Zero-Knowledge Encryption

Your browser encrypts secret text and attachment contents before uploading them. Key Man Out stores age ciphertext and cannot decrypt it with the data it holds. Each user has a personal X25519 identity protected by their own unlock passphrase.

Personal keys, shared continuity

An asset is encrypted to its Custodian and every enrolled Successor. Gatekeepers can participate in the access workflow without receiving a decryption key. Team membership alone does not make someone a recipient.

Successors receive ciphertext through the existing approval workflow. They are already cryptographic recipients so emergency and time-delay access can work without the Custodian's browser. Approval is enforced by the server: a Successor with an independently obtained ciphertext copy can decrypt it offline before approval.

Unlock locally

Enrollment generates a private identity in your browser and stores only its public key and passphrase-wrapped form on the server. Unlocking decrypts it locally and verifies the public key. Neither your unlock passphrase nor a hash of it is sent to the server.

The identity locks after 30 minutes or when you lock it manually. Asset names, websites, instructions, and attachment metadata remain visible. Raw identities and displayed plaintext are cleared on lock, logout, expiration, and account changes. Secret drafts are not persisted in local storage.

Escrow and changing recipients

Owner escrow is an explicit team setting, off by default. When enabled and assets are re-encrypted, the team owner becomes an additional cryptographic recipient for out-of-band recovery with their identity backup. Existing server-side payload gates still apply, so escrow alone does not let the owner view assets in the app. Guardian and escrow changes flag assets until an eligible unlocked user re-encrypts them.

Personal identity rotation stages replacements across all affected teams and activates them atomically. Inaccessible, legacy, or undecryptable assets block rotation rather than being skipped. Legacy teams migrate in the browser through the same payload-access gates.

Know what remains visible

Metadata is not encrypted: asset names, instructions, URLs, attachment names/types/sizes, team settings, guardian relationships, and access records remain available to the service. Keep sensitive material in secrets or files.

Protect your unlock passphrase and downloaded raw identity backup. The service cannot recover a lost identity. Another recipient may still be able to decrypt an asset, but account recovery alone does not recover your vault key. A compromised browser or application can capture plaintext; encryption also cannot revoke copies already downloaded. The server supplies recipient public keys without client-side pinning, so a compromised server could add a recipient to content encrypted afterwards, though not to existing ciphertext.

Read the Security Model for the recipient policy, escrow warning, migration limits, and threat model.