FAQ

Workings directly addresses the shortfalls with current Blockchain IP evidence, AI detection and Point of Creation Tools while also supporting the user with:

• generation of shareable content,
• differentiation of their work online,
• private review of their creative process.

Blockchain IP evidence tools are used to support IP claims - but fail to capture high fidelity data in order to satisfy the evidentiary challenges that have come to the fore with the wide adoption of AI tools.

AI detection tools look at the finished output and guess whether a human or a machine wrote it. They are statistically unreliable and disproportionately flag non-native speakers and certain writing styles.

The only way to avoid guessing is to collect evidence of workflows at the point of creation. Workings collects high-fidelity, searchable data as you work - including screenshots, across every app - safe, private, local, and tamper-evident. You control who sees it, and anyone you share with can verify it for themselves. Every one of these features is vital, and Workings is the only point-of-creation tool that provides them all.

Read more: Origins: Workings is different

Founded by seasoned product leaders from fintech, cyber, cryptography, consulting and games. Workings combines expertise in privacy, product design, crypto and AI, with patent-filed technology advancing the protection of authorship.

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Users can generate and share four outputs:

1. Auto-Match Timelapses.
2. Custom Timelapses.
3. Standard Reports.
4. Bespoke Reports.

Users can produce and share two types of timelapses.

• Auto-Match Timelapse. Produced by Workings by automatically identifying all screenshots related to the creation of a specific document. If the user has redacted any screenshots, they will appear redacted with app and time details. An Auto-Match timelapse may be generated when a report has been generated.
• Custom Timelapse. Produced when the user manually selects a series of screenshots in chronological order to turn into a timelapse.

Generating an Auto-Match Timelapse allows you to view, and potentially share, the screenshot evidence that Workings found and analysed to create the report of the creation process of a finished work.

If you don't feel that the Auto-Match Timelapse adequately represents the workflows that went into producing the finished work, you may also like to generate a Custom Timelapse where you can choose the screenshots to include. If you provide it to others, it is clearly labelled as a Custom Timelapse.

You might choose to generate a Custom Timelapse when you want to:

• Showcase a portfolio piece. Show the most interesting part of your process, such as a layout taking shape or a draft being restructured.
• Create a highlight reel. Share a short, watchable sequence of the work coming together, for social media or a client.
• Teach or demonstrate a technique. Show how a particular workflow was done, such as building a financial model or editing a report.
• Focus on one stage. Show only the final editing pass, or only the research phase.
• Cut out dead time. Remove long stretches where little changed on screen.

Remember that Workings does not tie a Custom Timelapse to a specific finished work.

• Standard Report. This report is designed to provide information about the creation process; it can not provide an assessment against a specific AI-use policy.
• Bespoke Report. Applies to institutions who have worked with us to tailor reports which assess work against specific AI-use policies.

A verifiable summary of how a document was made without revealing the screenshots of the creation process (which are available in the related Auto-Match Timelapse). It shows when the document was worked on, how long it took, which apps and AI tools were used, including how long you spent in each and the order you moved between them (for example research, then AI, then editing). It also rates how complete the creation record is, states when Workings was monitoring and any gaps, shows what Workings was set to capture, and confirms the record is encrypted, unmodified and timesealed. It does not read your content or measure how much of your work came from any tool, and it describes what was captured, not whether the work or any AI use was acceptable.

The process of identifying all screenshots related to the creation of a specific document is complex, experimental, and will see significant improvement over time. You may sometimes find screenshots included in an Auto-Match Timelapse which do not relate to your final work.

No system is airtight, and Workings doesn't pretend to be. What it does is move the bar. Today's baseline is no record at all. Workings replaces that with a high-fidelity account of how the work was made, where shortcuts tend to surface as discontinuities.

That account is not a single file but a large, continuous body of process: the drafting, revisions and natural rhythm of real work, captured and anchored in time as you go. It stays on your device, and only fingerprints are ever anchored, so nothing identifiable leaves you. Because each moment is time-stamped as it happens, you cannot slip a fake in afterwards, or stage only the slice you mean to share. You would have to forge the whole consistent history, live, as you went, which is significantly more effort than simply doing the work (you also won't know how the evidence will present itself until you generate a report). Honesty is the cheaper path.

