politeiaverify

README

politeiaverify

politeiaverify is a tool that allows anyone to independently verify the validity of data submitted to Politeia. This includes:

• Verifying the censorship record of a record submission. A censorship record provides cryptographic proof that a record was received by Politeia.
• Verifying the receipts for non-record data (ex. comments). The receipts provide cryptographic proof the non-record data was received by Politeia.
• Verifying user signatures. Anytime a user submits data to Politeia they must sign the data using a key pair that is specific to the user. The public key and signature is saved along with the data, providing cryptographic proof that the data was submitted by the user.
• Verifying timestamps. All data submitted to Politeia is timestamped onto the Decred blockchain. A timestamp provides cryptographic proof that data existed at block height x and has not been altered since then.

Usage

politeiaverify [flags] <filepaths>...`

Options:
 -k       Politiea's public server key
 -t       Record censorship token
 -s       Record censorship signature

Verifying politeiagui bundles

Any of the file bundles that are available for download in politeiagui can be passed into politeiaverify directly. These files contain all the data needed to verify the contents. Listed below are the different files that can be verified using this tool.

Record bundle     : [token]-[version].json
Record timestamps : [token]-[version]-timestamps.json
Comments bundle   : [token]-comments.json
Comment timestamps: [token]-comments-timestamps.json
Votes bundle      : [token]-votes.json
Vote timestamps   : [token]-votes-timestamps.json

Example: Verifying a record bundle

$ politeiaverify 98ddf0b2fe580c43-v2.json

Server public key: bb5b37a6984871bf061cb4a2c9d0f3a3e102dacc810703d49b6d3641a9d08a9b
Censorship record
  Token      : 98ddf0b2fe580c43
  Merkle root: 1be0528f55ed7a6a299cecf2b625d327959f104672b1d287c9b00cae7ab0f493
  Signature  : 5c91db205f65539a14ae3061b86a27830fc16eb4a345390cfcfb0fbc21a4c931be3f72e9556409c302154dcb99b89c64556400f4d8bd5e4ce720500e2b7fd50a
Censorship record verified!

Author metadata:
  ID        : d98122ad-4012-4b62-8539-69fb0d53f417
  Public key: 869616157b35bcd7d13b8c3ce9b895f2e50dd8c7f0c42a550c6905c6aad6e17b
  Signature : b298d086be8f02e8ad490e907beea17340ba6306604467fa145bdebbd94842df5024077f0a5be6b203493a4079f34807ba03963bc72a53cd8b8b953302495b0d
Author signature verified!

Status change: public
  Public key   : bc510d90ff9d88187c41837ee11c50f40f3c262f2e1564bb2e75ea9451b102a0
  Signature    : d02ab197aa24244752dab6aa0445741c77d6f10690775a4ea18c9d07fe84569c8f54777792d9c0e1383a4399ccfa952bd9d556348194ac011970fa67f0c0ac0a
Status change signatures verified!

Example: Verifying record timestamps

$ politeiaverify 98ddf0b2fe580c43-v2-timestamps.json

Merkle root: 80d9cdb73017571d932bd6aef5336c4a3e88ad284f987d54f929eb16254b4edf
DCR tx     : 149c04fec4c2dd3bc01694a4e8db126211ac8ed726db71e976a82525ac42490a
Record contents
  Metadata
    usermd 1
    usermd 2
  Files
    index.md
    proposalmetadata.json
Timestamps successfully verified!
The merkle root can be found in the OP_RETURN of the DCR tx.

Manual verification

When verifying manually the user must provide the server public key (-k), the censorship token (-t), the censorship record signature (-s), and the file paths for all files that were part of the record.

$ politeiaverify \
-k e88df79a4b02699e6c051adbae05f21f2a2f24942e0f27cade165548ec3d6387 \
-t 39868e5e91c78255 \
-s b2a69823f85b62941d845c439726a2504026a0d29fd50ecabe5648b0128328c2fade0ddb354594d48a209dff24e73795ec9cb175d028155cbfa1901114f4b608 \
index.md

Server key : e88df79a4b02699e6c051adbae05f21f2a2f24942e0f27cade165548ec3d6387
Token      : 39868e5e91c78255
Merkle root: 2d00aaa0768701fd011943fbe8ae92f84ee268ca134d6b14f877c3153072bb3c
Signature  : b2a69823f85b62941d845c439726a2504026a0d29fd50ecabe5648b0128328c2fade0ddb354594d48a209dff24e73795ec9cb175d028155cbfa1901114f4b608

Record successfully verified