of their SF headquarters:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.atlasobscura.com&#x2F;places&#x2F;internet-archive-headquarters" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.atlasobscura.com&#x2F;places&#x2F;internet-archive-headqua...</a><p>That said, the biggest threat to the Internet Archive is from overreaching copyright legislation, and Canada is not that much better than the US. Iceland or some other such locale might be better indicated, and Iceland has natural advantages in cooling and cheap hydropower, a big part of a datacenter&#x27;s operational costs.

More than 25% of British Columbian workers work in the technology sector [1]. While the sector has been growing for 30 years, things really picked up in the last few years as Silicon Valley firms branched out in search of employees, often as a way of getting around the problematic processing of work visas in the US.<p>BC has several great engineering and computer science universities and a long history of public support for the development of the tech sector. It’s nice to see the Archive choosing to locate here, since it sort of validates that BC is perhaps no longer a third rate tech backwater.<p>1. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;biv.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;2022&#x2F;05&#x2F;bcs-biggest-technology-companies-getting-bigger" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;biv.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;2022&#x2F;05&#x2F;bcs-biggest-technology-compa...</a>