OnlyHere

Keeping and using your capsule

Your capsule is two things that only work together: a folder of your original photos, voice and video, which only you hold, and the evidence pack that dates them. Look after both and the proof will still stand decades from now.

Before you seal: set up the drive

  1. Set aside an external drive for this alone. A USB drive, memory card or external hard drive that you'll keep unplugged. Don't use it for anything else.
  2. Make one new folder on it and copy your originals in. Use the files straight from your camera or phone, at full quality. Screenshots and files saved from WhatsApp or social media are compressed copies, not originals.
    • 5 to 10 recent photos of your face, from different angles and in different light. Include photos you actually post, so you can show you held the originals.
    • 3 to 5 minutes of your own voice, speaking naturally. A voice memo is fine.
    • 2 or 3 short videos of you talking to the camera.
  3. Name and arrange everything now. Choose the file names and subfolders before you seal, because you can't change them afterwards. Leave anything private out of the file names: they are kept with the seal for 50 years.

Sealing

  1. Plug the drive in and choose the folder in your dashboard, under Reference recordings. Your browser works out a fingerprint (SHA-256) for each file on your computer. The files themselves are never uploaded; we receive only the fingerprints, file names and sizes.
  2. Tick the box and seal. It takes a minute or two. We email you when it's done.
  3. Download the evidence pack from your dashboard and save it on the same drive, next to the folder. Not inside it.
  4. Download the pack again when the Bitcoin proof is complete. It takes a few hours, usually less than a day; we email you when it's done, and your dashboard shows the block number. Keep the new pack next to the first.
  5. Make a second copy. Copy the folder and its packs to another drive kept somewhere else: your office, a safe, a family member. Then unplug both drives and put them away.

The one rule: never change the sealed folder

Editing, cropping, re-saving, compressing or converting a file changes its fingerprint, and that file will no longer match the seal. Some photo apps re-save a picture as soon as you rotate it, tag it or mark it as a favourite. Renaming a file or moving it to another subfolder leaves the fingerprint alone, but the full check expects every file exactly where it was sealed, so don't do that either.

Whenever you need a file, copy it out of the folder and work with the copy. Moving or copying the whole folder is fine. Adding a new file doesn't harm the seal, but the new file isn't covered by it.

Phone photo libraries and some cloud services can quietly compress or convert files, so don't rely on them as your copy. A plain folder on a drive is safest. A cloud folder that keeps files exactly as they are, such as OneDrive or Dropbox, is fine as an extra copy, not as the only one.

Once a year

We re-seal your latest capsule automatically every year, so the timestamps stay checkable as certificates age. You don't upload anything. When the email arrives:

  1. Download the new evidence pack and save it next to the others.
  2. Plug in each drive and run the checker (below). It confirms nothing has changed and that each drive still reads. Flash drives left unpowered for years are not a permanent archive; the yearly check catches a failing copy while you still have the other.
  3. If your face or voice has changed, seal a new capsule with fresh recordings, set up the same way.

Checking a capsule

The checker is the file verify_pack.py inside every evidence pack. It needs Python 3 and the free OpenSSL tool, and it doesn't contact OnlyHere, so anyone can run it. Unzip the pack, open a terminal in that folder and run:

python verify_pack.py . --corpus "PATH TO YOUR SEALED FOLDER"

A good result ends RESULT: VERIFIED. Each line marked PASS is one check: the fingerprints add up, DigiCert's timestamp is genuine and gives the certified time, the Bitcoin proof belongs to this capsule, and every original file is present and unchanged.

To check only some files, for example the three you sent a lawyer, use --files instead. Files are matched by fingerprint, so a copy works even if it was renamed or taken out of its folder:

python verify_pack.py . --files photo1.jpg photo2.jpg voice.m4a

The Bitcoin proof can also be checked without the script: drop anchor.txt.ots and anchor.txt onto opentimestamps.org.

When to use it

Use your capsule when someone needs proof of what you really look and sound like, and that your record existed before the fake:

  • a platform appeal, when an ordinary report hasn't worked;
  • a lawyer, a legal claim or a police report;
  • a client, employer or journalist asking whether a clip is really you;
  • a fake account using your own photos, to show you held the originals first.

For a routine fake account you usually don't need it. Your OnlyHere page and the report pack in your dashboard are enough.

How to use it

  1. Leave the sealed folder alone. Copy the files you need, or the whole folder, onto something you can hand over.
  2. Run the checker yourself first and make sure it says VERIFIED.
  3. Hand over three things: the evidence pack, the copied files, and the link to your OnlyHere page.
  4. Say what it proves. These exact files existed, unchanged, no later than the certified DigiCert time and the Bitcoin block. It doesn't prove who appears in them, and on its own it doesn't prove that the fake is fake. A forensic examiner makes that call by comparing the fake against your dated originals.
  5. Point them to the checker. They can run it themselves, with --corpus for the whole folder or --files for the files you gave them, without trusting us.

If something goes wrong

You lost a pack. Download it again from your dashboard while your account is open; we rebuild it from our write-once copy. Once an account is closed and deleted you can't download packs any more, so keep the ones you have.

A file changed by accident. The other files still check. That one no longer matches; if it mattered, seal a new capsule with fresh recordings.

You lost the originals. The pack can't prove anything about files you no longer have. That's why there are two drives.

Intimate images. If a fake is intimate imagery, StopNCII.org lets you create a fingerprint of the image on your own device so participating platforms can block it, without anyone seeing the image.