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Table of Contents Acronis Notary™ ...................................................................................................................... 2

What is the blockchain ........................................................................................................................ 2 Data “fingerprints” .............................................................................................................................. 2 Anchoring data in the blockchain ........................................................................................................ 2 How Acronis Notary can help .............................................................................................................. 3

Acronis Notary in Acronis True Image 2020 .............................................................................. 3

How to test in Acronis True Image 2020 ................................................................................... 3 Notarized backups ............................................................................................................................... 3 Acronis ASign ....................................................................................................................................... 5

Acronis True Image 2020 Notary (Blockchain) Testing Guide

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Acronis Notary™ The first consumer backup product to use blockchain technology to prove a file is authentic and unchanged since it was backed up.

What is the blockchain Blockchain was made famous in the context of the digital currencies such as Bitcoin. Despite the hype, so-called cryptocurrencies are far from the only useful application of blockchain technology. But to understand the other applications, you must understand blockchain.

Simply put, it is a distributed database that maintains a continuously growing list, or chain, of data transaction records. Cryptocurrencies, for example, record information about financial transactions – the payer, the payee, and the amount. Every portion of this decentralized system has a copy of the chain of records, and since no “official” copy exists, the information is secure from tampering and revision.

Data “fingerprints” Acronis Notary computes a cryptographic “fingerprint” hash of each file that is unique for each file. This hash algorithm produces the same output given the exact same input file every time, regardless of circumstance. Any change in the input file, no matter how slight, results in a dramatically different fingerprint. The hash algorithm is designed to work in one direction – making it impossible to determine the original file inputs from the output alone.

Anchoring data in the blockchain The blockchain can be thought of as an “append-only”' ledger with a transaction order that is distributed across many entities, with each one keeping an identical copy of the ledger. Each record in the ledger is time-stamped, is immutable, and independently verifiable.

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A hash of the whole structure containing the files’ fingerprints is recorded into the blockchain. Authenticity of those files can be independently confirmed by any party (even one not doing business with Acronis) that has access to the blockchain.

How Acronis Notary can help When you back up your data to local drives or the cloud, you correctly expect your backup solution to faithfully back up those files – but the threat remains that bad actors might try to alter that data without your knowledge. Restoring from altered files can have serious consequences for your system’s integrity and performance. Acronis Notary technology can add a level of confidence to the authenticity of your data.

Similarly, someone may present you with a file and you need to validate if it is authentic and unchanged – so you can confirm using the notarized version in your backup. Common use cases include property and personal copies of records, chain-of-evidence for court requested documents, and long-term archives that could be subject to various legal or tax audits.

Acronis Notary in Acronis True Image 2020 After a backup, Acronis True Image 2020 calculates and sends file hash codes to the Acronis Notary service. A hash code is a unique number of fixed size that is produced by a hash function. The code mathematically defines an arbitrary set of data, for example, a backup file. Any change to the backup file leads to a change of its hash code. When Acronis Notary receives hash codes of your files, it calculates a new single hash code and records it to the Ethereum Blockchain-based database. (For more information about Ethereum, visit https://www.ethereum.org/).

Every notarized file receives a blockchain-based certificate, which contains general information about the file and technical details that allow you to manually verify the file’s authenticity.

How to test in Acronis True Image 2020

Notarized backups 1. Install Acronis True Image 2020 on your computer.

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2. Add New backup in the backup sources list. 3. Choose Notarized backup. 4. Select the file or folder you would like notarized using blockchain technology. 5. Click on Backup now button.

6. Check status of the backup. 7. Now you can validate the backed-up files any time. Just click the Open File Verification tool link

(opens in a browser).

8. Drag and drop the file you want notarized to the middle of the page.

(If that does not work, select the Click here button and choose from the File Selection dialog box that appears.)

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9. The verification tool will show the name under which the file was notarized and the date of notarization.

Acronis ASign Acronis ASign is an online-service that allows multiple people to sign a file electronically. The service is available for any file backed up in the Acronis Cloud.

To sign a document electronically with ASign: 1. Create a backup to Acronis Cloud. This can be a backup of this file, of the whole partition, or the

entire machine – it only matters that the file you want to sign is in a backup in Acronis Cloud. 2. Open the Online Dashboard. 3. Log in with your account credentials: the credentials you use to log in to Acronis True Image. 4. Click Backups:

5. Find the backup that contains the files you want signed.

6. Click the backup to view its content. Browse to the file you want to sign. 7. Click the gear button, and then click Send for signature.

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8. Provide a signee's email (click the + icon to add more signees) and click Send to sign:

9. The Acronis ASign service sends an email message to the addresses you entered. The signee

receives an email with a unique URL for the page that is collecting signatures.

10. Once a signee has signed the document, you receive an email notification. Notifications are

created for each signee. When all of the requested signees have signed your file, you will receive a letter indicating that the process is complete. The Status column displays the current status of each signee's invitation.