Company Name: Simple test
Founders: Rafael Cordon and Christian Lowenthal
Foundation date: February 2023
Headquarters location: Guatemala
Amount of bitcoin held in treasury: N/A
Number of employees: 6
Website: https://www.simpleproof.com/
Public or private? Private
In the age of digital records, how do we know that data has not been altered? Rafael (Rafa) Cordón has an answer.
In an effort to preserve the integrity of real information, especially government documents, he created Simple testa company that safeguards official data through the bitcoin blockchain.
Many became aware of the company last year when it was hired to prevent fraud in Guatemala's presidential election. However, Simple Proof's mission is bigger than that.
“We defend the integrity of public record information,” Cordón told bitcoin Magazine.
“Elections are not really our focus. They were just the first use case. We are focused on (safeguarding) public records, the information that governments produce,” he added.
So how exactly does Simple Proof maintain data integrity?
How the simple test works
Simple Proof leverages the expertise of bitcoin Core developer Peter Todd Open timestamps protocol, which uses hash functions to timestamp information on the immutable blockchain.
Cordón describes the process in simple terms as follows:
“First, we take the hash of the document, which can be thought of as the fingerprint. Each document has a very unique fingerprint, which is a string of characters
bitcoin transactions have space for arbitrary text, which is called the OP_RETURN function. This is analogous to when you write a check, there is a little line at the bottom right that says “Memo” where you can write arbitrary text to remind you what this check is for. The OP_RETURN function can be thought of as space for notes within a bitcoin transaction.
“Within this 'Memo' space, we include the hash, the fingerprint. This hash is then included in the bitcoin transaction. When the transaction is published, it is included in a block and then stored immutably. So, you have this fingerprint stored inside a bitcoin block that lives in perpetuity.”
Cordón clarified that a hash is not included for each specific document, but rather the hash in an OP_RETURN is the “root hash” of a Merkle tree, which is a tree of hashes for multiple documents.
In this way, OpenTimestamps can attest to an indefinite number of documents with a single OP_RETURN entry. Merkle trees allow efficient proof that a single piece of data was in the tree.
However, it should be noted that Simple Proof does not guarantee the authenticity of the data it helps store on the bitcoin blockchain. This still falls to the government or the body overseeing, for example, an election.
In the case of the Guatemalan presidential elections, almost 200,000 volunteers and observers from different political parties bitcoin/”>He oversaw the voting process in an effort to prevent fraud.whose details are described in the documentary Immutable democracy:
Who uses Simple Proof?
Cordón and his team are in talks with several government officials and private companies working with governments that are interested in using Simple Proof.
“There are two types of clients,” Cordón explained. “One is public officials who are concerned about maintaining the integrity of information in their institutions and who could get into trouble if information in their institutions is modified without authorization, and the other is technology providers who are contracted by governments to generate or process information and who have the same problem of ‘I don’t want to be accused of modifying information.’”
Simple Proof recently landed a second client, whose identity Cordón did not reveal. The client has been hired by its government to develop an application to manage public records, according to Cordón.
“They will not make their verification pages accessible to the public,” Cordón said.
“Instead, they will store their evidence privately, with the option to reveal it if necessary to authenticate documents in the future. This approach works as a form of digital insurance,” he added.
Cordón believes that this approach of creating private and verifiable evidence will become increasingly important not only for governments, but also for other institutions and individuals.
Regarding his work with public officials, Cordón highlighted one point in particular.
“For Simple Proof to work, authorities have to want to (use it),” Cordón explained.
“That is what happened in Guatemala. The authorities wanted to use it because they were afraid of being accused of electoral fraud,” he added.
While some may have speculated that Simple Proof could have helped prevent Electoral fraud in the recent Venezuelan presidential electionsCordon disagreed.
“In Venezuela, it is very likely that the electoral authorities did not want transparency from the beginning,” Cordón said.
“Simple Proof only works if our customers want transparency. If they don’t want transparency, they won’t want (our service),” he added.
Cordón went on to share that Simple Proof seeks to work with officials in established democracies around the world.
“I would never want to work with an undemocratic regime,” he shared.
Moving forward with the simple test
Earlier this year, Carlos Toriello (Carliño) joined the Simple Proof team.
Toriello oversaw an audit of votes in Guatemala's presidential election, the results of which Simple Proof helped protect.
“He carried out the audit as a citizen, as part of a civil society movement called Testigo Digital, or Digital Tax“Cordon explained. “Digital Witness was taking the documents that were published by election officials and verifying them with Simple Proof to check that they were authentic.”
Toriello got a team through crowdsourcing Teamworka task app that allows participants to earn bitcoins for completing tasks.
Thousands of participants worked from their phones to verify voting records against what had been recorded on the bitcoin blockchain via Simple Proof, earning sats for their work.
“Digital Witness confirmed that the election results were 99% accurate,” Cordón said.
Toriello is now working to have Simple Proof preserve the integrity of election results in a U.S. county.
He has been reaching out to US-based bitcoin meetup groups, encouraging them to help his county employ Simple Proof in its upcoming elections.
“The meetings are kind of like a competition to see who is the first county in the U.S. to implement this,” Cordón said.
As a prize, Simple Proof is willing to document the adoption of its technology in the US through a short film, such as Immutable democracy.
“We can help them document this in a good way by making a documentary or sending a film crew to give them the opportunity to show the world that they are the first people to do it,” Cordón said.
Beyond the simple test
While Cordón is happy to have created a tool to help combat misinformation, he is also aware that Simple Proof is just one of many defenses we will need against it.
“We are very concerned about the way ai tools are evolving,” Cordón said. “We need things like Simple Proof to protect against ai misinformation.”
Cordón also mentioned that government employees need to be aware of how they produce documents and believes that digital signatures can play a role in authenticating documents as they are published.
“We are recommending that governments at least use digital signatories such as YubiKey“Cordon said. “So when someone scans a document, the person who controls the YubiKey has to sign it to produce the signature and then it gets included in the blockchain.”
But even with technology like the YubiKey, Cordón remains concerned.
“(There is difficulty in) proving who generated the information and whether that digital information was based exclusively on input from the real world or whether it was based on input that was already manipulated,” Cordón explained.
“How are we going to prove that?” he asked with a stern expression on his face.
“It is an unresolved issue that will gain great importance in the next 10 years.”
