The Silo Project – 50 Time Capsules for Autonomi

In my first attempt at creating an Autonomi Time Capsule, I uploaded a single archive (.zip) containing a screenshot of today’s news (.png) and a text file (.txt) with the Data Address of yesterday’s news. The idea was to preserve daily news in a decentralized, time-proof way, inspired by the AntChain principle, but executed manually. The final goal was to have one ultimate Data Address that links all uploads from start to finish—something that could even be engraved on stainless steel to survive for centuries.

Unfortunately, this first capsule failed due to lost and inaccessible files, which made it impossible to recreate the archive exactly as it was.

Learning from that experience, I am launching The Silo Project. The concept is inspired by the Silo series: rather than relying on a single capsule, I will create 50 independent time capsules, each acting as its own “silo” of preserved data. Each capsule will contain the same kind of archive as the first attempt—screenshots and Data Address text files—so even if some capsules become inaccessible over time, others will survive.

This multi-level backup methodology approach increases resilience and provides multiple opportunities for future generations to access the preserved information. The Silo Project is both an experiment and a contribution to testing the long-term durability of the Autonomi network. Updates will be posted as each capsule is successfully updated.

Goal: 50 time capsules, numbered like Silo1 through Silo50, ensuring redundancy and higher chances of long-term preservation.


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50 files
Upload Speed: 18m 33s
Upload Cost: 0.45$ in ETH, 0.000026 ANT
Size: 15,7 MiB

Capsule Data Address
Silo1 1d1f223c259ee6bbaaa20bc2b28a000b7d403621b6cbd8b0c3864a76239e9284
Silo2 4e91a1b416873f25b0ac9c4143d2e1f18b94968f017bf4b9bf685511a2fbce8e
Silo3 14fdb7d13a5954151272525e4ec141f7636e20b5312c1efdba93233d941278f6
Silo4 b2d75c063f2fcd4c21f127dc5d6d42bb75a859d15d456d8d8c2fa24a74b9e30d
Silo5 a86bd6857e1a7aba5ea2a17f14c98ca5b8ce42d67866c7ea0b663f9fbe975db1
Silo6 53b4c288b4bc5a491741d1c3ed45a370c47c866a17b22bca6439600eb68f557b
Silo7 d0b31c0c177a3b362ba4b236ed425894046f40dde099dae32a219be26b2cb855
Silo8 b99df594b89ffebfe18f62d88402c9c7ce763e993f3da266334e1b03a8b74fa8
Silo9 8d0e0e65e41f4ae6496d87cdca8148ffd049ec108530e1682d8ed5d41a88a68a
Silo10 6ab5999529eed9d28288980df927b0428d66016f62d08f2dcae7d7ac184193e2
Silo11 5c4ec6745f0461fd5d7565a37957a94bac398550f4729aedb70c7f92dff97260
Silo12 c5382192e04f1c4d5ff10a3f733fc0f4bfabdc7d98d0b0227146ba2f25bc5366
Silo13 ec0ea7125a72fb858fdbbc36c2155d337c8dbe6aa27137d138f1eaf572e6869a
Silo14 759ba4632cb32c43cb1e5429c5bf8fbe39ef63bd8a58e7e6ed9327c32d40648d
Silo15 95eca07fcdd08743f5d2102da02d3613a3435a6ee67899f9a6bfa1a77430c540
Silo16 9d96d1db549e21ee127af0924e79d56d39ab0d47d987f0e54787b14bea18787f
Silo17 3104511e7488743c6299aabeb94621515781c61dbe4b08afe3be11125597631a
Silo18 8f6c72695749ad4bdb4b92dfbb2cb1afb93d25de361e83733f88baaa4912be39
Silo19 baf164c3956c43c9f1800da2fe843f9bf4b7ee9d70c771794054f7692f5934ae
Silo20 e5fc447b7c46ee3a25e4b010c1a7016f1e38c8a36bc9ef4db6c16cc78ae4be27
Silo21 cd38b90ec624a0b696daa36ba7f19fa4703a774cce44763ec4670b964da77ba8
Silo22 5880c1594fa80e8c50c9b5cf036977f183626a1fe4094b4057b8a976054e4849
Silo23 d2c12bb5be6b31809d6eb97380b94545aec24620bb871e6842da26831d91e702
Silo24 d2f93b02551020a00abf9377d194e2fe5d68dc92b656c3a39aab08e56f801ed5
Silo25 5543c9e6654c161a1f1107b1fdb2578c8311237660044537636edcb3aa7afe2f
Silo26 6db5715119a406b763d7d5d31b05326e74ffb2d10d7615c7d72464eba429e2f1
Silo27 88103efaad045416e5cfcd03865ba9db3e8f491405fff1ecf878da86b2d61977
Silo28 2db9ff4cec539c9852f1a69732926fddc885cff2d422d3d8c19ba2810aceaec4
Silo29 4cc9568be836d98d8753244ece3b40cbe2eefa1d2db40ec22cdfbcb97d781cf4
Silo30 921b2f8f08022c0f04b6caa99cfb9cf9e582fee00142c856d4a45e8a208088ef
Silo31 faf1b2024c4daed0fa81036bb179e5581b14ef3dffd46064b2d85e953ead3d92
Silo32 a26a690665ca01a6549c4c30984ab886bb973279ef593c8ff582e7a1e8bee3ca
Silo33 e4917d80d081dd365de0beb642c4ae8ee9a8e9b56564fb68d045784f1cca3efc
Silo34 133e5e964faa1e72a56f80e3b385c67a12f8f3924fd02c19b0a1db82f3efe4f0
Silo35 665ec7729497e15d7b12a18418afcf1c7b4aab0aa28079b36c069155c622550a
Silo36 44de84cb43aba0e0bfc7d7b25f2245c5b471bc228764ef1e8f429264c3ea7e67
Silo37 380b849c3573aed7493072e8480a83a48be08643f502edfaaad8c216df6251bc
Silo38 42170a3b928aaccdbe44327147192dddcf57bb9999398f46f18aced48f459faf
Silo39 f4357ed3a75b4e3dfc74a40769869446c5ff81da74f39ac05cf8709a99bed6b3
Silo40 c763771d1d8994210f026259a6f2ad8959239c6b515f81ad59d2b38be860fee4
Silo41 153ed6e4ed5b86d19becfffe1a69e627426f394bd20c01bdfc91b2b2958998f3
Silo42 0bef3dd06ba54ff68ce8db1afcde65ac4e88b3abf433d0f58a16586121491039
Silo43 a67e5f437c188f847dffc2b81b187643423ce6d39cec5477612d2912188d2baa
Silo44 41e6ba56b0122ad8750f9656e85bb080039124fd9c3012711d4ce8d2e1f1bf2f
Silo45 8ac653a517906b3c06e7c809018ac705bfcd763ad673a6d197d0b9c997fd367e
Silo46 2ef1cc76e327b7a68c7b799f3b4aa3d1cc4e9b2a346a841a952b967dac20db75
Silo47 885d96d75cd2954454e0c61213abdb6b917c5420b9dd8735255c474f12493a09
Silo48 fea07ad494db5227b41e4f8fb30e911c60c82c47e3ddffa960267e12eba40cc2
Silo49 68670689d1e01c771981ba9d45e20636459ca812d7eb198208521a898c5c0c71
Silo50 9828dbacf445e215da2d5fa303daf7a7f75efe7a6629c0c8483779dacc97b7c1

