This is part 2 of our series on Networks of Resilience. See the rest at this link.
There are a couple ways to build digital resilience. Obviously if it’s connected, then the various nodes can keep the communication channels open across the network. But specific nodes may be vulnerable, and the network as a whole could degrade or lose information if they are removed, especially if they are the sole archive of a particular source of data.
One solution is to distribute that information widely, so that multiple nodes would have a store of it and be able to reproduce it in whole if necessary. And this is something that’s been taking place in 2025.
As this article from April on 404 media points out, hard drives and servers with a backup copy of the essential internet are selling like hotcakes. These small devices – sometimes just a USB drive, sometimes a Raspberry Pi micro-computer or similar – with a copy of Wikipedia, how-to guides, streetmaps and more are gaining in popularity. They’re an electronic remedy to the being disconnected from the internet in our deeply connected age.
Obviously, they still require some ancillary systems to make them work – a device to connect to the disk locally (either directly, or over local wifi or an alternative), and of course a power source would be helpful too. But they’re power demands are low enough that a Heko Solar or small Jackery system could keep it running, at least for a while. Absent those tools, the server is a fancy paperweight, and you’d be better served by a book.
But it’s hard to get a book that has all of Wikipedia in it. That might require a series of books, enough to fill a bookshelf or two. Doable, but not nearly as portable. So devices like the Prepper Disk that the 404 article talks about, or the Internet in a Box DIY method that it’s based on have a lot of appeal, and value.
And as a side effect, they replicate the network, allowing each node – each person with a copy of it – to build back that chunk of information. The user becomes a holographic fragment, or a fractal, or mycelium, or whatever metaphor you feel best captures that image of replication.
It’s an interesting idea, that’s seeing wider adoption due to unforeseen circumstances (or rather, totally foreseen ones), and that wider adoption helps increase the resiliency of the network, bit by bit, one node at a time.