How It Works

Interview Hana Malka 2009

Verified

We run the file through a hash function, an algorithm that calculates a unique mathematical fingerprint for each file.

If even a single bit is changed, the fingerprint is completely different. Having the fingerprint tells us that this exact file must have existed.

Yet it is impossible to reconstruct the file from the fingerprint alone, just as a human fingerprint is not the person it identifies.

The fingerprint is combined with an institutional signature to prove the provenance of a file.

The archive holds a private key that only it possesses. It uses this private key to generate a signature: a string of characters that could only have been produced by this specific key on this specific file.

A matching public key is published openly. Anyone can use it to verify that the signature was indeed produced by that archive, but the public key cannot be used to generate new signatures.

The fingerprint, the signature, and descriptive metadata are packaged into a single authenticity record. A fingerprint of that record is then published into a public, append-only ledger that is impossible to alter and is maintained across thousands of independent systems. Think of it as publishing the record in the newspaper: once published, no one can deny it existed on that date.

Today, authentic recordings can still be reliably distinguished from synthetic ones. By anchoring them now, we capture that distinction permanently. Decades from now, when synthetic media has become indistinguishable from real footage, a file that traces back to a 2026 anchor is provably not one of them, because in 2026 such fabrications were not yet possible.

Upload a file to authenticmemory.org/verify. No account. No installation.

Three independent checks run automatically: the fingerprint is recomputed, the institutional signature re-verified against the public key, and the blockchain anchor confirmed, all in seconds.