Questions?

Because it provides a new functionality: the ability to record and see who solved a puzzle and when, so that even if you don't get a chance to claim a FTF (First To Find) because you live too far away from the cache or you're not around when the cache is published, you can still claim a FTS (First To Solve) and prove it.
In addition to this, this tool provides the same features as other ones and more, like the ability to download your solution to Google Earth or your GPSr, or subscribe to RSS feeds to be notified when puzzles are solved. You can test-drive it with this puzzle by entering N 38 38.912 W 121 26.845 as a solution.
On the other hand, it won't ask you to enter these annoying Captcha codes when you enter a solution since there is already a limit of 10 tries per 10 minute period to circumvent computer-driven brute force attempts.

To claim a piece of the always coveted puzzlers hall of fame. Also, it's always interesting for cache owners and puzzle solvers to see when a puzzle is solved and by who to get an idea of how fast it's solvable and what (who) it takes to solve it.
Rest assured that you don't have to, you can stay "anonymous", but be aware that you'll be in competition with other anonymous users for a very limited number of attempts per 10 minutes. When you are anonymous, you won't appear in the top solvers list.

Yes, certitude is powered by the Geocaching API. Made possible through the support of Geocaching Premium Memberships, the API program gives third-party developers the opportunity to work with Geocaching HQ on a full suite of integrated products and services for the community. API developer applications are designed to work with the core services of geocaching.com and provide additional features to the geocaching community.

You can read the explanations here.

You can visit this page to reset your user name on certitude.

It can be coordinates in the usual formats: N/W DD MM.MMM, N/W DD MM SS.SSSS and DD.DDDDD as long as North/South comes before East/West. It can also be one keyword if the cache owner defined the solution that way.

There is: on each "list of solvers" page, there are links to RSS feeds. When you set this up, you can get notified when a specific puzzle is solved, when any puzzle from a given owner (including you) is solved, or when any puzzle is solved, as long as certitude knows about it. The notification includes up to 100 puzzles solved in the past week. To be notified of publications of puzzles only, add &p to the URL of your RSS feed.

Anyone who has the solution to a puzzle (the owner and solvers) can see failed attempts from the past week by selecting the "show attempts" button next to the input field and entering the solution. Those attempts show the wrong answer and their timestamp, it is not possible to see their author.

First, a puzzle. Then, enter your geocaching name, the full GC waypoint (it's used to link back to the puzzle page), your time zone (used to display the correct time in the top solvers list), the puzzle name and its solution (either as coordinates or a single keyword). For coordinates, you can specify whether the solution has to be matched exactly or can be approximate within 10 metres. In the latter case, the solution entered by a solver is considered valid if it falls within this radius and it will be advertised as such. Additionally, you can enter an extra hint (e.g. locational hint or a clue to a next step) that will be displayed to solvers on the success page. It's up to you to encrypt it.

Enter the full GC waypoint to create the solution for the first stage. In this solution creation page, enter a stage number (1, 2, 3... for example). Since this is a stage, final coordinates are not required and should be left blank. In the bonus info field, enter the puzzle to get to the next stage (e.g. a question, a link to a web page, ...). Once this is done, you will get the HTML code for the certitude link to this stage. You can copy this code in your cache page, or in the bonus info of the previous stage to chain the stages together. For the final stage, do not enter a stage number, this stage expects final coordinates.

Just re-create it the same way with your correct solution, it will update the existing one. The list of solvers will stay the same, but please make sure to update the links on your cache page.

Make sure you sign in under your new username in certitude (you may have to sign out first). If you have solutions in certitude under your old username, click on the "Claim this solution" on the solution page to put it under your new name. If you adopted puzzles on geocaching.com, follow the same method to move them to your username.

You can delete a solution as long as it's not published, otherwise you can archive it, so that it no longer appears in the dashboard. Solutions that haven't been published after a few months are deleted automatically. It is not possible to reset the counters at this time.

Actually no. The solutions are one-way encrypted (meaning there's no way to decrypt them), so even if someone managed to hack into this site, they would face a 5 star puzzle.

You need to have cookies enabled in your browser to sign in and for certitude to remember you. If your browser is set in private or anonymous mode, the cookies are not retained from one browsing session to another. Make sure you use your browser in normal mode.

Sure, certitude even provides a user interface to submit a translation in your own language. Please contact me for details.

