Integrity
We lock original sources in immutable records, resistant to alteration or erasure.
An immutable consortium archive preserving original documents and born-digital works with integrity, transparency, and permanence.
We lock original sources in immutable records, resistant to alteration or erasure.
Guided by scholarly and institutional stewards committed to ethical stewardship.
Transparent, independently verifiable processes ensure trust without gatekeeping.
We preserve what is primary. We guard it with integrity. We entrust it to the future.
Primmortal exists to secure primary sources—original documents, records, and born-digital works—against loss, silent alteration, and institutional forgetting. Cryptographic hashes and provenance metadata are recorded on a permissioned ledger; the objects themselves are held in content-addressed storage under consortium stewardship.
The project does not interpret or improve the record. It fixes it, labels uncertainty honestly, and keeps methods open to scrutiny.
The archive accepts high-resolution optical captures of physical originals and carefully versioned born-digital packages (source, binaries, assets, and manifests). Each registration binds a cryptographic identity to essential provenance data and, where available, a content identifier for the stored object.
Citation tokens point back to verified records so researchers and students can confirm that a reference still matches the registered primary source.
Technical design is subordinate to standing ethical obligations. Capture must be non-destructive. Source cultures and living communities with legitimate interest are treated with respect. Content is not filtered for moral comfort. Methods, selection criteria, and governance decisions remain transparent and subject to regular public review.
Humility is required: we are temporary stewards of materials that outlast us. The Archival Oath binds every participant.
A short concept treatment describes the problem of institutional mistrust, synthetic media, and contested historical records; the proposed consortium model; the scan levels (a basic optical scan, non-destructive multispectral imaging, and a theoretical holographic scan) and the two citation levels; the ethical framework; and a practical path toward an alpha implementation on Hyperledger Fabric with content-addressed storage.
Download White Paper — Draft v0.2.1 (PDF)
Working draft (v0.2.1, September 26, 2026) for discussion — not final and subject to revision.
Previous version: v0.2 (archived, PDF)
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For collaboration, institutional partnership, or technical questions:
contact@primmortal.org