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Have you considered using a tarchive (indexed tar) instead of a zip?

The network compresses chunks already and tarchives are just tar files with an index file at the end. The benefit is that anttp can download the contents directly, rather than having to download and unzip.

No other apps use tarchive yet, but it is just a convention with a very well know gnu open source command.

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In your opinion, what is the probability that this format will be supported after 1 century? Does each archive add different metadata like .zip to have a different data address?

If I use it to upload several copies with different archives of a video clip, will it be playable from AutoTube?


Check out the Impossible Futures!

In your opinion, what is the probability that this format will be supported after 1 century? Does each archive add different metadata like .zip to have a different data address?

Tar has been with us for over half a century already and I suspect it will still be here in another 50 years too.

It’s a super simple format and still forms the backbone of many Linux distributes and/or file downloads (tar.gz, which is a gzipped tar file).

They are handy because they are designed to be an append friendly container for files. This made them great for tape backups, where you can’t (cheaply/efficiently) change data randomly. For similar reasons, it makes tar files great for Autonomi too, where existing chunks remain unchanged, with new files appended to the end instead.

It also makes uses the minimal number of chunks possible, just like using a zip file. With a zip file, the whole zip will change when you add files to it though, as the compression algorithm ripples changes throughout the file.

For usability, I would test that Windows easily opens them, but Macs will be fine (based on unix) and IIRC, Winzip etc were happy to load tars too.

The index file in the tar can just be ignored and is tiny (it’s just a list of files, their start offsets and sizes, pretty much).

If I use it to upload several copies with different archives of a video clip, will it be playable from AutoTube?

Yup! It’s identical from a browser/UX perspective.

You also get a file listing page, if you don’t specify a file, e.g. https://anttp.antsnest.site/a33082163be512fb471a1cca385332b32c19917deec3989a97e100d827f97baf/ (or https://anttp.anttp.site/a33082163be512fb471a1cca385332b32c19917deec3989a97e100d827f97baf/ etc)

Or, you can still download the raw data as a tar file with the following, if needed: https://anttp.antsnest.site/anttp-0/binary/public_data/a33082163be512fb471a1cca385332b32c19917deec3989a97e100d827f97baf

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Just saw this thread. This is cool. Maybe I should build a custom viewer for it in SAFE-FS? I was already thinking of making profile pages for people. Could put a rule like if user = Dimitar, display time capsules tab :sweat_smile:

Custom code just for your page (for now, until it turns into its own thing)

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I can’t download it, should I add .tar at the end, because it doesn’t work with that either?

What would make it easier for me and probably others is to be able to upload a file or several files together and have SAFE-FS archive them in tar.gz (see Traktion’s post above), then choose the number of different copies to generate of the archive and upload them together to the network as separate files. Ideally, the network will lose less than 0.00001% of data per year in the future, but even then there might be a push to upload more than 1 copy of valuable data to increase the likelihood of long-term survival.


Check out the Impossible Futures!

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That URL is a raw API endpoint, so you would need to rename it on download.

However, you don’t normally need that URL, as you don’t want to download the entire tar, but rather just the files within it (e.g. https://anttp.anttp.site/a33082163be512fb471a1cca385332b32c19917deec3989a97e100d827f97baf/1_SxkGLnSNsMtu0SDrsWW8Wg.jpeg).

Don’t put them in a tar.gz - that was just an example of tar use. Just leave it as an uncompressed tar, as the chunks will be compressed anyway and it allows easy direct/offset access to files within the indexed tar (tarchive).

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But if you upload 2 copies, doesn’t the deduplication cause them to be saved only ‘once’?

Do you have some kind of random data added to the beginning of the copies (nonce?)

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Archiving in .zip adds metadata and each file is a little different, I don’t know where it adds it and if there is deduplication, looking at the fee probably there is not…


Check out the Impossible Futures!

Good idea. The closest we have to that is you can click on the Export button (in the chat menu interface, maybe I should move it) to download all the hash addresses of all files uploaded via SAFE-FS

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