// how certification works
What the badge actually means.
Every article on HCCN carries a Human Authorship Certificate: a signed, tamper-evident record of how the work was actually written, and anyone can re-verify it with nothing but math and a public key. It catches pasting as it happens, flags edits made after an article is published, and travels with the piece wherever it goes.
It is not an AI detector. Those guess, and they get people wrong. This is proof of process instead. The higher the level, the more of that process was observed and the stronger the author’s identity check.
// the levels
- Level 1Author DeclaredAuthor Declared
- What it proves
- An identifiable HCCN account stands behind the work and attests they wrote it.
- How you earn it
- Publish on HCCN. It's a signed, on-the-record claim, but the process wasn't observed.
- Level 2Process VerifiedHuman Authorship, Process Verified
- What it proves
- The article was composed in the HCCN editor, and a continuous, tamper-evident record of that composition exists and matches the published text.
- How you earn it
- Write your article in the HCCN editor and publish. The editor records the process for you.
- Level 3Verified Human AuthorVerified Human Author
- What it proves
- Everything in Level 2, plus a registered passkey confirmed the author's presence during the writing session.
- How you earn it
- Add a passkey in your profile, then click “verify presence” in the editor before publishing.
- Level 4Enhanced Provenanceroadmap
- What it proves
- Adds a browser extension: research sources consulted, cross-application paste attribution, and registered-device authentication.
- How you earn it
- Roadmap: will require the HCCN browser extension during composition.
- Level 5Studio Verifiedroadmap
- What it proves
- The strongest tier: on-device screen analysis, liveness checks, a restricted composition environment, and signed device evidence.
- How you earn it
- Roadmap: the highest-assurance mode, processed on-device with only derived evidence retained.
Levels 1–3 are live today. Levels 4–5 are on the roadmap. Certification strength always tracks how strongly the author was authenticated.
// what every certificate shows
How much was typed directly vs. pasted, plus anything the author disclosed. Declaring your sources or AI use counts as good faith, and reads differently from an undeclared paste, which is the real flag.
Verified writing sessions, document revisions, and a privacy-preserving timeline of the writing, derived from timing only, never the draft text.
A live re-check of the Ed25519 signature, the tamper-evident hash chain, and whether the published content still matches what was certified.
Anyone can verify a certificate off HCCN with its public key: in a browser extension, an embedded badge, or their own code. A reader who finds a copy somewhere can even paste it into the Check an article tool and confirm it matches, right in their browser.
An article can be edited and re-certified. Each version gets its own certificate, and older ones stay valid for the text they covered, so the whole history stays verifiable.
// what it does catch
HCCN is careful about what it can’t prove precisely because it’s rigorous about what it can. From a certified article, the record catches:
- → Pasting, as it happens. Every paste is captured and sized in real time; large undeclared pastes are flagged right on the certificate.
- → Edits after the fact. A content fingerprint means any change to the text after certification is detectable, and the badge flips to a failure state wherever it’s embedded.
- → Tampering with the record. The hash chain means the writing history can’t be quietly rewritten; altering it breaks the chain.
- → Whether a real process happened. The timeline shows composition over time, so paste-and-publish looks nothing like genuine writing.
- → What was disclosed. Declared AI or quotation is on the record, and disclosed assistance is visibly distinct from undeclared pasting.
// what it does not claim
HCCN verifies the recorded composition process and the integrity of the associated provenance record. It does not claim that unobserved external assistance was impossible. A person could, for instance, draft elsewhere and retype. We tell readers exactly what was proven, and nothing more. That honesty is the point.