Topics
Problems ZK-SNAP Is Built to Address
Short, spec-grounded pages — one URL per problem or protocol concept. Browse here, or start from Use Cases for the narrative version with cards and diagrams.
Topic group
Evidence gaps
Why platform-owned logs and exports fail as portable proof.
- Platform-Retained Records The record lives inside the system being questioned. When the account closes, retention expires, or the vendor disputes the export, the proof usually stays with the platform — not with the people who need it later.
- Context That Does Not Travel Files outlive the systems that created them. Metadata strips away, screen shots replace originals, and embeds break the link between what you are looking at and what was actually signed.
- Transformation Without Trail Data pipelines fork, merge, and get reused across teams. Months later, nobody wants a folder name or slide deck. They need to know which dataset version moved, which transformation changed it, and where the trail stopped.
- Actions That Vanish Agents act faster than human audit teams can follow. Dashboards summarize outcomes, but disputes need the signed action, authority, and policy context that existed at execution time — not a post-hoc summary.
- Public Accountability Without Public Exposure Civic and regulated workflows run in vendor systems that cannot simply dump everything into public view. Citizens still need proof that a decision happened and was witnessed without exposing every document or private field.
Topic group
Domains and workflows
Vertical problems where receipts must survive outside the original system.
- Creators and rights Creative work now travels straight into remix systems, training sets, and repost networks. Artists need proof that a specific version existed before the copy, scrape, or model output arrived.
- Content and media provenance Media spreads faster than metadata. Re-uploads, crops, screen shots, and CDN transforms strip context; reviewers still need to know whether visible pixels match a signed version independent of the original hosting app.
- AI training and dataset audit Model audits fail slowly. When harm appears in outputs, teams must reconstruct which dataset version, filtering steps, and evaluation artifacts actually formed the training path — not which slide deck said they did.
- AI agents Agents combine tool calls, delegated authority, and policy gates at machine speed. When something goes wrong, a dashboard summary is not enough. The action needs its own proof.
- Scientific and research workflows Reproducibility depends on datasets, transforms, and instrument outputs that outlive portals, grants, and lab IT rotations. Publications without signed evidence trails age into unverifiable claims that cannot be challenged with mathematics.
- Public records and civic systems Automated eligibility, permitting, and enforcement workflows already affect public life. Citizens need proof of machine-assisted decisions without forcing private case files onto the public internet or into vendor dashboards.
- Privacy-chain settlement Settlement and clearing systems must prove correct execution to regulators and counterparties while keeping transaction details confidential. Public proof and private payloads pull in opposite directions during audits and enforcement reviews.
- Robotics and industrial control Robots move in the physical world. After an incident, a log narrative is not enough. Investigators need proof of what the machine was told to do and which safety rules were active.
- Supply chain and infrastructure Deployments, firmware, and build attestations rotate across vendors and keys. After an incident, teams need to prove what artifact was running, who signed it, and when it was witnessed — not what the latest wiki page claims.
- Off-Earth operations Deep-space and high-latency links delay ground contact. Autonomous maneuvers must carry compact, signed evidence that survives weeks of transit, bit rot in relays, and still verifies when telemetry finally arrives at mission control.
Topic group
Protocol concepts
Spec-grounded pages for ZK-SNAP, chain recognition, Sigils, and governance.
- ZK-SNAP receipt Dashboards narrate events; disputes need bytes. Without a canonical signed object, every review devolves into trusting the operator UI or an export that can be edited after the fact.
- ZK-AI Chain Offline validity proves mathematics; it does not prove when a batch was recognized on-log in governed protocol history. Disputes about timing and recognition need an anchor layer that does not become a receipt database.
- Evidence Graph Investigations start with fragments: a copied file, a partial export, a time window, an incident ticket. Validity must still be decided by cryptography; discovery must help people find the right receipt trail quickly.
- Depth-of-Trust A single checkmark hides which obligations were met. Teams need to distinguish structured claims, schema conformance, policy binding, offline validity, on-log recognition, and hybrid crypto assurance without collapsing them into one marketing label.
- Sigils Trust UI drifts when platforms hand out badges, reuse verified language loosely, or show the same icon for offline-valid and on-log-recognized receipts. Reviewers cannot tell which proof conditions were actually satisfied.
- Bridge artifacts Teams already issue C2PA manifests, Verifiable Credentials, and DIDs. If those artifacts float beside the workflow instead of inside the receipt path, provenance breaks at the first export or platform handoff.
- dePoD, GAS, and ZKAI Markets that reward presence or raw compute invite spoofed demand. Protocol economics should meter accountable, context-bound machine work — anchoring, evidence ingest, and receipt-backed operations — not idle participation.
- Protocol governance If the same party mints receipts, writes anchor rules, and controls verifier narratives, disputes collapse into vendor trust. Proof infrastructure needs role separation with visible rule changes and independently replayable governance events.