01CAPTURED LIVE6:42:14 PM
Kitchen counter, left side, no damage
§1
FIG. 1
An Etch in the wild
SPECIMEN №001
Etch it.Send it.Settle it.
Capture photos, video, voice, and notes. Seal them into one tamper-evident link, dated to the second. Send it to anyone; it opens in any browser.
FIG. 1 - An illustrative Etch.
A move-out walkthrough, sealed
and shared as one link.
Built to document, not to guarantee an outcome.
§2
2 MIN READ
What an Etch is
An Etch is a small, sealed record. A bundle you publish once, then send as a single link.
The recipient opens it in any browser. They see what you wanted them to see, in the order you placed it, dated to the second. If anything in the bundle changes after you publish, the seal breaks. A photo swapped, a line of text edited, an item removed. The viewer sees that, too.
It is the digital equivalent of a sealed envelope, slid under a door, with the time and date stamped on the wax.
The seal is a cryptographic hash of the bundle, stored when you publish. If anything changes, the new fingerprint won't match, and the viewer page makes that obvious.
Items you capture inside the Etch app (a photo, a voice note, a video) carry a server-stamped timestamp at the moment of capture, and show up on the recipient's view with a small CAPTURED LIVE badge. Items you attach from your library are clearly marked separate, with no timestamp claim. The viewer can always tell which is which.
CAPTURED LIVE
6:42:14 PM · server-stamped
ATTACHED
JAN 14 2025 · uploaded
What you do with it is up to you. People use Etches for security deposit walkthroughs, freelance project handoffs, marketplace condition records, contractor before-and-afters, insurance claim documentation, and the dozen other situations in life that come down to: “I need to prove this happened, and I need to be believed.”
Etch isn't a notary. It isn't a legal substitute for one. It's a tamper-evident record with cryptographic integrity, which is enough for almost every dispute that doesn't end up in a courtroom. It's useful evidence even when one does.
§3
FIG. 2–5
Specimens
Etch is general-purpose. Here are six modes it's built for, followed by four illustrative examples.
The six modes
Six modes. One mechanism.
- PROOF
- security deposits, deliveries, marketplace trades, freelance handoffs, contractor records, insurance claims
- MEMORY
- trip recaps, weekend roundups, family updates, event highlights
- STORY
- creative drops, project portfolios, behind-the-scenes
- UPDATE
- weekly notes to a partner, a parent, a client, a team
- BRIEF
- designer references, recruiter shortlists, realtor property tours
- ARCHIVE
- a dated, ordered record of anything worth remembering
Underneath each one: bundle what you captured → publish → send one link.
SPECIMEN Nº 01 · PROOFEXAMPLE · PROOF
The deposit dispute
A move-out walkthrough captured as a sequence of sealed photos plus a written note, then sent as one link the day the keys go back. One clean record to point to, instead of a thread of texts that can be edited or lost.
Illustrative scenario · Move-out documentation
SPECIMEN Nº 02 · MEMORYEXAMPLE · MEMORY
The trip recap
A five-day trip bundled into one sealed link instead of fifty separate texts or a shared-album dump. Photos and notes in the order you want them seen, sent home in a single message.
Illustrative scenario · Trip recap
SPECIMEN Nº 03 · STORYEXAMPLE · STORY
The lookbook drop
A season's lookbook sent as one link instead of a 60-page PDF. The photos, the commentary, and the references, ordered the way you want them read. The link goes in the email, and that's the entire press kit.
Illustrative scenario · Press kit
SPECIMEN Nº 04 · UPDATEEXAMPLE · UPDATE
The weekly note
A weekly note home: a few photos, a paragraph of context, the small wins, sealed into one link every Sunday. More than two emojis a week, less than a phone call.
Illustrative scenario · Weekly update
§4
4 ENTRIES
The kit
Everything in Etch today.
Items you can put in an Etch
Free · video is Pro
PhotoFree
Text noteFree
Voice noteFree · 60s
VideoPro
01
Sealed bundles
The seal is the point.
Every Etch you publish carries a cryptographic fingerprint. If anything in it changes after you publish, the fingerprint no longer matches and the viewer sees a clear tampered notice. It is not a guarantee. It is a receipt.
02
Captured-live stamps
Server-stamped at capture.
Items captured inside the app (photo, voice, or video) are server-stamped at the exact moment of capture and show up to recipients with a CAPTURED LIVE badge. Items attached from your library are clearly marked separate, with no timestamp claim. The viewer can always tell which is which.
03
One link, no install
Just a link.
Recipients open your Etch in any browser. No app, no account, nothing to download.
04
Yours, always
Delete anytime.
Pull an Etch down whenever you want. The link returns 404 immediately. All media is purged from storage within 24 hours. No tombstones, no shadow copies, no “we keep it for legal reasons.”
§5
2 TIERS
Free & Pro
Free is useful on its own. Pro is for when the proof has to hold up, and when you need video, permanence, and access controls.
FREEThe basics, sealed
$0always free
- Photos, text notes, and voice notes (to 60s)
- Up to 12 items per etch
- Up to 10 live links at a time
- Links last 30 days
- The full tamper-evident seal
- Video is Pro
PROEverything
$8.99/ month
or $59.99/yr · save 44%
- Everything in Free, plus:
- Video walkthroughs
- Permanent links that never expire
- Password lock, custom expiry, email gate
- View receipts: see when your link was opened
- Longer voice (to 10 min) and higher limits
- No Etch badge
Cancel anytime; Pro stays active until the period ends. Manage in your App Store settings.
Something specific you need? [email protected]
§6
M.01 – M.05
The manual
Common questions, plainly answered.
M.01TECHNICAL
What does “sealed” actually mean?
When you publish an Etch, we generate a cryptographic hash of the bundle's contents. If anything inside changes afterward, the hash no longer matches and the viewer sees a clear “tampered” warning. A photo swapped, a line of text edited, an item removed: any of those will break the seal. Think of it as a tamper-evident sticker for digital media.
M.02TECHNICAL
Are the timestamps trustworthy?
Items you capture inside the app (photos, voice, video) are stamped by our servers at the exact moment of capture and show a “Captured Live” badge. Items attached from your library are clearly marked “Attached” with no timestamp claim. The viewer can always see which is which.
M.03PRIVACY
Where does my data live?
Your media is encrypted at rest. We don't sell your content or use it to train AI. It's handled only by the infrastructure providers listed in the privacy policy.
M.04PRIVACY
Can I delete an Etch?
Anytime. Deletion is immediate. The link returns 404 and all associated media is purged from our storage within 24 hours. No tombstones, no shadow copies, no “we keep it for legal reasons.”
M.05LEGAL
Is this admissible in court?
Etch creates a contemporaneous record with cryptographic integrity, useful for disputes with landlords, insurance companies, freelance clients, and marketplace counterparties. We don't claim courtroom-grade chain of custody. That requires a notary, which is a different category of product. For everything short of formal legal proceedings, it's a strong record to point to.
COLOPHON
Set in Instrument Serif, Clash Display, Plus Jakarta Sans, and JetBrains Mono.
This page is itself a kind of Etch.