Embedded Files
The original idea for Digital Vellum was developed by Vint Cerf, co-creator of the Internet.
2024-25: As media coverage has increased, discussion commenced to explore how to bring something into being.
'Father of the Internet' says he is worried about its future
Speaking as the Internet turns 50, its pioneers say AI could pose a profound risk
The Independent - July 18th, 2024
"We are becoming increasingly reliant on a technology that is more fragile than we realise and we could be plunged into a “digital dark ages” that will leave us unable to access our own history"
Vint Cerf
The Problem
Digital data is inherently fragile, prone to loss, and reliant on rapidly changing technology.
Without a coordinated and accessible solution, society risks entering a “Digital Dark Age,” losing invaluable personal, cultural, and historical artifacts.
Furthermore, individuals and institutions face a growing need for autonomy over their digital data, ethical curation, and reliable long-term preservation tools.
Existing solutions are insufficient, fragmented, and inaccessible for many users, leaving critical gaps in addressing the challenge of digital continuity.
The Fragility of Digital Data
Digital data has become central to personal, societal, and institutional records. However, it faces significant threats to continuity and longevity due to:
Rapid Technological Obsolescence: As hardware, software, and storage media evolve, older formats and devices quickly become unsupported or incompatible. For example, many individuals and organizations are unable to access files stored on floppy disks or outdated file systems.
Limited Lifespan of Storage Media: Current storage solutions, such as hard drives, solid-state drives, and cloud storage, are designed for short- to medium-term use, often lasting less than two decades without active maintenance.
Data Loss Rates: Studies estimate that 38% of webpages available a decade ago are no longer accessible, a trend mirrored in broader digital data preservation.
The Risk of a Digital Dark Age
The lack of reliable solutions to preserve and ensure access to digital data risks the loss of invaluable knowledge, history, and culture:
Critical Historical and Cultural Data: A vast amount of today’s information exists only in digital form, including photographs, videos, written works, and public records. Without preservation, future generations may lose access to this information.
Overreliance on Cloud Platforms: While cloud services provide convenience, they centralize control over data and introduce vulnerabilities, including the risk of service discontinuation, data breaches, or loss of access due to corporate or policy changes.
Natural and Human-Made Disasters: Fires, floods, power outages, and cyberattacks can irreparably damage or destroy data stored in traditional formats or on vulnerable infrastructure.
Lack of Data Autonomy
Individuals, families, organizations, and governments increasingly seek greater control over their digital data:
Personal Digital Legacies: Families often struggle to preserve and curate meaningful digital artifacts such as photos, videos, and documents in a way that ensures future accessibility.
Institutional Records: NGOs, companies, and governments need reliable, long-term storage solutions for critical data to meet legal, historical, and operational requirements.
Data Sovereignty: Many users are looking for solutions to reduce dependence on major cloud providers and ensure their data remains private, secure, and fully under their control.
The Need for Ethical and Meaningful Curation
The sheer volume of digital data creates challenges in identifying and preserving the most meaningful or relevant artifacts:
Quality vs. Quantity: Individuals and organizations often face the daunting task of managing tens of thousands of files, many of which are redundant or irrelevant.
AI-Driven Curation: There is an opportunity for AI to assist in selecting, labeling, and organizing meaningful artifacts based on emotional, cultural, or historical significance while ensuring ethical handling of personal data.
Gaps in Existing Solutions
Despite a growing awareness of these challenges, the world lacks a unified, comprehensive approach to address them:
Fragmented Solutions: While there are tools for individual use cases (e.g., data recovery, backup systems), they fail to offer an integrated solution for long-term digital preservation.
Limited Accessibility: Current advanced preservation methods, such as storing data on glass, DNA, or other experimental media, are costly and inaccessible for average users.
Ethical and Long-Term AI Integration: There is no established framework for ethical AI guardians that prioritize user autonomy, trust, and data accessibility over time.
Societal and Environmental Factors
Emerging global trends further exacerbate the challenges of digital preservation:
Cybersecurity Threats: Ransomware, data breaches, and hacking incidents pose risks to data integrity and accessibility.
Environmental Hazards: Climate change, including increasing occurrences of wildfires, floods, and storms, raises the risk of physical damage to data storage systems.
Long-Term Power Sources: Reliable, sustainable power sources are necessary for preserving devices/systems that provide access digital data for centuries or longer.
Shortage of Institutional Anchors
Efforts to address digital preservation often lack stable, long-term institutional backing:
Academia: Universities have made great strides in digital preservation, but they have limits. While capable of contributing to long-term initiatives, they face diverse challenges including limited funding. In some cases the attention given to projects is dependent on professor interest, unless there is a sufficiently defined and prioritized mission.
Insufficient Industry Engagement: Commercial solutions often prioritize short-term profitability over long-term data resilience.
Lack of Self-Sustaining Ecosystems: The absence of a self-sustaining ecosystem for digital preservation leaves efforts fragmented and underfunded.
Digital Vellum: A Five-Fold Approach to Preservation and Interaction
Preserving our history and heritage requires more than tools and techniques; it's a cooperative effort, requiring the involvement of the entire community: institutions, individuals and companies. Below is a draft of our suggested approach.
We want to explore and support the development of:
• Hardware to preserve data for longer time periods than current formats.
• Tools to rescue data, develop stories, and help present and future generations to access the data.
• Preservation protocols to ensure data integrity
• Intellectual property laws that allow institutions and individuals to curate data with confidence.
• Business and governance models that incentivize and support the four areas above and ensure choice around what will be preserved (freedom of curation).
We are seeking to help build this ecosystem because we are fundamentally optimistic about humanity’s capacity to learn from the past. Accordingly, we want to help preserve knowledge and culture for the distant future.
TO LEARN MORE
‘Father of the internet’ says he is worried about its future
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/vint-cerf-father-internet-b2582067.html
Digital Dark Ages and Digital Vellum
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31450389
(Wikipedia)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vint_Cerf
Video: Vint Cerf on Digital Dark Ages (2018)
CONTACT
Please connect on Linkedin and send a direct message:
If you would like to give input
If you know of a related effort, product or service that you think would be worth mentioning on the site.
If you are interested in helping to research, prototype, or just try new things as the project progresses.
If you just want to say hello
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