You can always delete your own records. That is yours to control, not ours. But the moment you share one as evidence, that copy is permanent and tamper-evident. You cannot alter it or disown it later.

The point isn't to police for cheating. It's to make genuine process visible and worth showing.

Workings captures whatever you put in scope. That can be art, code, written word, video, any digital work you're producing on screen. Everything captured becomes evidence, and any of it can be turned into a Custom Timelapse you curate yourself.

Reports, and the associated Auto-Match Timelapses, are narrower. A report traces how a single file was made, using Auto-Match to find the captures that match the finished document. Auto-Match currently works with English-language text only, supplied as a PDF, Markdown (.md), Word (.doc), or text (.txt) file. A few things fall outside its scope:

• Other languages - the report supports English only for now.
• Image-based PDFs - if the text isn't selectable (e.g. a scanned page), the report can't read it.
• Short documents - anything under 100 words.

Verification is different for (a) reports and Auto-Match Timelapses versus (b) Custom Timelapses because the former are based off a finished work (the file they evidence the creation of) whereas the latter has no finished work.

You need to upload the relevant files in order to complete the verification process. If you are only able to view a timelapse, you can only complete a partial verification. Refer to the FAQ, "What if I don't have access to the timelapse file?".

Reports and Auto-Match Timelapses

When you verify a report or Auto-Match Timelapse file, you are confirming that:

1. It was generated by Workings and has not been altered since.
2. The underlying screenshots occurred at the times shown and were not altered prior to generation of the report or timelapse.
3. It was generated by the user from the finished work they provided to you.

You need to upload the relevant files in order to complete the verification process.

Custom Timelapses

When you verify a Custom Timelapse file, you are confirming that:

1. It was generated by Workings and has not been altered since.
2. The underlying screenshots occurred at the times shown and were not altered prior to generation of the report or timelapse.

1. Click on the link contained in the report, or go to app.workings.io/verify.
2. Upload the finished work you understand the report or timelapse was based on.
3. You will receive confirmation that the finished work was provided to Workings and that a report was generated from it.
4. Upload either the report or the timelapse.
5. You will receive confirmation that the report or the timelapse is exactly as Workings produced it, and that it exactly corresponds to the finished work.
6. If you were only provided a report or a timelapse, you are finished. Otherwise, upload the other Workings output file to receive the same confirmation - that it is exactly as Workings produced and that it exactly corresponds to the finished work.

You can upload the report or timelapse before uploading the finished work and verify successfully (the verification will initially confirm that the report/timelapse was generated by Workings and has not been altered, and only when you upload the finished work the verification will confirm that the report/timelapse matches).

This all happens in your browser. You don't need an account or an install. The file never leaves your computer. It is fingerprinted in your browser, and only the fingerprint is compared.

1. Go to app.workings.io/verify.
2. Upload the timelapse file.
3. You will receive confirmation that the timelapse is exactly as Workings produced it, and that the screenshots contained in the timelapse were taken at the times shown and were not altered prior to generating the timelapse.

This all happens in your browser. You don't need an account or an install. The file never leaves your computer. It is fingerprinted in your browser, and only the fingerprint is compared.

This is a simpler verification than that associated with an Auto-Match timelapse, because in the case of a Custom Timelapse, there is no finished work to match it to.

You may have seen a timelapse without having the file, for example on social media. Scanning the QR code at the end of the video takes you to the record's verify page on Workings. That tells you a record with that ID exists, the name of the file, when it was registered and whether it is timesealed.

It does not tell you that the video you watched is that record. A QR code can be copied from a genuine video onto a different one. To verify the video itself, you need the file from the author: upload it on the verify page and Workings checks it against the registered record. For an Auto-Match timelapse, you also need the finished document to confirm the pairing.

So: scan first to see that a record exists. Ask the author for the file to verify it.

