I built a tool to preserve online evidence before it gets deleted or edited, creating a permanent, tamper-proof record
Hi everyone,
I wanted to share a tool I've been working on that might be useful for your investigation and archiving workflows.
When you're doing OSINT work or digital journalism, one of the biggest headaches is source volatility. You find a crucial post, or a social media thread, and you take a screenshot. But hours or days later, the owner deletes the page, edits the text, or the site goes down entirely. If someone challenges your findings, a standard image file doesn't offer much backing because there is no independent proof of when or how it was actually captured.
To help solve this, I built VouchShot.
It is a Chrome extension that preserves webpages as tamper-evident screenshots.
What makes it different from a standard screenshot tool is that it automatically stamps a clear verification badge directly onto the captured image. The badge says "verified capture" and includes a unique QR code. If you share that screenshot in a report, on social media, or with a client, anyone can scan the QR code to verify the exact capture timestamp and metadata. Here is an example.
About pricing: I want to be completely transparent. VouchShot is currently a paid tool because of the server, AI analysis, and database costs associated with analyzing page mutations and hosting the permanent public proof portal. However, there is a free plan that gives you 10 captures every month. I designed this specifically so that casual researchers or people doing occasional investigations can use it without having to pay anything.
I would love to get your thoughts on this approach. Do you see a tool like this being useful for your research workflows, or are there specific features you think would make it more valuable for OSINT investigations?
Thanks