PRI9
Durable & technology-neutral
Every artifact is self-describing and remains verifiable for its full retention life — across format versions, platform generations and cryptographic migrations — with confidentiality designed to hold against any computer. Enterprise continuity, including escrow of the verifier and specification, is available for regulated retention obligations.
Rationale
Records that must survive for decades outlive the formats, platforms and algorithms they were created with, so durability has to be engineered, not asserted. Three distinct properties deliver it: artifacts describe themselves so they can always be read; confidentiality is designed to hold against any computer, including future ones, so secrets stay secret for the long term; and integrity is kept current through the migration mechanism of Principle 7 rather than assumed to last forever. For regulated retention, escrow of the verifier and specification turns long-term continuity from a hope into a contractual commitment.
Implications
- Planning for decade-long retention means periodically re-verifying long-lived proofs and, for regulated obligations, arranging escrow of the verifier and specification — an operational discipline to budget for, in exchange for evidence that stays good for its whole life.
- A years-old artifact still names everything needed to check it, so you are not dependent on the original software or platform generation still existing when the time comes to rely on it.
- Long-term integrity is maintained through the migration mechanism of Principle 7, not promised as cryptography that never needs updating — so continuity is something you actively keep current, with a clear method for doing so.