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Ripenote

Open it without us

Last updated 26 September 2026

What's inside a capsule

  • Network: drand quicknet, chain hash 52db9ba70e0cc0f6eaf7803dd07447a1f5477735fd3f661792ba94600c84e971
  • Format: an age file whose key is timelocked with a tlock stanza (-> tlock ROUND 52db9ba7…).
  • Link: /o#v1.LABEL.CIPHERTEXT — CIPHERTEXT is the raw age file in base64url; LABEL is the visible title/names (base64url JSON).
  • .seal file: JSON with an armored field holding the standard armored age text (-----BEGIN AGE ENCRYPTED FILE-----).
  • After opening you get JSON: {"v":1,"body":"your letter","sealedAt":"2026-…Z"}. The body is the letter.

Step 1 — get the armored text

From a .seal file: open it in any text editor and copy the armored value, or run:

jq -r .armored letter.seal > letter.age

From a link, paste it below. This converter runs entirely in your browser and makes no network requests.

Or, from a terminal (Python 3), with the part of the link after the last dot:

python3 -c "import base64,sys;s=sys.argv[1];open('letter.age','wb').write(base64.urlsafe_b64decode(s+'='*(-len(s)%4)))" CIPHERTEXT

Step 2a — open with the tle command-line tool

tle is drand's reference implementation of tlock, written in Go. Install it:

go install github.com/drand/tlock/cmd/tle@latest

On or after the unlock date, decrypt (armored or binary input both work):

tle --decrypt --chain 52db9ba70e0cc0f6eaf7803dd07447a1f5477735fd3f661792ba94600c84e971 letter.age

If the default relay is down, add --network with any of: https://api.drand.sh/, https://api2.drand.sh/, https://api3.drand.sh/, https://drand.cloudflare.com/. Before the date, tle refuses with “too early to decrypt” — the same answer Ripenote gives, for the same mathematical reason.

Step 2b — open with Timevault (in a browser)

Timevault is drand's open-source web app for timelock encryption, built on the same tlock-js library Ripenote uses. Paste the armored text (starting with -----BEGIN AGE ENCRYPTED FILE-----) into its decrypt box on or after the unlock date.

Step 2c — write your own

tlock has compatible implementations in Go (drand/tlock), TypeScript (drand/tlock-js) and Rust (tlock-rs). Point any of them at the quicknet chain hash above and decrypt the age file.

Why we publish this

A time capsule should outlive the company that made it. We'd rather you trust the maths than trust us, so we make sure you never have to.