1
Write it down
A few promises, plainly. Two parties and a place, or paste your own words.
Spacing is tidied when sealing (line endings and stray blanks), but no letter is added, removed, or reworded.
2
Seal it
A fingerprint of the exact words. One changed letter breaks it.
Seal (SHA-256 fingerprint of the words)
What a seal does and doesn't do. A seal proves two copies of the words are identical. It cannot prove who signed, when they signed, or that anyone signed — the paper, the ink, the witness, and a photo of the signed page do that.
3
Print it
A clean sheet — the sealed words, signature lines for each party, the witness page, and the seal printed on the sheet.
Print the sheet, sign it in ink in front of your parties, and the witness page goes with it. Keep one copy each. The seal prints under the title and beside the signatures.
4
Keep your copy
Your chest, on this device. Every copy is a little JSON bundle — text plus seal — that you can send to your parties any way you like.
0copies in your chest
The chest lives in this browser. If only one copy of a bundle ever exists, it proves nothing — escrow works because each party holds one and the copies must agree.
5
Check a copy
Given a statement and a seal, this page proves whether they match — on any device, with no connection.
Seal of this statement
6
The witness page — virtual notary services, honestly
Notarizing is a licensed act, by a person, under your state's rules. What this page does is make the witnessing sheet clean, sealed, and hard to fake — and ties it to the same fingerprint as the agreement.
When you print the sheet, the witness page travels with it — same seal, ready for a real signature and stamp.
A registry of licensed notaries and neighbor witnesses — starting points per place;
confirm a commission with your state. The in-browser ceremony, where both parties and a witness attest the
same sealed statement, is tied to identity (issue #42). Until then, the escrow is the escrow of copies:
each party holds a bundle, and the bundles must agree.
7
Carry the signed sheet in
The paper you sign is the real artifact. Feed the signed sheet through any ADF scanner, mail the PDF to the incd.ink journal door with the seal in the subject - and the sheet comes back as page 1 of a little book, with this same fingerprint in its fine print.
1 · Print a cover sheet
Optional - it names the stack and prints the seal, so the pile carries its own fingerprint. Or skip it: the subject line below does the naming.
Cover sheet for
2 · Mail the scan
Signed sheet on top of the pile, ADF to PDF, then hit send. The subject carries the title and the seal - typing is not required.
Mail to journal@incd.ink
The fingerprint the print carried
When the book lands, its back page holds this fingerprint and re-derives it from your copy of the bundle - so ink and bytes point at the same words. Each party keeps a bundle; copies must agree.