half-locket

Seal a locket

What you're sealing

    When it opens

    Any date up to ten years out.

    Sealing method

    Sealing with the server

    half-locket keeps the other half of the key and hands it out automatically once the unlock date arrives. The recipient needs nothing from you but the locket file itself.

    You also get a cancel card. With it you can destroy the locket at any point before the date, and once destroyed it can never be opened by anyone.

    The trade-off: this depends on half-locket still being here on the unlock date. There is no backup copy of that key half, and there cannot be one — a backup is exactly what would make cancelling reversible.

    Sealing locally

    You keep the other half of the key yourself, as a small file. No server is contacted at any point, and half-locket never learns that this locket exists.

    When the date arrives you send that file to the recipient. Until you do, the locket cannot be opened by anyone — including you. Not sending it is how you call the locket off; there is no cancel button in this mode, and nothing to cancel.

    The trade-off: this depends on you still having that file, and still being reachable and willing, on the unlock date.