There’s a Bing ding dong, after Microsoft over-enthusiastically encourages Chrome users to stop using Google, and silence hits the British Library as it shares its story of a ransomware attack. Yes, it’s a new “Smashing Security” podcast with me and Carole Theriault.
Thanks to Kolide by 1Password, Vanta, and Kiteworks for supporting this episode!
In March 1907. The Diamond Sūtra, a woodblock printed Buddhist scripture dated AD 868, is discovered by Aurel Stein at the Mogao Caves near Dunhuang in China. It is said to be "the earliest complete survival of a dated printed book".
It is also the first known creative work with an explicit public domain dedication, as its colophon at the end states that it was created "for universal free distribution". via @wikipedia
Still reading through it, but the British Library have put out what looks like a detailed and open analysis of the devastating cyberattack they suffered last year, and which they're still slowly in the process of recovering from.
if anything good can come out of the disaster at the #BritishLibrary, surely it’s a rethink of accepting digital “copies” as fulfilment of legal deposit. @bookstodon
If anyone is trying to access stuff at the British Library but can't due to the #CyberAttack, National Library of Scotland is worth a try.
For example, it has some historical maps of the entire UK.
I've been looking at a large scale one for Suffolk, where my grandmother's family farmed up til the 1880s, and overlaying a modern satellite view. #BritishLibrary#maps https://www.nls.uk/
@markhburton While awaiting the return of digitised manuscripts & context to the British Library website, I've been hoping to find alternative sources after all the international collaboration on IIIF etc? but meanwhile just discovered that some popular images are at https://imagesonline.bl.uk
It's frightening how little attention the US press has given to the continuing aftereffects of the British Library cyber attack. If it can happen there, it can happen almost anywhere.
📚 The Disturbing Impact of the Cyberattack at the British Library
ᐅ @NewYorker
「 When the B.L. reopened after the weekend, it was in a pre-digital state. The Web site, phone lines, and all online services—exhibition-ticket sales, reader registrations, card transactions in the gift shop, the electronic nervous system that unified the library’s collections and shared them with the world—were down 」
"It has exposed the vulnerability of an institution and its people, all dedicated to providing the public with the basic human right to information.
"Perhaps that’s the bitterest extreme of the irony: the sense in which the ransomware attack violates the very premise of libraries themselves. Libraries exist to connect learners with knowledge. Full stop. That’s what has been destroyed: not the stuff, but the connections, the fascia." #BritishLibrary#libraries https://www.publicbooks.org/how-to-lose-a-library/
'From early in the new year you will begin to see a phased return of certain key services, starting with the most crucial of all, our main catalogue, a reference-only version of which will be back online from 15 January, further facilitating the manual ordering which is already available in our Reading Rooms. Other interim services will include increased on-site access to our manuscripts and special collections, and a bespoke inter-library loan capability designed to serve key sectors such as health, higher education and law.'
Listening to #neilgaiman 's talk at the #britishlibrary and I didnt recognize a single author he just referenced. I think I just lost some serious book nerd street cred...
'The British Library said a ransomware attack by a criminal group is the cause of a technology outage which has disabled its website and other computer systems for weeks.'