Theemile wrote:ThinksMarkedly wrote:The value of this would be diluted if too many copies existed and somehow fell into someone else's hands. Someone else's priorities may be different from North Hollow's, so they could choose to use the tidbits of pressure for other things.
So yes, a multiple PB "thumbdrive" isn't a crazy thought in the Honorverse.
You can bet that were at least was 1 backup copy somewhere - computer data handling being a standard thought in the future. Being the nature of the data, probably a offline backup drive in a very secure facility.
Georgia would have to make sure any backup was destroyed as well as the main database. Today it's impossible to verify if data has been copied unless special software is running on the PC, and even then it is possible to circumvent if you have physical access to the hardware. And backup drives (beyond encryption) offer no protection from copying, nor record of any activity.
I think it was Pavel's grandfather (9th Lord North Hollow) who started the infamous files, so ~3 generations of intel gathered, but the moment it started getting used, it would be extremely difficult keeping any possible off-site backups updated. Because once they started blackmailing
anybody of importance, they'd have a pretty hard time sneaking anybody to any established Data Protection Facilities. Which means any backups are going to almost literally be "under a bed" because the Lords of North Hollow couldn't afford to let ANYBODY know where they might be keeping backups that could be hacked, deleted, or stolen.
However we also know that in
at least one case, Pavel raped his own family servant (a pilot iirc) and his father used blackmail to keep it hushed up. Which implies some of the North Hollow files may have been used against their own employees/servants. Do you REALLY think they trusted people they were blackmailing with backups of the very same information you're using against them and countless others?
Dmitri Young was born somewhere in the 1810s PD, and prolong only became available to Manticore around 1820ish, so the 9th Lord of North Hollow had a maximum life expectancy of around 100, due to likely being as obese as his son and grandson were (Pavel was headed that way fast for being only ~47 upon death). So logically the 9th Lord North Hollow likely started his blackmailing by as early as ~1750-1760.
We do know Dmitri Young used the leverage from the infamous files to help grow it, and we can make a good guess that Grandpa North Hollow had to have done the same, otherwise Dmitri wouldn't have had as much influence. Especially not to track down things like how Janacek used insider information to sell his stocks with a military contractor and sparked a Market Crash prior to legal proceedings, despite Janacek using shell companies and other methods to avoid being traced.
The "seed file" backups that the 9th Lord North Hollow used to kickstart the whole process are no longer truly valuable to anybody except historians due to sheer age. Few families after almost 200 years would be willing to agree to anything a Young tried to make them do illegally. And Stefan strikes me as the sort of stupid who actually would leak to the press any remaining blackmail he may have in a fit of pique, to which the family in question simply has to admit that "yes we once let the Youngs blackmail us in the past, but when he tried to do it this month we refused to tarnish our name by helping them again." and Stefan lands himself in a nice prison cell right then and there.
Stefan getting imprisoned might actually kill the North Hollow title entirely, do we know of ANY other relatives who could take the seat? 'Georgia' Young is, afaik, still presumed dead in the explosion and I don't recall hearing of any other siblings or cousins, so would North Hollow revert to the Crown?