Certitude collects your geocaching username and avatar when you go through the sign-in page and authorise geocaching.com to provide this information. This information is stored in certitude's database and cookies to identify you on your subsequent visits. Your username is used to detect how many attempts are made to solve a puzzle, it's only displayed in the list of solvers if you opt not to stay anonymous, and on the pages for the solutions you created in certitude. Your IP address may be used to limit brute force attempts when you don't sign in through the geocaching API. None of this information is shared with other parties. If you wish to stop certitude from using this information, just click on the sign out link on the certitude pages.

This privacy policy ("Policy") describes how Website Operator ("Website Operator", "we", "us" or "our") collects, protects and uses the personally identifiable information ("Personal Information") you ("User", "you" or "your") may provide on the certitudes.org website and any of its products or services (collectively, "Website" or "Services"). It also describes the choices available to you regarding our use of your Personal Information and how you can access and update this information. This Policy does not apply to the practices of companies that we do not own or control, or to individuals that we do not employ or manage.

• Automatic collection of information

  When you visit the Website our servers automatically record information that your browser sends. This data may include information such as your device's IP address, browser type and version, operating system type and version, language preferences or the webpage you were visiting before you came to our Website, pages of our Website that you visit, the time spent on those pages, information you search for on our Website, access times and dates, and other statistics.

• Collection of personal information

  You can visit the Website without telling us who you are or revealing any information by which someone could identify you as a specific, identifiable individual. If, however, you wish to use some of the Website's features, you will be asked to provide certain Personal Information (for example, your name and e-mail address). We receive and store any information you knowingly provide to us when you publish content, or fill any online forms on the Website. You can choose not to provide us with your Personal Information, but then you may not be able to take advantage of some of the Website's features. Users who are uncertain about what information is mandatory are welcome to contact us.

• Use and processing of collected information

  Any of the information we collect from you may be used to personalize your experience; improve our Website; improve customer service and respond to queries and emails of our customers; run and operate our Website and Services. Information collected automatically is used only to identify potential cases of abuse and establish statistical information regarding Website usage. This statistical information is not otherwise aggregated in such a way that would identify any particular user of the system.
  We may process Personal Information related to you if one of the following applies:

  1. You have given your consent for one or more specific purposes. Note that under some legislations we may be allowed to process information until you object to such processing (by opting out), without having to rely on consent or any other of the following legal bases below. This, however, does not apply, whenever the processing of Personal Information is subject to European data protection law;
  2. Provision of information is necessary for the performance of an agreement with you and/or for any pre-contractual obligations thereof;
  3. Processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which you are subject;
  4. Processing is related to a task that is carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in us;
  5. Processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by us or by a third party. In any case, we will be happy to clarify the specific legal basis that applies to the processing, and in particular whether the provision of Personal Information is a statutory or contractual requirement, or a requirement necessary to enter into a contract.

• Information transfer and storage

  Depending on your location, data transfers may involve transferring and storing your information in a country other than your own. You are entitled to learn about the legal basis of information transfers to a country outside the European Union or to any international organization governed by public international law or set up by two or more countries, such as the UN, and about the security measures taken by us to safeguard your information. If any such transfer takes place, you can find out more by checking the relevant sections of this document or inquire with us using the information provided in the contact section.

• The rights of users

  You may exercise certain rights regarding your information processed by us. In particular, you have the right to do the following:

  1. you have the right to withdraw consent where you have previously given your consent to the processing of your information;
  2. you have the right to object to the processing of your information if the processing is carried out on a legal basis other than consent;
  3. you have the right to learn if information is being processed by us, obtain disclosure regarding certain aspects of the processing and obtain a copy of the information undergoing processing;
  4. you have the right to verify the accuracy of your information and ask for it to be updated or corrected;
  5. you have the right, under certain circumstances, to restrict the processing of your information, in which case, we will not process your information for any purpose other than storing it;
  6. you have the right, under certain circumstances, to obtain the erasure of your Personal Information from us;
  7. you have the right to receive your information in a structured, commonly used and machine readable format and, if technically feasible, to have it transmitted to another controller without any hindrance. This provision is applicable provided that your information is processed by automated means and that the processing is based on your consent, on a contract which you are part of or on pre-contractual obligations thereof.

• The right to object to processing

  Where Personal Information is processed for the public interest, in the exercise of an official authority vested in us or for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by us, you may object to such processing by providing a ground related to your particular situation to justify the objection. You must know that, however, should your Personal Information be processed for direct marketing purposes, you can object to that processing at any time without providing any justification. To learn, whether we are processing Personal Information for direct marketing purposes, you may refer to the relevant sections of this document.

• How to exercise these rights

  Any requests to exercise User rights can be directed to the Owner through the contact details provided in this document. These requests can be exercised free of charge and will be addressed by the Owner as early as possible.

