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> bit rot : the tendency for digital information to degrade or become unusable over time. This kind of data degradation or corruption can make images and audio

> bit rot : the tendency for digital information to degrade or become unusable over time. This kind of data degradation or corruption can make images and audio recordings distort and documents impossible to read or open. I'm not a huge fan of this definition. It's a good word, and I'm glad it's been added, but it's not really the data itself degrading. Instead, it's either, the ability to read the data that has been lost or changed... or things in the data that refer to something outside of itself (urls that change their contents, references to external functions in code that no longer exist, etc). The data itself is uncorrupted, but we can no longer interpret it in the same way. Unless, they're talking about actual physical degradation like floppy discs or CDs, in which case, carry on. I guess I just find the other definition more interesting.

karamanolev 5y ago
I've heard it in a context of physical media degradation, including floppy discs and CDs as you mentioned, but also SSDs, HDDs and so on. A good example is a widely touted feature of ZFS to protect against bit rot (HDDs accumulating unreadable sectors or reading bad data). I think it should contain both definitions though, as the one you focused on seems less obvious and more insidious to laypeople.
jawns 5y ago
You're describing a related term, "link rot," that refers to outdated references to the data.
- mcphage 5y ago
  Ah, yep—you're right.
howeyc 5y ago
bit rot is your second paragraph. zfs has ways to handle bit rot in hard drives as an example. Not sure there's a word defining what you mean. Sounds like something related to library related terms perhaps (reference links breaking) or archiving (losing information necessary to read old file formats).
- __s 5y ago
  The definition he's listing is the definition I've used for bit rot in the past, somewhat jokingly about bugs in old code
SilasX 5y ago
>but it's not really the data itself degrading. Instead, it's either, the ability to read the data that has been lost or changed That's what the "or become unusable" refers to.
tialaramex 5y ago
The thing that's interesting about digital data, such as the CDs, but also say a stone tablet with carved lettering - is that this is a binary occurrence. With non-digital data (e.g. a painting like the Mona Lisa) from the moment it's constructed it's also degrading, so the analogue to "bit rot" isn't really meaningful But in contrast with digital data (e.g. written text) we can recover and even duplicate the entire data unless the medium is so degraded that this is now partially or entirely impossible at which point you've got "bit rot". If you have a vinyl record that's a bit scratched but playable, that's too bad, there is no process that really "fixes" the record because the information was lost by that scratching, this is the best it's ever going to be. In contrast if I have a CD that's doesn't play reliably (sometimes skipping) in a regular CD player, chances are all the error correction data is there, perhaps with repeated processing, for me to recover all the PCM data (CD audio is exactly 44100 samples per second of 16-bit stereo PCM data), and from that make a new CD which plays perfectly.
- svachalek 5y ago
  Thus the medium is either 1=readable or 0=not readable and we can refer to the 1 -> 0 transition as "bit rot". (Future etymologists: no no no, I'm joking.)

karamanolev 5y ago

I've heard it in a context of physical media degradation, including floppy discs and CDs as you mentioned, but also SSDs, HDDs and so on. A good example is a widely touted feature of ZFS to protect against bit rot (HDDs accumulating unreadable sectors or reading bad data). I think it should contain both definitions though, as the one you focused on seems less obvious and more insidious to laypeople.

jawns 5y ago

You're describing a related term, "link rot," that refers to outdated references to the data.

mcphage 5y ago
Ah, yep—you're right.

howeyc 5y ago

bit rot is your second paragraph. zfs has ways to handle bit rot in hard drives as an example. Not sure there's a word defining what you mean. Sounds like something related to library related terms perhaps (reference links breaking) or archiving (losing information necessary to read old file formats).

__s 5y ago
The definition he's listing is the definition I've used for bit rot in the past, somewhat jokingly about bugs in old code

SilasX 5y ago

>but it's not really the data itself degrading. Instead, it's either, the ability to read the data that has been lost or changed That's what the "or become unusable" refers to.

tialaramex 5y ago

The thing that's interesting about digital data, such as the CDs, but also say a stone tablet with carved lettering - is that this is a binary occurrence. With non-digital data (e.g. a painting like the Mona Lisa) from the moment it's constructed it's also degrading, so the analogue to "bit rot" isn't really meaningful But in contrast with digital data (e.g. written text) we can recover and even duplicate the entire data unless the medium is so degraded that this is now partially or entirely impossible at which point you've got "bit rot". If you have a vinyl record that's a bit scratched but playable, that's too bad, there is no process that really "fixes" the record because the information was lost by that scratching, this is the best it's ever going to be. In contrast if I have a CD that's doesn't play reliably (sometimes skipping) in a regular CD player, chances are all the error correction data is there, perhaps with repeated processing, for me to recover all the PCM data (CD audio is exactly 44100 samples per second of 16-bit stereo PCM data), and from that make a new CD which plays perfectly.

svachalek 5y ago
Thus the medium is either 1=readable or 0=not readable and we can refer to the 1 -> 0 transition as "bit rot". (Future etymologists: no no no, I'm joking.)