Permafrost - Bit Rot Protection

Permafrost is an offline bit-rot detector and repair tool for Windows: it fingerprints the files you keep for decades — family photos, scanned records, finished projects — then proves later that they are still exactly the files you saved, and repairs them when they are not. Backups copy files; Permafrost proves they are still intact. FINGERPRINT AND SCRUB • Add any folder or drive as an archive. Every file gets a SHA-256 fingerprint. • Scrubs read every byte and tell apart silent corruption (bit rot), deliberate edits, deleted files and new files. • Scrubs run in the background with live progress, automatically when an archive is due. • Write-once archives report any change at all. REPAIR • One checklist of every problem, with the right remedy for each. • Restore damaged files from a second copy — the copy is verified first, so a bad copy is never used. • Damaged versions are kept aside before anything is written, and original file dates are restored. • Accept deliberate changes by re-fingerprinting. REPLICAS • Make a verified replica on another drive in one step, or register copies you already have. • Verify replicas against the original fingerprints to catch a copy that has quietly gone bad. DRIVES AND FORMATS • Drive health from Windows: status, temperature, wear, power-on time and read errors. • See which archives and replicas live on each drive, with warnings when there is no copy on a second drive. • Record when a drive was first used and get a replace-and-re-verify reminder. • A format-risk registry flags files in formats that are becoming hard to open — WordPerfect, Microsoft Works, Flash, RealMedia, old databases, camera raw — with what to convert to. Edit it for your own field. VERIFIABLE WITHOUT PERMAFROST Each archive carries its own fingerprints in the standard SHA256SUMS format, a PowerShell verification script and plain instructions for Windows, Linux and macOS, so it can be checked decades from now on any computer. REPORTS Print or save a health report for each archive: condition, last scrub, problems, replicas, formats at risk and drive. PARITY REPAIR ADD-ON • Reed–Solomon parity written into each archive in a documented open format. • Rebuild corrupted or missing files by themselves, byte for byte, with no second copy. PRIVACY Permafrost makes no network connections — no account, no cloud, no telemetry. It only reads your files, and writes inside each archive’s .permafrost folder. PRICING Permafrost is a one-time purchase of $4.99, and the Store lets you evaluate it for a short period before you buy. The Parity Repair add-on is an optional subscription of $2.49 per month; everything else is included in the purchase.