OpenArchive is a nonprofit organization that co-develops/creates responsive, secure, verifiable, and ethical archiving tools - like our free, open-source secure archiving app Save - and resources with human rights defenders and NGOs to advance justice and accountability. In this poster presentation, Nicole Martin, Teague Schneiter, and Natalie Cadranel discuss OpenArchive’s new research and novel development using the Decentralized Web (DWeb) as a backend offers a more robust, distributed, verifiable, secure way to archive media. DWeb as a backend enables: community control of collections, preservation of data as evidence, circumvention of content takedowns or censorship, and the verification and protection of sensitive information. In environments that prioritize data integrity, authenticity and security, decentralized alternatives can provide archives a way to build community-based infrastructure, transition away from big tech, and securely store human rights data. This presentation will also cover some of the emergent threats and challenges when working with decentralized storage technology.
