The Archive Component of FluTrackers.com

[Laidback Al]

Despite being off-line for the last 24 hours or so, FluTrackers.com is an important repository for disease outbreak information.

Since 2006, FluTrackers posters have been archiving public health reports, media reports, blog postings, and member comments and observations about all things related to infectious diseases and disaster preparation.

Too often over the years, online pages and reports disappear or are removed. Critical documents and past media reports become unavailable. Excerpts, quotes, and snippets from media reports and public health bulletins provide the context that will help us understand the complex history of disease outbreaks. Once posted among the forums here, these entries are permanently memorialized.

The availability of these extended web posting cannot be underestimated. Disease tracking at FluTrackers.com is much more than tweets, urls, and web links. The postings here provide the context and details of disease events as they unfold in real time. They represent a repository of information that can later be interpreted and reinterpreted in light of changing perspectives on disease outbreaks.

 

[JJackson]

That internet posts are generally ephemeral in nature is an important point that I am not sure many have really grasped yet. Strange really when you consider the rate of increase in storage capacity makes each previous years new data fairly easy to preserve. I have generations of old computers contents tucked away in directories on my current hard drives and they only take up a small corner.

 

[Laidback Al]

That internet posts are generally ephemeral in nature is an important point that I am not sure many have really grasped yet. Strange really when you consider the rate of increase in storage capacity makes each previous years new data fairly easy to preserve. I have generations of old computers contents tucked away in directories on my current hard drives and they only take up a small corner.

Yes, storage should not be issue in this day and age. I believe the unavailability of past media reports and public health reports on disease events is not an accident, but a purposeful effort to hide or obscure the information. FluTrackers.com has been aggregating and maintaining these online posts for years. It is doubtful that the Denial of Service (DOS) attacks experienced here over the years were random events. We can speculate that at least some of these attacks occurred precisely because FluTrackers is a repository for these reports.

 

[sharon sanders]

Recent DDOS attack events against FluTrackers is shown in this graphic from our server.

Please note the hugely excessive traffic from China as of 10am EST January 4th, 2016. We have only been online for approximately 30 hours out of the last 96 hours