The Freedom Seed Vault

 

By Subiet – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=92970583

On the cold and inhospitable little Norwegian island of Spitsbergen is an oddly photogenic structure, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. This austere yet visually striking underground storage facility is intended to secure the world’s agricultural future in the event that some barely imaginable catastrophe threatens it.

I don’t worry much about mass extinctions, v I certainly don’t worry about climate change. And I live way up north, in one of those growth zones where only fence posts, cows, and a few lichens really thrive, so I’m accustomed to plants that scoff at adversity and power on through.

Still, the idea is romantic, and I thought of the Seed Vault last month when I was pondering the current political climate. In particular, I thought about free speech and free association. When a tech giant kicks someone off social media, the victim loses more than a ready platform. He or she also loses a network of connections, some of which may not be readily recreated.

I’ve taken all of my social media time, a lot of my sleeping time, and probably too much of my work time, and I’ve built something in response to the growing wave of censorship and de-platforming. I call it the Freedom Seed Vault. It’s intended to be an online repository of contact information, a way for people who may not know each other outside of a particular social media platform to get connected in a way that Facebook, YouTube, Google, Twitter, and Amazon can’t break.

I invite anyone interested in it to try it. It’s a bit of a work in progress, and certainly nothing flashy (I don’t do flashy), but it’s live now. Take a look if you see a value in making it easy for people to find you if your favorite social media site kicks you out — or if they get kicked off of theirs.

You’re welcome to start by connecting to me. Click the link below, create an account (and you can make it as anonymous as you wish; privacy was a major emphasis here), and you’ll always know where to find me on the internet. And I’ll know where to find you, if you have any interest in being found.

Hank Racette at the Freedom Seed Vault

Thanks,
Hank

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  1. Mark Camp Member
    Mark Camp
    @MarkCamp

    Henry Racette (View Comment):
    (Do minions get paid? I’ve no idea.)

    Whoa.  Stop right there.

    Henry, do you pay some of your other minions?  How much?  If so, shouldn’t you be paying all of us at the same rate?

    I am a staunch opponent of this idea of a “minion’s union” that was brought up at the most recent Henry’s Minion’s Christmas party, which HR refers to as the Holiday party, and I think has been bandied about in the break room although I can’t really tell for sure what people are saying in the break room because of the masks.

    But you need to do what’s right, or we have no choice.

    • #31
  2. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    Flicker (View Comment):

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    Matt Bartle (View Comment):

    It’s not hosted at AWS is it?

    Heh. No, oddly enough, it isn’t. ;)

    But since you asked. It’s hosted by a well-established commercial hosting site popular with small web startups. It makes modest demands on the hardware and doesn’t require much bandwidth, so it can run almost anywhere. I have a backup server on standby that could be put into production in a couple of hours, if we were to lose service with our provider.

    Perhaps I’m overly optimistic (Ya think? — self), but I don’t see deplatforming as much of a danger. This isn’t social media, merely a contact management system. It isn’t a destination, somewhere people would choose to spend time. It’s a utility, a kind of insurance, an emergency rendezvous. A post-apocalyptic Rolodox.

    Who could find that offensive?

    Will it be possible to for anyone with nefarious intentions to access this Rolodex? What could a nefarious person do with the information that is stored? Anything?

    A sufficiently dedicated hacker can get into pretty much anything, Flicker. But there isn’t much here that would be of use to anyone.

    There are only two required pieces of information: a user ID and a password. the user ID isn’t made public unless you choose to use it as your display name. The password is never stored. It’s run through some pretty cool numerical grinder and turned into a long useless mess of letters and digits from which no one could recover the original.

    If you choose to enter a private email address, we’ll keep that secure. However, in the event that hackers got into the system, they could presumably find that email address. That’s a small exposure, I suppose, though email addresses do have a kind of quasi-public quality to them anyway, I think.

    Beyond that, there are really only two kinds of information stored in the system: public contact information, and the actual population of contacts that you’ve established. The latter could be of value to someone, I suppose, if they were curious to know whose numbers you had stored in your contact list. That isn’t encrypted right now; perhaps it should be (though we’d pay a performance penalty for that). I’ll give that some thought.

    Your public contact information is visible to anyone on your contact list. In principle that restricts the number of people who can see it. However, if you post your Add Contact Link anywhere online, anyone who clicks that link can create an account and add you as a contact, giving them access to your public contact information. That’s deliberate: it’s the whole point of the system. Since accounts are free and anonymous, there’s no way to prevent anyone from adding you as a contact if you share your Add Contact Link. So the moment you put that out there, you should assume that anyone interested in seeing your public contact information can do so.

    On the other hand, if you choose not to put your Add Contact Link online, then no one can add you as a contact. In that case, the only people who will be able to see your public contacts are people you choose to add as contacts. That gives you some control over the visibility of your public contact information.

