Filecoin x SETI

Storing the first ever message from an extraterrestrial civilization in a safe, reliable and resilient manner was a top priority for the SETI Institutes. While traditional public cloud providers are a great fit for certain industries and use cases, protecting history-altering data is not one of them. 

Traditional cloud provider challenges include:    

Data Breaches
Having the “Message” stored in only a handful of data centers could increase the possibility of a malicious attack like a data breach. Hackers often see these servers as “honeypots” to steal or manipulate data.

Data Outages 
Other hacks, such as DDoS attacks, are also a common problem for traditional cloud storage services where a single vulnerability could lead to millions of people being unable to access the “Message” for an extended period of time.

Censorship 
Centralized cloud storage providers often receive pressure from governments and institutions to police or takedown websites which could open the doors to censorship of the “Message”.

SETI selected Filecoin as their storage solution for the “Message” because Filecoin’s decentralized storage network was designed from the ground up with enhanced security, reliability and resiliency in mind. Decentralized storage provides clients like SETI with more flexibility and control over their data. This approach differs from traditional cloud storage where data is stored in a centralized location. With decentralized storage, data is stored across a network of computers. This provides advantages over conventional cloud storage including: 

Enhanced Data Security
Filecoin leverages immutability and decentralization to provide storage that is more tamper resistant to malware and bad actor exploits than traditional storage. Filecoin never updates data in place — it always writes a new data object that is completely separate from the prior “version” without deleting the original copy. Once written, an object cannot be edited, providing read-only access to the data state at the time it was written but no ability to modify that data, making any kind of ransomware exploit extremely unlikely. 

Increased Data Availability                        
Because organizations can specify the level of resiliency they need to meet availability requirements, Filecoin provides the flexibility to go far beyond what any traditional public cloud storage provider will guarantee. With Filecoin, no two replicas are ever stored on the same physical storage system, which increases data durability.

Data Integrity
Filecoin completes data verification checks every 24 hours to ensure copies of client data are always identical to the original. The “Message” that’s uploaded by SETI will not be altered.

"We're thrilled to partner with SETI on this groundbreaking project," said Stefaan Vervaet, Head of Network Growth at Protocol Labs, the company behind Filecoin. "Our decentralized data storage solutions are ideally suited for the secure and reliable storage of the vast amounts of data generated by this project."