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Show HN: If you lose your memory, how to regain access to your computer?

ReMemory is an innovative open-source tool designed for digital estate planning, ensuring access to your important files even if you lose your memory. It cleverly uses Shamir's Secret Sharing and age-encryption to allow a quorum of trusted friends to collaboratively unlock encrypted data. This 'Show HN' resonates with the community's appreciation for secure, self-contained, and technically robust solutions to real-world dilemmas, particularly those leveraging advanced cryptography.

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First Seen
Feb 6, 8:00 PM
Last Seen
Feb 6, 10:00 PM
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The Lowdown

Motivated by personal concerns about memory loss after bike-induced concussions, the author developed ReMemory, a tool to ensure trusted friends can help regain access to crucial digital information. This ingenious solution combines robust cryptographic techniques to create a secure, decentralized method for emergency data recovery.

Here's a breakdown of how ReMemory operates and its key features:

  • Core Mechanism: The tool encrypts your files and then splits the decryption key into multiple shares using Shamir's Secret Sharing algorithm. These shares are distributed among trusted friends or family members.
  • Collaborative Recovery: To recover the original key and access the files, a predefined number of shares (e.g., 3 out of 5 friends) must be combined. No single friend can access your data individually, enhancing security.
  • Offline and Self-Contained: Each friend receives a recover.html bundle, which is a browser-based tool that functions entirely offline, without the need for servers or an internet connection. This design ensures recovery is possible even if the original website is no longer available.
  • Key Distinctions: ReMemory is explicitly not a service, company, account system, cloud product, or a general backup solution. It purely facilitates key splitting and recovery.
  • Technical Foundation: It leverages age-encryption for file encryption, a modern and well-regarded cryptographic tool, and integrates HashiCorp Vault's implementation of Shamir's Secret Sharing.
  • Transparency and Trust: The project is open source (Apache-2.0), includes a detailed self-audit document explaining cryptographic choices, and all operations occur locally within the user's browser, meaning files never leave the device.

ReMemory offers a practical and privacy-conscious approach to a challenging problem, providing peace of mind by enabling a distributed, trust-based recovery mechanism for essential digital assets.