I am writing a short paper in the area of combinatorics. When the paper is complete, I would like to be able to submit it to arXiv. The reasons that I would like to submit to arXiv are: 1. To obtain a date and time stamp from a central authority so that I may prove the work is mine. 2. To promote access to the paper under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike license Although I have created an account on arXiv, because I am not affiliated to any academic institution, it appears that it might be difficult to get the paper accepted by arXiv. For example see, arxiv.org/help/submit > The following information is also required for submission: > > Institutional affiliation for the > author(s) must be provided. Official > report number(s) from the author(s) > institution(s) must be provided. Also the following blog article does not appear encouraging: [Does The Arxiv Blacklist Authors ?][1] Does anyone on math<i>overflow</i> have any advice on how to submit to arXiv (or a similar database) without an academic affiliation? Thanks in advance for any advice. [1]: http://www.scientificblogging.com/quantum_diaries_survivor/does_arxiv_blacklist_authors_help_finding_out