web archiving software

[Makaveli2007]

I am trying to do screen shots of web pages (on the www) that I find very important and do not want to lose. For some of them I'd like to be able to prove, that I didn't make these screenshots up or anything like that (authenticity and integrity are the words I guess?).

Now I've come across websites offering "web archiving" software, which sounded very interesting for my needs. Am I right that this is probably very expensive, but that.... I may be able to find a library or a big institution, that may have a subscription to such software, and allows its members to use it for an affordable fee? (i was on the site of some (us-)american library, where something like this was stated and the cost for library members sounded affordable).

thank you

[ergophobe]

Hmm.... I feel like I've seen many such services, but can't think of any right now.

That said, you could use wget to grab a copy of the page, zip it up, automatically email it somewhere so it's timestamped and that should be pretty good. It wouldn't be legal proof. I have no idea how you show you didn't tamper with it. For that you'll definitely need a third party.

[Robert Charlton]

I hope this is in time to be useful, but it strikes me that you could simply used Google Chrome's save as PDF feature, which is one of the local options you can access in Chrome by using the "Change" button when you're in print preview. You won't get one long scrolling image of the page, though... you'll get a multi-page PDF, with print styles dictated by the print style sheet of the site. While there will be a date stamp, since it's possible to change the date/time on a machine, this isn't going to constitute legal proof.

If you do go this route, the Local print options will present you with a list that's similar to the printer and device options you get whenever you go through the printer dialogue on your computer. This will include any screen capture or other print to PDF software you have installed. I'm describing what I see in Windows... am not sure what you'd see on a Mac.

There's also a Save to Drive choice present under the Google Cloud Print options. I'm not sure what that gives you... but might possibly save all the components of a page. I doubt this could be used to establish a date.

The Wayback Machine saves some site pages periodically, but I don't think it's possible for you to choose what's saved or when. I've used it to make screen captures to establish that certain information was on a site at a certain point in time, but I've never had to use that as evidence. There's a section in the Wayback machine's FAQ, to the effect that they're not really set up to provide evidence in litigation, but they offer services of staff to testify if necessary, and the rate as I remember is a very high hourly amount.

[lucy24]

am not sure what you'd see on a Mac

Non-issue, because all Macs can make PDFs, independent of application. (Results vary enormously in filesize, so if efficiency is important, try all possible browsers.) If you then make a zip and do something with it, such as emailing, it will at least give you a terminus ante quem.

[ergophobe]

I'd like to be able to prove, that I didn't make these screenshots up

That's the rub. Creating archives is simple. You could create a Selenium job that would run based on cron and archive on a regular basis. It's the third-party verification that poses the issue.

So the goal seems to be a Wayback machine that you control, but that is verifiable.