What the delivery link is

One long key

The delivery link is an address with one long random key at the end of it: 43 characters, made fresh for your order. It is sent once, in the email that delivers your sketch, and shown nowhere else: not on any page, and not in the weekly note.

The link in your delivery email opens your reading with no sign in, and anyone who has it can open the page; we can revoke it and issue a new one if you ask. Signing in to your account with the address on the order opens the same reading, and revoking the link does not close the account. Treat the email as the key it is: do not forward it, and keep it where you can find it.

What Phate keeps of it

Phate does not keep the key. It keeps a scrambled form of it, from which the key cannot be worked back out. When a link is opened, the key in the address is scrambled the same way and compared with what is kept, and that is how the page knows the link is real.

It also means nobody at Phate can look your link up or read it back to you. The only copy is in your email.

Why a scanner opening it does not count

Your reading page tells Phate once when it has been open in front of you for 2 seconds. A fetch of the link by a mail scanner counts for nothing. Mail systems often fetch every link in an email to check it for harm, before you have read a word. That fetch puts the page in front of nobody, so it is not counted as you opening your reading.

The page sends nothing else back: no answer, no birth detail, nothing but the address already in the browser bar.

If you lose the email

Sign in at your account with the email address you gave on the price page: it opens the same reading, and no new link is needed. If you would like a fresh link as well, write to the contact address from that address. A person issues a new link, sends it to that address, and the old one stops working. There is no password, because a link is the whole key, and that is also why a lost email is answered with a new key, never the old one.

If you think someone else has your link, ask for the same thing: the old key is revoked, and the new one comes to you alone.

The weekly note never carries it

The weekly note never carries your delivery link or any part of its key, so a forwarded note cannot open your reading. Every weekly note carries a link that stops the weekly note, and nothing else. Stopping the note does not cancel the subscription. To reach the weekly note page, use the delivery email or sign in to your account.