Verifiable provenance and transparency
Signing scientific claims, and keeping an append-only record anyone can check.
A published number is only as trustworthy as the trail behind it. Verifiable provenance replaces trust in the publisher with cryptographic evidence: the claim is canonicalised to a fixed byte form, signed, and recorded in an append-only log whose history cannot be rewritten without detection. A reader verifies the maths, not the reputation.
Three standards carry the weight. A canonicalisation scheme fixes exactly which bytes are signed, so the same claim always produces the same signature input. A signature — here a hybrid of a classical elliptic-curve scheme and a post-quantum lattice scheme — binds the claim to a pinned key. And a Merkle transparency log, in the style of Certificate Transparency, provides inclusion proofs that a claim is in the log and consistency proofs that the log only ever grew.
This is the spine of the whole site. The benchmark databank and the transparency page render only what verifies: page structure is checked at build time and fails closed on any mismatch, while the cryptographic signature is left to the browser to check, and each page states which half it is showing. The provenance is not a badge — it is the reason the numbers are here.
The vocabulary of the topic.
- Canonicalisation (JCS)
- Fixing the exact bytes a claim is signed over, so the signature input is unambiguous.
- Hybrid signature
- An Ed25519 signature paired with a post-quantum ML-DSA signature over the same claim.
- Merkle transparency log
- An append-only log with inclusion and consistency proofs, following Certificate Transparency.
- Fail-closed verification
- A build or check that aborts on any mismatch rather than degrading silently.
Studios working on this.
Each runs standalone in its own repository and federates its evidence through the platform.
Run it, don't take it on faith.
The runnable lessons and sealed measurements this site ships for the topic.
Read it at source, in order.
Canonical references for the topic, ordered from the foundations to current work. Every one was verified at source — a DOI resolves through doi.org, a standard through its issuer — so each link goes to the real record.
The standards
- 1
The canonical byte form a claim is signed over; it rejects non-integer floats.
- 2 Standard RFC 6962 — Certificate Transparency
The Merkle append-only log with inclusion and consistency proofs the transparency log follows.
- 3
The Ed25519 signature in the hybrid publication seal.
- 4
The post-quantum signature paired with Ed25519 in the hybrid seal.
Related topics.
Where this topic connects to the rest of the federation's work.