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From...
MIT creates Internet time capsule
February 4, 1999
Web posted at: 10:53 a.m. EST (1553 GMT)
by Tom Spring
(IDG) -- What do Bill Gates, VictoriasSecret.com, and free software have in common? Not much, but soon they will all share a digital time capsule as an attempt to bottle the cyberzeitgeist circa 1999.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology says a "sealed" digital time capsule will be placed at the cornerstone of MIT's new Sloan School of Management Web site. The capsule, to be opened in 2004, will contain examples of digital products, programs, people, and ideas that capture the essence of the Internet and business in 1999.
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Digitized artifacts are joined by dozens of predictions from scholars, entrepreneurs, public officials, and celebrities. MIT President Charles Vest joins United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, Microsoft Chief Executive Bill Gates, and even the stylish Martha Stewart in offering their predictions about the Internet in 2004.
The capsule won't actually be sealed, rather encrypted, and will be stored alongside the Sloan Web site. MIT says the digital time capsule is an attempt to freeze the Internet in time for the next five years in hopes to better understand where it is taking us.
The capsule captures a mammoth amount of what comprises the Net today, from user empowerment, invasion of privacy, protecting children, cultural clutter, new technologies, the restructuring of industries and markets, to globalization and more.
Quips from the Federal Reserve's Alan Greenspan that Internet stock mania is "like playing the lottery" will be stored alongside online news reports of technology megamergers that have defined the Net in recent months. The capsule includes a page from the eBay auction site as representative of the new options in online shopping. It even includes examples of sophisticated shopping services, complete with a February 3, 1999, Victoria's Secret online fashion show.
A snapshot of Volvo's Virtual Showroom is in the capsule. So is a sample of Charles Schwab & Co.'s Chinese-language investment services on the Web.
The free software movement is represented in the Capsule by a sample of RealPlayer for Net video and Abes's MP3 Finder for locating music files online.
The capsule will be encrypted in conjunction with Sloan's launch of its "next-generation" Web site and the announcement of a "major new Internet curriculum initiative" on February 4.
One unanswered question: Will the curriculum include anything about hacking into encrypted digital time capsules? Perhaps we'll find out in five years.