Knowledge Base
Browse the concepts behind Truestamp. Follow the links between concepts, or search across everything.
Tagged: proof
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Glossary
CBOR
Concise Binary Object Representation (RFC 8949), the compact binary encoding of a Truestamp proof bundle, interchangeable with the JSON form, wrapped in the self-describing tag 55799, carrying hash and key fields as raw byte strings instead of hex or base64 text.
Compact proof encoding
The binary wire form of a Merkle inclusion proof used in a proof bundle's inclusion_proof and epoch_proof fields, packing a depth byte, a left/right direction bitfield, and raw 32-byte sibling hashes into unpadded base64url, mapping losslessly to and from the JSON direction:hash form.
Data integrity
The affirmative guarantee that the exact bytes submitted to Truestamp remain unchanged - any alteration changes the data's SHA-256 fingerprint and breaks the proof, so a verifier who re-hashes the data detects even a single changed byte; one of the three product pillars.
External Commitment
Truestamp's permanent per-block, per-chain record that a block was committed to a public blockchain, carrying the Merkle proof from block_hash to the on-chain epoch root; appears in a proof bundle as an entry in the commitments array naming its chain, and every bundle carries at least one.
Inclusion proof
A short list of ceil(log2(N)) sibling hashes, also called an audit proof, proving one Merkle leaf belongs to a tree with a given root without revealing other leaves; a Truestamp proof bundle uses one subject-into-block inclusion_proof and one block-into-epoch epoch_proof per commitment.
Offline verification
Checking a Truestamp proof bundle using only its own contents with no call to any Truestamp server, by recomputing domain-separated hashes, walking the Merkle inclusion and epoch proofs, and verifying the Ed25519 signature; on-chain confirmation is the only optional network step.
Proof bundle
The self-contained JSON or CBOR file downloaded for a committed subject, carrying the subject data and its metadata, Merkle proofs, an Ed25519 signature, the witness detail that opens the submitted-after edge, and at least one public-blockchain commitment, every hash recomputed from carried bytes.
Provenance
The third pillar of Truestamp's product framing - the traceable origin and history of data as a signed, publicly verifiable chain of evidence from submission through block inclusion to public-blockchain commitment, deliberately bounded to make no claim about who authored the content.
Submission window
Truestamp's honest time guarantee, the cryptographic proof that data was submitted after a set of public records the item's fingerprint commits to and before the finalized block that includes it, always phrased as submitted and submission window, never created or creation time.
t type code
The frozen integer discriminator of a proof subject type, drawn from a registry namespaced by decade (10-19 block-like, 20-29 item, 30-39 entropy, 40-49 reserved for commitment chains); a bundle carries the matching registry name in its type key while the integer is what the signed payload binds.
Timestamp
What a Truestamp timestamp is - a cryptographic submission window proving data was submitted after one block and before the finalized block that includes it, immutable and independently verifiable, never a creation-time claim; the first of the home page's three pillars.
Witness
A public record that already existed when a subject was submitted and that the subject's composite fingerprint commits to, opening the submitted-after edge of the submission window; the registry is the head block plus one entry per captured entropy source, plus the signing-key event.
Product
Submission Window
The submission window is Truestamp's honest time guarantee, the cryptographic proof that data was submitted after a set of public records it witnesses and before the block that includes it, which is why we say submitted and submission window rather than created or creation time.
What Truestamp Does Not Prove
The honest limits of a Truestamp proof - it attests submission timing and data integrity but not creation time, not authorship or ownership, not the truthfulness of the content, and not that data existed before it was submitted.
What Truestamp Is
Plain-language overview of Truestamp, the data-integrity and timestamping service that turns submitted data into a portable cryptographic proof of the exact bytes and of a provable submission window, independently verifiable by anyone without trusting or contacting Truestamp.
What Truestamp Proves
The affirmative guarantees of a Truestamp proof, that the exact bytes existed unchanged and that submission fell inside a submission window whose earlier edge rests on witness records the proof carries and whose later edge is committed to a public blockchain, every hash re-derivable offline.
Verification
Proof Bundle Wire Format
The self-describing JSON and CBOR wire format of a Truestamp proof bundle, the named type registry, the subject with its claims, metadata and witnesses, block maps that carry their own metadata, the block path, external commitments, the signing key event, and why nothing opaque travels.
Proof Claims by Availability
Claims matrix for a Truestamp item proof, which of eight claims (bytes existed, unchanged, both submission-window edges, signature, key binding, ledger position, entropy freshness) hold from the bundle alone, from public chains and sources, from a pinned keyring, from the ledger, or never.
The Proof Lifecycle
How a Truestamp proof comes to exist and strengthens over time as an item is submitted against a set of witnesses, committed into a block via item commitment, and that block is committed to Stellar and Bitcoin via block commitment.
Verify a Proof
Step-by-step guide to verifying a Truestamp proof bundle offline by recomputing the leaf hash with domain separation, walking the Merkle inclusion path to the block root, rehashing each carried witness, and walking the epoch proof to the root recorded on Stellar or Bitcoin.