    Finally, the contact relationship is not transitive. If you and I are contacts, that in no way connects me to any of your other contacts, nor you to mine. The only connection I see is the one between you and me: I can’t tell how many contacts you have, and nothing either of us do can “pass” a contact between us. In particular, I can’t gain access to any other member’s Add Contact Link, even if we’re already contacts, so I can’t make that available for anyone else.

    • #32
  3. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    Mark Camp (View Comment):

    Henry Racette (View Comment):
    (Do minions get paid? I’ve no idea.)

    Whoa. Stop right there.

    Henry, do you pay some of your other minions? How much? If so, shouldn’t you be paying all of us at the same rate?

    I am a staunch opponent of this idea of a “minion’s union” that was brought up at the most recent Henry’s Minion’s Christmas party, which HR refers to as the Holiday party, and I think has been bandied about in the break room although I can’t really tell for sure what people are saying in the break room because of the masks.

    But you need to do what’s right, or we have no choice.

    Mark, at this very moment my two largest and burliest minions are heading over to your place to have a “talk” about this “minion’s union” thing.

    (Unfortunately, minions run small. Don’t be too hard on them.)

    • #33
  4. Charlotte Member
    Charlotte
    @Charlotte

    Henry Racette (View Comment):
    “minion’s union”

    Otherwise known as a munion.

    • #34
  5. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    Charlotte (View Comment):

    Henry Racette (View Comment):
    “minion’s union”

    Otherwise known as a munion.

    *sigh*

    • #35
  6. Chuck Coolidge
    Chuck
    @Chuckles

    Just tried (unsuccessfully) to change email.

    • #36
  7. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    Chuck (View Comment):

    Just tried (unsuccessfully) to change email.

    Just checked the log and see that an email verification went out. If you’ll send me a private message with the email you meant to use, I’ll confirm that that’s what got sent. — H.

    • #37
  8. Henry Castaigne Member
    Henry Castaigne
    @HenryCastaigne

    Mark Camp (View Comment):

    Henry Racette (View Comment):
    (Do minions get paid? I’ve no idea.)

    Whoa. Stop right there.

    Henry, do you pay some of your other minions? How much? If so, shouldn’t you be paying all of us at the same rate?

    I am a staunch opponent of this idea of a “minion’s union” that was brought up at the most recent Henry’s Minion’s Christmas party, which HR refers to as the Holiday party, and I think has been bandied about in the break room although I can’t really tell for sure what people are saying in the break room because of the masks.

    But you need to do what’s right, or we have no choice.

    More importantly, where do I get minions?

    • #38
  9. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    Henry Castaigne (View Comment):

    Mark Camp (View Comment):

    Henry Racette (View Comment):
    (Do minions get paid? I’ve no idea.)

    Whoa. Stop right there.

    Henry, do you pay some of your other minions? How much? If so, shouldn’t you be paying all of us at the same rate?

    I am a staunch opponent of this idea of a “minion’s union” that was brought up at the most recent Henry’s Minion’s Christmas party, which HR refers to as the Holiday party, and I think has been bandied about in the break room although I can’t really tell for sure what people are saying in the break room because of the masks.

    But you need to do what’s right, or we have no choice.

    More importantly, where do I get minions?

    One doesn’t get minions. One makes minions.

    • #39
  10. Henry Castaigne Member
    Henry Castaigne
    @HenryCastaigne

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    Henry Castaigne (View Comment):

    Mark Camp (View Comment):

    Henry Racette (View Comment):
    (Do minions get paid? I’ve no idea.)

    Whoa. Stop right there.

    Henry, do you pay some of your other minions? How much? If so, shouldn’t you be paying all of us at the same rate?

    I am a staunch opponent of this idea of a “minion’s union” that was brought up at the most recent Henry’s Minion’s Christmas party, which HR refers to as the Holiday party, and I think has been bandied about in the break room although I can’t really tell for sure what people are saying in the break room because of the masks.

    But you need to do what’s right, or we have no choice.

    More importantly, where do I get minions?

    One doesn’t get minions. One makes minions.

    Kay thanks. I gotta get that lab up and running. 

    • #40
  11. Dave of Barsham Member
    Dave of Barsham
    @LesserSonofBarsham

    Henry Castaigne (View Comment):

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    Henry Castaigne (View Comment):

    Mark Camp (View Comment):

    Henry Racette (View Comment):
    (Do minions get paid? I’ve no idea.)

    Whoa. Stop right there.

    Henry, do you pay some of your other minions? How much? If so, shouldn’t you be paying all of us at the same rate?

    I am a staunch opponent of this idea of a “minion’s union” that was brought up at the most recent Henry’s Minion’s Christmas party, which HR refers to as the Holiday party, and I think has been bandied about in the break room although I can’t really tell for sure what people are saying in the break room because of the masks.

    But you need to do what’s right, or we have no choice.

    More importantly, where do I get minions?

    One doesn’t get minions. One makes minions.

    Kay thanks. I gotta get that lab up and running.

    Don’t forget the photocopier.

    • #41
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