Verification failures take a number of forms:

• If you upload a document (that a report or Auto-Match Timelapse was purported to relate to) and it fails to verify, it means that document was never uploaded into Workings to produce a report or Auto-Match Timelapse. Ask the user to provide the document that was used to generate the report or timelapse, or alternatively, ask them to generate a report and/or timelapse based on the document they provided to you.
• If you upload a report or Auto-Match Timelapse and verification fails, the failure will identify whether it is one or both of:
  • The report or timelapse you uploaded has been altered from the version that Workings produced. Ask the user to generate a new report or timelapse.
  • The report or timelapse does not correspond to the underlying document you uploaded as part of the verification process. Ask the user to provide the original report or timelapse, or alternatively, the version of the document that corresponds to the report or timelapse.
• If you upload a Custom Timelapse and verification fails, it means the timelapse has been altered from the version that Workings produced. Ask the user to generate a new timelapse.

Note that:

• Timelapses downloaded from a social platform that compresses video (e.g. X, YouTube) will have a new fingerprint and fail verification. Ask for the original timelapse file and try again.
• Files that are updated and saved, regenerated or converted will break verification.
• Verification still works if a document, report or timelapse is copied or renamed.

Two things, both stored locally on your device: periodic screenshots of your screen, and your typing rhythm - the timing of how you work, not a log of your keystrokes.

Workings records screenshots of the apps you have authorised. You choose the capture settings, either Full Capture or Selective Capture.

The user chooses which apps Workings will include in its capture scope. Full Capture is the recommended setting to ensure you don't miss anything in the creation process.

• Full Capture: This captures all apps by default, except those you consciously include in an exclusion list. You can change this list from time to time, noting that any changes you make during a creation process will be noted in the report and Auto-Match Timelapse. Workings provides a default list of excluded apps which you can adopt or change as you see fit.
• Selective Capture: This captures only the apps that you consciously identify. There are limited circumstances where this might be appropriate; you might wish to only capture the workings from a single app.

Workings uses the same proven approach as password managers. Your password unlocks your key with Argon2id, and your data is sealed with AES-256, the same building blocks reputable password managers rely on. In one respect it is stronger. A password manager keeps your encrypted vault on its servers and syncs it across your devices, so copies travel and sit in more places. Workings keeps your records on your own machine. Your key and your records never live in the same place, so there is less to attack and even your encrypted work is never sitting on our servers.

You stay in control of every screenshot. You can redact anything the moment it appears, or search your history later, find it, and redact it then. A redaction persists across your whole database, and once something is redacted it will never appear in a report or a timelapse.

Your records are encrypted end-to-end with a key that is created and stored only on your device. We store the encrypted data, never the key, so we cannot read your records. You can change your password whenever you like. If you ever forget it, you regain access with the recovery phrase you saved at setup. If you lose both your password and your recovery phrase, no one can recover your data, including us. That is the point: only you hold the key.

The app locks behind biometrics automatically when you step away, and multifactor authentication for main login is on the roadmap.

Each screenshot is around 50 KB. How much you store depends on how much you capture.

One year of heavy use is about half the size of a typical AAA game file or two 4K movie downloads. Optional cloud backup is coming in the next six months. Any cloud storage will be encrypted with the same device-held key, so only private encrypted data would ever leave your machine.

We built Workings so that the integrity of your work rests on mathematics and a public record. Your records are encrypted with a key only you hold, and they stay on your device, so there is nothing for us to read.

So don't take our word for it. Check it. Download any tool that measures what leaves your machine and watch Workings run. Your screenshots add up to around 50 MB/day, so if they were leaving you would see a steady stream of them. You won't. The only things that ever leave are your sign-in, your encrypted key, and a small trickle of anonymous usage data you can switch off in settings (a few hundred KB/day). None of it is your work.

Workings runs as a desktop app on both Windows and Mac.

• Windows - Any PC running Windows 11 or higher with at least 8GB of RAM. This covers the vast majority of laptops and desktops sold in recent years.
• Mac - Macs with Apple Silicon (the M1, M2, M3 and later chips). If you bought your Mac from late 2020 onwards, you're almost certainly covered.