An RFC 3161 time-stamp is basically a cryptographic signature with a date attached.
Roughly, it works as follow:
1. A client application sends an hash of the data it wants to time-stamp to a Time-Stamp authority server.
2. The Time-Stamp authority server retrieves the current date, concatenates it with the hash and uses its private key to create the time-stamp (kind a like a signature).
3. The Time-Stamp authority server return the generated time-stamp to the client application.
Then a client can verify the piece of data with the time-stamp using the Certificate Authority of the time-stamp key pair (X509 certificates).
It gives a cryptographic proof of a piece of data content, like a file, at a given time.
Some use cases:
* time-stamp log files at rotation time.
* time-stamp file at upload to prove it was delivered in due time or not.