In this talk we will introduce roles for describing participation in verifiable systems, and use this terminology to understand what it means for a system to be transparent. Having a common model for these ecosystems allows for precise communication, and avoids blindly copying design decisions from other systems that may not be appropriate.
By the end of this talk you will be familiar with the Claimant, Believer, Verifier, and Arbiter roles. You will understand what a Claim is, and how this is committed to by a Statement. You will understand how logs can be used to make these Statements discoverable to Verifiers, and how this can enable systems to operate using Trust But Verify.
We will use Certificate Authorities and Certificate Transparency as case studies. Prior knowledge of this would be beneficial but is not required.
Martin is a SWE on the TrustFabric team at Google. The TrustFabric team works on Trillian, Certificate Transparency, and also research into other verifiable data structures, witnessing, and more.