Dumpshock Forums > Runner Essentials

Doc Chase

Oct 7 2010, 04:24 PM

QUOTE (Semerkhet @ Oct 7 2010, 05:11 PM)

Oh, I agree, I was just trying to clarify what I thought the earlier poster was saying. I think data storage media obsolescence is a slightly smaller problem going forward. The problem for some institutions like NASA, for instance, is that they have colossal amounts of data going back to the 60s sitting on all sorts of obsolete storage media. I've read that given the techniques they're using and the funding available they are absolutely going to permanently lose data because the old media are decaying faster than they can get it moved onto something new.

...Punch cards don't decay.

Marcus

Oct 7 2010, 04:41 PM

QUOTE (Doc Chase @ Oct 7 2010, 10:55 AM)

Retaining the records for five years and retaining pre-generational technology are two amazingly different things. The point of the provision being (mis)used is to ensure records are kept that far back so there's reliability and accuracy as the statements continue - any auditor can look at past and present and say "that's not right." No business is going to store its financial data on a flash drive or a 3.5 floppy when redundant server storage is readily available, be it onsite or offsite.

But schematics are a key portion of hardware companies books, and have to be maintained the same as the financials. I had friend who worked for Vivendi under some insane interpretation of Sarbanes Oxley they had to keep a lot of the data traffic from all active Wow Servers, and let me tell you that is a LOT of useless data. When i had to deal with it, there wasn't any figure on how long it had to be kept ether, we were sending it to be stored in a vault under some damn mountain in Utah. The point is those schematics are around in 2070, and could be used to build a new if needed.

Marcus

Oct 7 2010, 04:42 PM

QUOTE (Doc Chase @ Oct 7 2010, 11:24 AM)

...Punch cards don't decay.

When i worked for the UNC system we found a whole room of Punch cards from way back in the dark ages, god only knows how many ancient student projects were in there.

Doc Chase

Oct 7 2010, 04:54 PM

QUOTE (Marcus @ Oct 7 2010, 05:41 PM)

But schematics are a key portion of hardware companies books, and have to be maintained the same as the financials. I had friend who worked for Vivendi under some insane interpretation of Sarbanes Oxley they had to keep a lot of the data traffic from all active Wow Servers, and let me tell you that is a LOT of useless data. When i had to deal with it, there wasn't any figure on how long it had to be kept ether, we were sending it to be stored in a vault under some damn mountain in Utah. The point is those schematics are around in 2070, and could be used to build a new if needed.

Sarbanes-Oxley (hereafter referred to as SOX) only applies to financial dataz, and again only for five years. They have no reason to keep the data once that term hits, and they will cycle it out to make room for the current batch year. The only WoW data they would keep would be the billing information and transaction histories, by month, for their 11+ million subscribers -as well as any other revenues they may have(sparklepony purchases) and costs incurred (utilities, exploding server clusters in Seattle, hamster chow, etc). If they're keeping anything more, then that's due to internal controls at Blactivizzard/VivendiSA, not SOX or COBIT. External auditors will never want to look at anything other than the financial infos since we're talking gigaquads of data and a handful of people to sift through it.

The schematic itself isn't a part of the books. The patent paperwork is, and SOX will only ever want to look at the financial portion. This is neither here nor there, of course, as we're talking about stuff runners want to bring with them (and I doubt a full set of schematics for a flash drive is going to be one of them).

Marcus

Oct 7 2010, 05:00 PM

QUOTE (Doc Chase @ Oct 7 2010, 11:54 AM)

Sarbanes-Oxley (hereafter referred to as SOX) only applies to financial dataz, and again only for five years. They have no reason to keep the data once that term hits, and they will cycle it out to make room for the current batch year. The only WoW data they would keep would be the billing information and transaction histories, by month, for their 11+ million subscribers -as well as any other revenues they may have(sparklepony purchases) and costs incurred (utilities, exploding server clusters in Seattle, hamster chow, etc). If they're keeping anything more, then that's due to internal controls at Blactivizzard/VivendiSA, not SOX or COBIT. External auditors will never want to look at anything other than the financial infos since we're talking gigaquads of data and a handful of people to sift through it.

The schematic itself isn't a part of the books. The patent paperwork is, and SOX will only ever want to look at the financial portion. This is neither here nor there, of course, as we're talking about stuff runners want to bring with them (and I doubt a full set of schematics for a flash drive is going to be one of them).

May well have been the case on the data, but last time I looked at patent file it included schematics. Maybe that has changed sense i was in school.

Doc Chase

Oct 7 2010, 05:09 PM

QUOTE (Marcus @ Oct 7 2010, 06:00 PM)

May well have been the case on the data, but last time I looked at patent file it included schematics. Maybe that has changed sense i was in school.

Schematics won't be reported on a financial statement.

Rather, the schematics themselves won't. The patent's value will, and there will be a disclosure as to what patents there are - but that's as far as it goes.