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Verifiable Commitment Registry (VCR)

A Cryptographic Enforcement Mechanism for Negative-Result Publication

Status: design-stage research project · pre-implementation Maturity label: research prototype (see Page 16 — Limitations before citing or deploying) Depends on: Digital Legacy Protocol (DLP) core primitives · Open Negative Results Registry (ONRR) schema

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What this wiki is

This is the technical and academic documentation set for VCR, a system that uses a cryptographic dead man's switch to make silent non-publication of negative research results costly instead of free. It extends two existing projects rather than starting from zero: DLP supplies the cryptographic core (Shamir's Secret Sharing, Ed25519 signatures, a proof-of-life state machine), and ONRR supplies the destination schema for released results.

Every page in this wiki states, at the top, whether the content describes something implemented, something designed but not built, or something speculative. That distinction is treated as load-bearing, not optional — a design document that reads like a finished product is a document nobody should trust.

How to read this wiki

If you want...	Start at
The one-paragraph pitch	Page 01 — Motivation
To understand what already exists in this space	Page 02 — Related Work
The security reasoning	Page 04 — Threat Model
The system design	Page 05 — Architecture Overview
To implement a component	Pages 08–13
To evaluate whether this is credible	Page 16 — Limitations and Page 15 — Security Analysis

Table of contents

1. Motivation & Problem Statement
2. Related Work
3. Terminology & Notation
4. Threat Model
5. Architecture Overview
6. Cryptographic Primitives — Shamir's Secret Sharing
7. Cryptographic Primitives — Ed25519 Signatures
8. State Machine Design
9. Phase 1 — Commitment
10. Phase 2 — Monitoring & Extension
11. Phase 3 — Trigger & Release
12. Federation Architecture
13. Data Schema & ONRR Integration
14. Protocol / API Specification
15. Security Analysis
16. Limitations & Non-Goals
17. Deployment Model
18. Evaluation Plan & Minimum Viable Test
19. Ethical Considerations
20. Roadmap & Future Work

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Authorship and honesty note

This project is designed and documented by a single author. It has not been independently audited, peer-reviewed, or deployed against a real adversary. Every claim of security or novelty in this wiki is a claim to be tested, not a claim already proven. Readers — especially reviewers — are encouraged to attack the reasoning in Page 15 before trusting it.