

Ask HN: How would you build a service that is still be functional in 1000 years? - mtw

Assuming that Internet is here to say, I want fixed text (less than 10ko) to be published on the Internet at regular pre-determined times in the future, for 10, 100 or even 1000 years. Obviously you can&#x27;t have a standard web server because the hosting company would go bankrupt. There are also issue of electronic component decay, or changing protocols and languages. I&#x27;ve thought about self-replicating web software that would self-evolve with the contained data, or maybe an autonomous raspberry pi-unit (solar panel, enclosed in a glass unit) that would broadcast wirelessly the text. Other ideas?
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dalke
Published where on the internet? If it had a given domain name then you need
to manage that. If it's on a specific site, then you need to know that it's
there.

For 10 years it's easy - pay a few dozen people to make sure it happens. 100
years is harder, but doable with the same fashion. For a movie example,
consider the Western Union message that Doc Brown sent in 1885 to Marty McFly
in 1955, in Back to the Future II. Brown had the advantage of knowing that
Western Union would exist, but I can imagine similar systems working.

After all, there are long-running experiments which take more than a lifetime,
like Beal's germination experiment which started in 1879 and is expected to
end in 2100. With enough money you can set up a fund, with a requirement that
the information be published at set times in the future.

For 1,000 years? Forget about it. There are few human systems which have
worked for that long, and your best bet is to write a document that's
interesting enough so as to inspire someone in the future to transmit that
document for you. For example, read
[http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/97nov/teller.htm](http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/97nov/teller.htm)
and see how someone in 1916 convinced someone in 1997 to do something.

For an entertaining fable, read [http://www.centauri-
dreams.org/?p=11894](http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=11894) regarding a tale
of New College, Oxford needing new oak beams.

~~~
wikwocket
For a related story, check out "Humanity's Final Game," the story of the
winner of this year's GDC Game Design Challenge:
[http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/28/4158218/humanitys-final-
ga...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/28/4158218/humanitys-final-game-a-
titanium-board-game-buried-in-the-nevada-desert)

The winner's efforts show the difficulty in designing something that will
last, and be recognizable, in thousands of years. It was constructed of
titanium and glass, the instructions were custom pictographs, and the location
where it was placed was carefully orchestrated.

This illustrates the problem with trying to span such a long time. What will
the world even look like in 100 years, let alone a millennium? Will we have
the Internet? Will we speak any recognizable language? Heck, will we live in
this solar system?

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arkokoley
Create a cult. Induct people in it making them pledge to broadcast this text
at predetermined times and make their children and grandchildren pledge the
same.

Although this idea is quite stupid owing to extremely large possibility of the
cult dying out, its protected from decay of devices and protocols with time.

------
bcn
Not an Internet service, but the Long Now Foundation has started construction
on a physical clock that's designed tot to last 10,000 years.

-[http://longnow.org/clock/](http://longnow.org/clock/) -[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Now_Foundation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Now_Foundation)

