Net pioneer Vint Cerf warns of digital info dark age

Internet pioneer Vint Cerf has warned of a digital dark age as information being created online right now may not be readable by machines and software programs of the future.

Computer and data scientists globally have worried that all data – this century’s digital history — is at risk of never being recoverable.

The vice president and chief internet evangelist at Google gave the example of floppy disks which are no longer readable by current machines.

“There is a serious problem with digital content,” Cerf, one of the fathers of the internet, said during a webinar organized by Synergia Foundation, a Bengaluru-based think tank, on Wednesday.