The .wh file returns on a file upload. The content lists drive serial number(s) with sectors (block addressing numbers for the new media), server, rack locations, floor and street address of that important file stored virtually. The physical location of the bits.
This file gets updated on change. All multiple copy positions are listed. All parts of file if spread are listed.
The .wh file changes would give an indication of health of the data centre and the level care and stability given to the file. At the very least, the data centre has a condensed list of physical addresses, to start recovery, if multiple things go horribly wrong simultaneously.
Then again, the .wh file could easily be a lied. How could it be checked?-- wjt, Apr 03 2021 Are you suggesting that anyone keeps any files outside of their own secure premises? That seems unnecessarily risky.-- pocmloc, Apr 05 2021 Agreed. And all those licenses to go clouded.-- wjt, Apr 09 2021 [bigsleep] Trying to recount is always costly.-- wjt, Apr 11 2021 //Recount// Cryptocurrency is not only just saying the value is real but also strings together all the transactions. The physical coin in the wallet only has prove it is not counterfit. But this is difficult for sometihing that only exists a concept written in a fluid medium so the transactions help give the value validity.
Isn't that single block, special number search going to be approximately the same number of listening miners for each transaction time? A normal distribution, small or large numbers depending on luck. A median set resource cost per transaction.-- wjt, Apr 13 2021 Um, what is going on here?
Why is bigsleep pontificating about bitcoin?-- Loris, Apr 13 2021 I'm not sure enough in my understanding of bitcoin to assert things about that as confidently as you are, but I am pretty sure that bitcoin and blockchain are essentially irrelevant to the proposed idea. Numerous distributed storage systems exist, for businesses and consumers. Some big ones are Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Box, IDrive, and various storage services on the Amazon Elastic Cloud.-- Loris, Apr 13 2021 A purely physical address coat check, no symbolized number translation involved at all. Was the crux.-- wjt, Apr 17 2021 make it so the .wh file contains error parity information, then whenever someone comes back, they can re-upload the .wh file and do an error parity check to prove the data is still there.-- chronological, Apr 19 2021 //make it so the .wh file contains error parity information, then whenever someone comes back, they can re-upload the .wh file and do an error parity check to prove the data is still there.//
Parity? Of an entire file? There's hardly any point. Did you mean CRC? I'd assumed the proposed .wh format would hold some sort of hash of each file's content at the very least, and possibly several. MD5 is traditional to pick up data integrity issues, and you probably want a good cryptographic hash too. You might want a CRC as well, for where speed is important.-- Loris, Apr 19 2021 if it is needed to recover file x, It's spacetime position is recorded in the .wh file.-- wjt, Apr 20 2021 random, halfbakery