How a record is kept

01 The locked date

When you file, the exact moment is stamped by an independent timestamp authority using RFC 3161 — the same standard behind signed software and notarised documents. The authority signs a fingerprint of your record together with the time, so the date can't be moved afterward by anyone, including us.

The timestamp proves when; the Proof Code below proves what. Together they show these exact words existed on this exact day. That's why the earlier your date, the more it proves — a late apology is easy; a dated one, locked the day you meant it, is not.

02 The Proof Code

Your Proof Code is a fingerprint of your exact words — a short code produced by running them through a one-way function (SHA-256). Change a single letter and the whole code changes; and it can't be turned back into your words.

To check it, click Verify on any record: your own browser re-runs the same function on the words on the page and compares. If they match, the record is word-for-word unchanged since the day it was sealed. The check happens on your device — you never have to trust us.

If your words are public — under your real name, an alias, or no name — anyone can run that check. If you kept your words private, only you hold the words, so only you can rebuild the code; the public still sees that a dated, sealed record exists, just not what it says.

03 The Internet Archive snapshot

When a public record is sealed, its page is captured by the Internet Archive — the non-profit that has snapshotted the web since 1996 — so there's an independent, public marker that your record existed on its date. (A private record has nothing public to snapshot, so it rests on the two proofs that need no archive: its independent timestamp and its Proof Code.)

What your record actually rests on isn't any one company or server — it's the independent timestamp and the Proof Code above, and, if we ever wind down, the final open export below. The snapshot is a public marker on top of those, not the thing holding the record up.

04 What can go wrong

Servers fail. Companies close. Links rot. We don't pretend otherwise — we build against each failure. The timestamp is independent of us. The Internet Archive snapshot of your page is independent of us. The Proof Code is verifiable without us.

What if Atonr shuts down? Then the Wind-Down Protocol begins. We don't promise the company lasts forever — we promise the record does, through the chain, not the company: every paid record is timestamped the moment you seal, public records' pages are also snapshotted by the Internet Archive, and on wind-down we publish a final export — every record's words, date, and Proof Code — that anyone can keep.