RewardChain has just launched the beta for FactomAuthorize, a web app that allows anyone, anywhere, to secure a digital ‘fingerprint’ (hash) of their data on the Factom Blockchain—and to receive an official certificate that can be used to authenticate their data in the future.

Using cryptography FactomAuthorize allows you to prove that something existed at a certain point in time, without a shadow of a doubt.

So why would you want to be able to cryptographically authenticate that a file existed in a certain form, at a certain point in the past?

Most simply: artists, musicians, writers, film-makers, designers—any creative in the 21st century—is producing intellectual property with real value, and in our digital world protecting this IP can be very hard. It is expensive and often difficult to protect and prove copyright for creative works online, particularly those that are purely digital (e.g. a new song).

FactomAuthorize has both a user interface and an API (contact us if you are interested in using our API). This allows anyone, whether they are an amateur musician, a national law firm, or a multinational professional services company—to protect their or their clients’ IP in a way that is cost-effective and mathematically verifiable.

Cease and desists become a lot more powerful when clients have access to legally enforceable cryptographic proof that they owned the work first.

Beyond protecting IP, FactomAuthorize can be used for any person, company, or organisation (including governments) that need accurate and provable record-keeping. This is possible because any change to the submitted file creates a new hash (digital fingerprint), meaning it will not match the hash stored in the blockchain. This allows any stakeholder to determine if the original document was modified in any way, and does it in a way that is independently verifiable by any third-party.

This has profound implications for every industry where record-keeping and maintaining audit trails is important. Any business that faces regulation, whether that be in the medical, industrial, government, non-profit, or financial industry—our API can help to create and manage billions of time-stamped records a year.

How FactomAuthorize Works

Using FactomAuthorize is really easy

FactomAuthorize has two parts: the Entry and the Proof. The Entry is the process of entering data into the Blockchain, providing cryptographically verifiable proof of existence for that file at that time. The Proof is the process to actually verify (or authenticate) the existence of the file, and the point in time it was entered.

Entry:

A digital signature of your file (a hash) is created client-side (we never store your file). The hash is added to the Factom blockchain, along with a timestamp. A merkle root from the hash is entered in the Bitcoin blockchain. We email you the hash and its location in Factom and Bitcoin along with an official FactomAuthorize Certificate. You now have a timestamped fingerprint of the file in Factom and Bitcoin—forever.

Proof: