The Point:
To allow authors or 3rd Parties to prove the accuracy and primacy of any claims in regard to specific documents.
The Method:
1 Distribute - Codel's document protection software
2 Authors use the software to describe the documents they wish to protect
3 This results in one or more "fingerprints" which the software will upload to the Codel database
How this validates Documents:
1 The fingerprints held by Codel are provable unique to the documents from which they are created. So if someone can present a document, create the fingerprint and show that it matches the Codel record, we know we must be looking at the same document.
2 The time stamp and Codel's protected audit trail prove that we received the fingerprint no later than the Codel publication date.
3 Together these prove that whoever submitted the fingerprints to the Codel database must have possessed the document at that time. Anyone wishing to challenge that assertion must prove a fault in the audit trail. Anyone wishing to lodge a prior claim must show equivalent evidence for their claim.
