Evidence is mandatory in high-risk programs. Neutral custody is not.
01 · The Gap
Everyone holds evidence. Nobody is neutral.
There is no designated neutral party before the dispute opens.
02 · The Cost
Reconstruction is becoming unacceptable.
Evidence assembled after a dispute begins is slow, expensive, and challenged at every turn.
03 · The Exposure
Obligations flow down. Protection doesn't.
The party who generates the evidence is the last party to control it when the dispute opens.
The Role
Before AetherTrace
Operational world
Evidence lives across vendors, operators, email chains. Held by parties with outcomes at stake. Credibility is always in question.
AETHERTRACE
After Designation
Sealed custody
Evidence sealed at submission. Cryptographically time-indexed. No interpretation. No optimization. No retroactive creation. Available when authority asks.
Not a tool. A trustee.
Neutrality is a governance property — not a feature. As long as the operator holds the keys, the evidence is suspect. AetherTrace solves custody, not outcomes.
01
Designated Ex-Ante
Appointed before execution begins — not after a dispute opens.
02
The Black Box
We hold evidence without analyzing, certifying, or judging it.
03
Separated Authority
Custody, access, and interpretation are held by different parties.
04
No Retroactive Creation
Append-only. Time-indexed. Sealed at submission. What was submitted is what is held.
Every Level of the Hierarchy
Same trustee. Every party. One record.
Subcontractor
Your evidence. Independent of everyone above you. Sealed the day you submitted it.
Prime Contractor
When your subs' records are sealed independently, your program evidence is stronger.
Program Office
Designated before execution. When the audit arrives, the record is already there — sealed since T=0.
Auditor / IG
Evidence held by an independent trustee. No reconstruction. Just the record — exactly as submitted.
Custody as a System
Simple to submit. Impossible to compromise.
No new workflows. The evidence you already generate — sealed independently.
Step 01 · Designation
Define the boundary before work begins.
All parties know who holds the record before day one.
Step 02 · Ingestion
Submit what you already report.
Attach files, hit Seal. Cryptographically sealed at submission.
Step 03 · Sealed Custody
The black box holds it.
No interpretation. No rewrite. The record is what it is.
Step 04 · Access
Retrieved under authority. Not before.
The record speaks for itself.
70%
Of disputes caused by documentation failureThe record determined the outcome — not the work.
$84B
Disputed across 2,002 projects in 2024The work was done. The evidence wasn't held.
2028
DoD clean audit deadline — already slippingCongressional action is imminent. The era of reconstruction is ending.
“Whoever has the documentation writes the narrative. If they have records and you don't, you have no defense against their claim — whether it's accurate or not.”
Industry Source · Construction Dispute Analysis
Designate AetherTrace
If evidence determines survival, custody is infrastructure.
The record you need is the record you sealed before the dispute opened. Designation takes one conversation.