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Sealed layer

For things that must wait: a letter for a date, notes your keepers open together. An Ice Core is sealed on your own computer and never sits on our shelves.

The sealing tools are not audited yet. Everything runs on your own computer.

Rows of steel card-catalogue cabinets down a long concrete corridor cut into blue ice
The closed stacks · generated image

What an Ice Core holds

10 short sections, written for the people and the wardens who will act on it. Pointers only: where something is and who knows what to do. Never amounts, never passwords.

  1. 0Read this first
  2. 1Who to call
  3. 2Projects and handover
  4. 3Accounts (official platform routes only)
  5. 4Where things are, and who to ask
  6. 5Wishes and how long they bind
  7. 6Letters index
  8. 7What may be public
  9. 8What I do not want
  10. 9Rules for wardens
my-core/                # never share this folder
  COVER.md              # public, printable
  core/COLDLIBRARY.md   # for people and wardens
  core/core.json        # machine-checkable
  letters/001.md
sealed/                 # what you hand over
  core.age · letters/001.age · MANIFEST.json

The tools never delete your plaintext. When the seal checks out, you remove it yourself.

When it opens

There are three ways to open it, and you choose which apply.

On a date

A time capsule. Nothing opens early.

Keepers together

Two of three keepers meet and open it, for a reason you wrote down.

After a long silence

After the silence period (6 months by default) with reminders 30 days before, two keepers confirm, then a 28-day veto window. One check-in from you cancels it.

What has been opened cannot be closed again, so the first stage opens nothing personal. Our notices never contain a link, never ask for money, never ask you to download anything.

People have sealed messages for later before: LAGEOS: Message to the FutureThe Voyager Message: Statement by President Carter

Keepers

A keeper holds one share of the key. No single person can open anything.

  1. Three is a good number: someone technical, someone from your family, someone who lives elsewhere.
  2. Each keeper agrees first, and may step down at any time.
  3. A share lives on paper or steel. Never photographed, never sent in a chat app.
  4. The sealed box is kept somewhere other than the shares: a notary, your own account, or a time-lock.

Tools

Everything runs on your own computer. The sealing tools are not audited yet. A seven-day cooling period comes before the first seal.

python3 -m pip install ./cli
coldlibrary init my-core
coldlibrary validate my-core
coldlibrary seal my-core --threshold 2 --shares 3
coldlibrary check-share
coldlibrary open sealed --share-file a --share-file b