Digital Signatures 101
This post shares a short, practical update on our progress in image authentication, responsible AI generation, and developer tooling.
At AuthenCheck, we continue to refine image signature verification, tamper detection, and responsible AI generation workflows. This update reflects our ongoing focus on reliability, privacy, and measurable trust.
Highlights
- Improved validation of embedded signatures and hashes
- Fewer false positives via ensemble checks
- Cleaner UI, faster load, and better accessibility
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Deep Dive: What good looks like
Beyond surface-level metrics, authenticity comes from running your stack against real-world constraints: device diversity, flaky networks, messy user input, and adversarial behavior. The guidance below summarizes patterns we’ve used repeatedly in production.
Proof of work you can show
Authenticity improves when you can demonstrate outcomes. Keep a short internal doc per feature with metrics snapshots, grisly edge cases you fixed, and the rollback plan. That paper trail builds trust with customers—and with your future self.
Deep Dive: What good looks like
Beyond surface-level metrics, authenticity comes from running your stack against real-world constraints: device diversity, flaky networks, messy user input, and adversarial behavior. The guidance below summarizes patterns we’ve used repeatedly in production.
Implementing content credentials (C2PA) end‑to‑end
- Sign at creation with a hardware-backed key (or a cloud HSM).
- Attach a claim with tool, model, and edit graph; store a remote manifest for large media.
- Verify on upload and on publish; show a compact, human-readable summary in UI.
Proof of work you can show
Authenticity improves when you can demonstrate outcomes. Keep a short internal doc per feature with metrics snapshots, grisly edge cases you fixed, and the rollback plan. That paper trail builds trust with customers—and with your future self.
Implementation blueprint
- Define the problem in one sentence and list the decision this feature enables.
- Write acceptance tests that fail today (latency, accuracy, safety).
- Version your data and model artifacts; freeze an evaluation slice with tough edge cases.
- Ship behind a feature flag to 1–5% of traffic; compare segment-by-segment, not global average.
- Add structured logs for inputs, outputs, and confidence scores (PII minimized).
- Set auto-rollback rules (e.g., alert and disable if P95 latency +20% or error disparity > 3σ).
- Document limits and fallback states users will actually see.
- Schedule a post-launch “nasty” review where you try to break the feature.
- Record the outcomes in a short “proof of work” note with screenshots.
Instrumentation & metrics
- Latency P50/P95 per endpoint and model version.
- Confidence distribution and human review rate by slice (device, lighting, geography).
- Cache hit/miss and request coalescing effectiveness on hot items.
- Re-review and rollback counts with reasons.
Edge cases we plan for
- Corrupted or partially uploaded media.
- Model drift after content distribution changes.
- Adversarial edits (recompress, crop, filter) vs. genuine transformations.
- API retries creating duplicate work without idempotency keys.
QA checklist
- Feature flags present with clear owners.
- Observability links included in the runbook.
- Fallback UI screens render with copy that users understand.
- Roll-forward path documented (not just rollback).
Sample copy
“We verify media using cryptographic signatures and a layered review. When confidence is low, you’ll see a gentle warning and options to learn more.”