The Lark Files
What is this?
The Lark Files is a series of images, videos, and documents distributed among people Lark has met. These files form a sneakernet--a network of digital information shared via physical media rather than over the internet. The goal is to collect as many files as you can by meeting other players in-person and exchanging what you've found.
The Lark Files is a collaborative game rather than a competitive one. The goal is to encourage folks to meet up, make friends, and get offline.
Each file is significant to Lark in some way--representing one of its interests, hobbies, or a piece of lore. These files are intended to be esoteric; you might not know what you're looking at or how it relates to Lark. A short title is provided to give you a nugget of context, but the rest is left to your research and interpretation.
If you want to participate, you can download your first bundle of files below. From there, you'll need to find other players you can meet up with in-person--likely first- and second-degree friends of Lark. If you meet Lark in-person, they'll give you a few files if they have any on them--just ask.
More files may be added over time, which Lark will then circulate.
For specific instructions on how to play, continue reading.
How do I participate?
If you download the .zip file above or get handed a flash drive from Lark or
one of its friends, you'll see some files:
- 📄
README.txt - 📄
collection.snk - 📁
Files/
README.txt contains basic instructions and a link to this page. You can ignore
collection.snk for now. The Files/ folder will contain a few of The Lark
Files.
The one rule of The Lark Files is that you're not allowed to share files over the internet. You can meet up in-person, use a mutual friend as a courier, send a flash drive via postal mail, hide a flash drive in public (a dead drop), etc.
So what about that collection.snk file? The Lark Files are also distributed
via the sneakerweb, which is a peer-to-peer system
for publishing websites without using the internet. It's like the web, but
offline.
You don't need to be part of the sneakerweb to participate in The Lark Files, but it's the only way to keep track of which files you still need to collect.
What is the sneakerweb?
The sneakerweb works like this:
- Everyone has their own private collection of sneakersites, which may include some of The Lark Files.
- You can browse the sneakersites you have saved on you computer in your web browser.
- To share your collection of sneakersites with someone, you export them to a
.snkfile. - If someone sends you a
.snkfile, you can import those sneakersites into your collection.
To be part of the sneakerweb, you'll need to install the CLI tool here.
To import a .snk file into your collection:
sneakerweb import collection.snk
To export your collection to a .snk file:
sneakerweb export collection.snk
To browse your collection of sneakersites in your web browser, run this command:
sneakerweb serve
If you have any of The Lark Files in your sneakerweb collection, you can browse them by running the command above and opening the link below:
Why the sneakerweb?
Why use the sneakerweb? Why not just pass around flash drives with regular files on them?
The sneakerweb solves a few problems:
- It's possible to have browsable index of The Lark Files; you can see a list of all the files in circulation to keep track of which you've collected and which you have yet to find. Importantly, when new files are put into circulation, the index updates as well.
- You can prove that a file is from Lark; only Lark holds the secret key to update which files appear in the index. If a link to a file does not appear in the index, it's not one of The Lark Files.