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Ask HN: Best way to host a website for 500 years?

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Re: Ask HN: Best way to host a website for 500 years?

#181

Print it out on acid-free paper with a stable, acid-free ink. Have it bound as a hardback, and seal it into a waterproof container. Entrust it to one of your children, tell them to keep it in a safe-deposit box and take it out once a year to share with their children, and to pass it on to their children with the same instructions. If you have it electronically, the absolute best case in 500 years is that it will be a…

Have you been playing a lot of Fallout lately?

Re: Ask HN: Best way to host a website for 500 years?

#182

Print it out on acid-free paper with a stable, acid-free ink. Have it bound as a hardback, and seal it into a waterproof container. Entrust it to one of your children, tell them to keep it in a safe-deposit box and take it out once a year to share with their children, and to pass it on to their children with the same instructions. If you have it electronically, the absolute best case in 500 years is that it will be a…

The second part of your answer is hilarious and depressing.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to host a website for 500 years?

#185

I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appe…

Ironically one of the most famous of the pharoes.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to host a website for 500 years?

#186

Probably unpopular answer: you could store your messages to the future in the op_return field of a series of small bitcoin transactions. I wouldn't recommend making this the only egg in your basket but I think there is a non-zero probability the blockchain history will be preserved even if the currency isn't used any longer, kind of like how you can still go see Song dynasty paper currency from 1,000 years ago.

How would people know to look for the messages though? A webpage is discoverable

the transaction ID seems sufficient

Re: Ask HN: Best way to host a website for 500 years?

#188
post #16

How do you know what the internet will look like in 500 years? Sites from 20 years ago are broken, you can expect that unless you’re using plain text and html that standards will change in 500 years and people will not be able to access your site. Then there’s issues with domains. You’d have to setup a trust and again assume we will still be using domains in 500 years. If you use something like S3 then you’ll have to…

Indeed. As I commented separately I think the only practical solution is to use a simple medium (USB stick) and simple, standard file formats, then to copy from medium to medium, and to convert obsolete formats as time passes.

This requires descendants to keep at it over time, and it not really a "web site", but IMHO is the only way to keep the date accessible and useable over time.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to host a website for 500 years?

#189

Probably unpopular answer: you could store your messages to the future in the op_return field of a series of small bitcoin transactions. I wouldn't recommend making this the only egg in your basket but I think there is a non-zero probability the blockchain history will be preserved even if the currency isn't used any longer, kind of like how you can still go see Song dynasty paper currency from 1,000 years ago.

It should be a balance between readability, findability and integrity.

I would not bet on the btc blockchain for it. Its relativly complex to use, its very niche, it is already 360gb big and there might be a time were it either disappears or gets optimized and your information will be gone.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to host a website for 500 years?

#190

The only practical enough way I can think of is: (1) create static documents in the simplest and most standard lossless (as far as possible) format. (2) store them on a durable enough, yet simple enough medium. Today that would probably be something simple like an USB stick. (3) transfer to new medium periodically, and take the opportunity to convert obsolete media files to new formats, if needed (you could keep the…

wrt (2), I remember reading (watching? maybe it was a YouTube video), that the answer to long-term storage is optical media. There was even a brand of discs that advertised itself as being a 300-year data storage medium. The engineer in me wants to make some sort of metal etched disk medium to store data on and bury it somewhere with a marker on top. Preferably with instructions on how to retrieve the data.

You might be better off with some kind of ceramic, to ensure that the storage medium isn't more valuable as a recycled material than for its information content. Ancient Sumerians had the right idea.
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