For decades, "the cloud" has been our digital safety net. It’s convenient, it’s invisible, but relying on corporate infrastructure carries risks. It exposes sensitive materials to:

• Surveillance & Censorship: Vulnerability to government overreach or corporate gatekeeping.

• Data Exploitation: Materials being used for monetization or unauthorized AI training.

• Security Gaps: Centralized servers remain high value targets for large breaches.

Over the last three years, Shift Collective has partnered with diverse community-based archives to build a better way forward. We call it Community Cloud Storage—a decentralized alternative designed to keep control where it belongs: with the community.

Community Cloud Storage (CCS) is a do-it-yourself method for community-based archives (and anyone really) to store and share data across a private network of linked storage hardware.

• CCS uses a combination of hardware, software, and encrypted network technologies to build a secure storage network

• You identify several other people or organizations that you want to be a part of your trusted network

• You can then build this system together by using underused hardware you already have or invest in commercially available digital storage devices we have tested with

• Once you’ve created your CCS network by connecting the hardware and installing the software, you can then upload your files which will be replicated securely across the network

We are designing this system so that no single entity controls a network. By moving away from big tech companies, communities can keep their digital collections on their own hardware. This ensures that sensitive cultural materials stay within a circle of trusted partners rather than on corporate servers.

To make this work, we use four simple tools that run together. A private network (we use a free-for-small-scale-use solution called Tailscale) acts as a secure bridge between partners, while a file-sharing engine (using an internet protocol called InterPlanetary File System, or IPFS for short) lets your data live across the whole network instead of in just one vulnerable spot. A syncing manager (IPFS Cluster) keeps everyone updated, and you can manage everything through a simple web dashboard. The result is a community-owned cloud that is private and resilient.

While still in beta, Community Cloud Storage is ready for DIY use. We don’t tackle questions around governance—like how you decide who can add or delete things on your storage, that’s up to you. But it’s ready to roll out now for those with some technical skills.

If you’d like to get started with building your own Community Cloud Storage network here’s what you’ll need to do.

1. Find a computer to use for your first Community Cloud Storage node. It could be an old laptop running at home or in your office. It could be a NAS system like the QNAP Thunderbolt 4 that we’ve been using to build our partner clusters. Or it could be a Virtual Private Server in the cloud. There are lots of options here, but you will need at least 2GB of RAM, and the more disk space it has the more you can contribute to the cluster. Also, this computer should be able to access the Internet.

2. Are you able to install software and run a few commands in a terminal on your computer? If yes, move on. If not please reach out to jon.voss@shiftcollective.us and we can help connect you to someone who can help.

3. Install Docker on your designated computer if it’s not there already. The Community Cloud Storage software runs in Docker to ensure that it can only see resources that are relevant to it running, and can’t see or interact with other services and data on your computer.

4. Create a Tailscale account and install the software to your laptop (not your Community Cloud Storage computer). Tailscale is a service that makes it easy to use the open-source Wireguard software to create a Virtual Private Network (VPN) so you and the other members of your storage network can see each other, while ensuring that other non-trusted computers cannot.

5. Now you, or someone who can open a terminal and run some commands, are ready to follow along with the detailed instructions in the Community Cloud Storage documentation. We hope that as we get more experience with how people are setting up their storage networks we can make these instructions easier.

6. With your first Community Cloud Storage node running now you are ready to grow your network! Find some like minded people and/or organizations to collaborate with. The Community Cloud Storage cluster grows in capacity as you add new members. But unlike IPFS your storage cluster will only be visible by people you have decided to trust.

7. Ask the new member to perform steps 1-3. They don’t need a Tailscale account themselves, unless you want them to help administer the network. Give them the Docker configuration you created for them in step 5, and ask them to use it to start up their node.