• California privacy rights

  In addition to the rights as explained in this Privacy Policy, California residents who provide Personal Information (as defined in the statute) to obtain products or services for personal, family, or household use are entitled to request and obtain from us, once a calendar year, information about the Personal Information we shared, if any, with other businesses for marketing uses. If applicable, this information would include the categories of Personal Information and the names and addresses of those businesses with which we shared such personal information for the immediately prior calendar year (e.g., requests made in the current year will receive information about the prior year). To obtain this information please contact us.

• Privacy of children

  We do not knowingly collect any Personal Information from children under the age of 13. If you are under the age of 13, please do not submit any Personal Information through our Website or Service. We encourage parents and legal guardians to monitor their children's Internet usage and to help enforce this Policy by instructing their children never to provide Personal Information through our Website or Service without their permission. If you have reason to believe that a child under the age of 13 has provided Personal Information to us through our Website or Service, please contact us. You must also be at least 16 years of age to consent to the processing of your Personal Information in your country (in some countries we may allow your parent or guardian to do so on your behalf).

• Cookies

  The Website uses "cookies" to help personalize your online experience. A cookie is a text file that is placed on your hard disk by a web page server. Cookies cannot be used to run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. Cookies are uniquely assigned to you, and can only be read by a web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you. We may use cookies to collect, store, and track information for statistical purposes to operate our Website and Services. You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. If you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to fully experience the features of the Website and Services. To learn more about cookies and how to manage them, visit internetcookies.org

• What type of cookies do we use?
  • Functionality cookies

    Functionality cookies let us operate the Website and our Services in accordance with the choices you make. For example, we will recognize your username and remember how you customized the Website and Services during future visits.

• Do Not Track signals

  Some browsers incorporate a Do Not Track feature that signals to websites you visit that you do not want to have your online activity tracked. Tracking is not the same as using or collecting information in connection with a website. For these purposes, tracking refers to collecting personally identifiable information from consumers who use or visit a website or online service as they move across different websites over time. Our Website does not track its visitors over time and across third party websites. However, some third party sites may keep track of your browsing activities when they serve you content, which enables them to tailor what they present to you.

• Links to other websites

  Our Website contains links to other websites that are not owned or controlled by us. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other websites or third-parties. We encourage you to be aware when you leave our Website and to read the privacy statements of each and every website that may collect Personal Information.

• Information security

  We secure information you provide on computer servers in a controlled, secure environment, protected from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure. We maintain reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards in an effort to protect against unauthorized access, use, modification, and disclosure of Personal Information in its control and custody. However, no data transmission over the Internet or wireless network can be guaranteed. Therefore, while we strive to protect your Personal Information, you acknowledge that

  1. there are security and privacy limitations of the Internet which are beyond our control;
  2. the security, integrity, and privacy of any and all information and data exchanged between you and our Website cannot be guaranteed; and
  3. any such information and data may be viewed or tampered with in transit by a third-party, despite best efforts.

• Data breach

  In the event we become aware that the security of the Website has been compromised or users Personal Information has been disclosed to unrelated third parties as a result of external activity, including, but not limited to, security attacks or fraud, we reserve the right to take reasonably appropriate measures, including, but not limited to, investigation and reporting, as well as notification to and cooperation with law enforcement authorities. In the event of a data breach, we will make reasonable efforts to notify affected individuals if we believe that there is a reasonable risk of harm to the user as a result of the breach or if notice is otherwise required by law. When we do, we will post a notice on the Website.

• Changes and amendments

  We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time in our discretion and will notify you of any material changes to the way in which we treat Personal Information. When changes are made, we will revise the updated date at the bottom of this page. We may also provide notice to you in other ways in our discretion, such as through contact information you have provided. Any updated version of this Privacy Policy will be effective immediately upon the posting of the revised Privacy Policy unless otherwise specified. Your continued use of the Website or Services after the effective date of the revised Privacy Policy (or such other act specified at that time) will constitute your consent to those changes. However, we will not, without your consent, use your Personal Data in a manner materially different than what was stated at the time your Personal Data was collected. Policy was created with WebsitePolicies.com

• Acceptance of this policy

  You acknowledge that you have read this Policy and agree to all its terms and conditions. By using the Website or its Services you agree to be bound by this Policy. If you do not agree to abide by the terms of this Policy, you are not authorized to use or access the Website and its Services.

• Contacting us

  If you would like to contact us to understand more about this Policy or wish to contact us concerning any matter relating to individual rights and your Personal Information, you may do so via the contact form.

This document was last updated on January 9, 2020.