A Data Haven is a "place" where data is supposed to be secure at all times. There are several ideas behind the term, involving varying degrees of anonymity for the publisher, versus file security.

A data haven does not always guarantee file persistent existence forever, although such a storage mechanism should be perpetual for greater historical accountability.

The most common are Centralized and Decentralized approaches:

• Centralized: According to an idea pictured in Neal Stephenson's book Cryptonomicon it represents a catastrophy-proof complexity structure with the necessary wiring to keep data in and Bad Guys out. (I.E. Sealand)

• Decentralized: A P2P application where the data is distributed and somehow guaranteed to be resistant to a certain degree

Both ideas follow the goal of keeping information available or secure to / from the public. Note that these objectives may be in opposition.

See also: Communication | Information | Robustness