⁦B.⁩ Making backups

Protecting Sigelith Desktop evidence

Why

Sigelith Desktop, a program from the same publisher, timestamps documents: the proof confirms that the document, in exactly this form, already existed at the moment of the stamp. The proof fits only the same bytes: simply opening and saving a contract again is enough for the proof to stop matching it. A backup with evidence protection keeps every stamped document in exactly the form that was stamped, together with its proof.

Before you start

  • The protection works with the Sigelith Desktop data on this computer. Below the checkbox, the program shows how many stamps it found and in which folder.
  • The backup can be encrypted: the documents and proofs are then encrypted like the rest of the backup.

Step by step

  1. On the “Backup” page, in the “What we back up” box, tick “Protect Sigelith evidence”. In the wizard, in step 1, tick “Also protect Sigelith evidence”. If Sigelith Desktop is not installed yet, the wizard offers “Protect Sigelith evidence once I install it”.
  2. Run the backup and save the template, so that the protection also works in scheduled backups.

What you should see

  • The backup includes the Sigelith Desktop data folder with the stamp history.
  • A “Sigelith Evidence” folder appears in the backup folder: a separate folder for each stamp, with the document and its .beatproof file.
  • If the document has changed since it was stamped, the program takes the stamped form from older versions of the backup. If it does not find it, it keeps the proof alone and adds the document as soon as it finds it.
  • The template description on the “Templates” page shows “Protects Sigelith evidence: the stamp history and the stamped documents.”

Checking and recovering evidence

  1. In the menu on the left, click “Restore”. In the “Where we restore from” box, choose the backup folder.
  2. At the bottom of the page, click “Sigelith evidence…”.
  3. Click “Check”. The program computes the checksum of every document and checks the week's signature without going online. The result is in the “Status” column. If the backup is encrypted, the program asks for the backup password.
  4. Select the stamps, click “Restore selected…” and then choose a folder. The program saves the documents together with their .beatproof files.

“Open evidence folder” shows the store in Windows Explorer.

What next

  • The retention rules for versions do not delete the evidence store (see “Choosing how many versions to keep”).
  • You can also check a proof in Sigelith Desktop or on the sigelith.org/proof/ page.

If something goes wrong

  • “There is no Sigelith Desktop data on this computer.”: the program did not find a stamp history. Sigelith Desktop is not installed, or it has not stamped any document yet.
  • Status “no document”: the proof is kept, but the stamped form of the document is neither at the source nor in older versions of the backup.
  • Status “the proof cannot be read”: the .beatproof file in the backup is damaged. Check the backup (see “Checking that the backup is intact”). The proof may still be in the Sigelith Desktop history.
  • Status “document present; proof waiting for the week's signature”: the week's signature appears after the week closes, on Monday at 00:00 UTC (see “A seal or timestamp is waiting”).
  • “The evidence store is empty.”: the backup chosen in the “Where we restore from” box has no evidence protection, or a backup with protection has not been made yet.