RFC 6962
The Certificate Transparency standard whose Merkle tree construction Truestamp implements, using SHA-256 with 0x00 leaf and 0x01 node domain-separation prefixes and defining how leaves, nodes, roots, and audit paths are computed so independent verifiers can check proofs.
Overview
RFC 6962 is the Certificate Transparency standard whose Merkle tree construction Truestamp implements. It specifies SHA-256 hashing with single-byte domain-separation prefixes, 0x00 for leaves and 0x01 for interior nodes, and defines how leaves, nodes, roots, and audit paths are computed, so an independent verifier written against the published spec can check a Truestamp proof without any Truestamp software. The same construction has been scrutinized and depended upon at internet scale by Certificate Transparency, which is why Truestamp adopted it rather than inventing a bespoke tree; the full construction and reasoning are covered in the RFC 6962 Merkle tree, and the byte-prefix discipline it introduced extends across all of Truestamp’s hashing in hashing domain separation.
Citations
- RFC 6962: Certificate Transparency. The standard defining the Merkle tree construction, domain-separation prefixes, and audit paths named by this term.