What is a certificate?
Last updated
Last updated
A ScoreDetect verification certificate is a digital document that provides irrefutable proof of the authenticity and integrity of your digital content.
The certificate exists for as long as the holder wishes for it to stay.
Once the certificate is deleted, the certificate URL will no longer exist. However, the public blockchain URL will always exist. Therefore, we recommend downloading/exporting the certificate PDF so that you can retain a copy of it in the future.
Here is a demo certificate for you to understand what the certificate consists of:
This is the current time and date since the page was last loaded by the user. If you view the page, you will notice that it is set to your current time and date.
This is a unique identifier for this certificate. It is used to separate one certificate from another.
These are a set of actions that you can perform on the certificate. Currently, the following actions can be used:
Validate - this opens up a facility for the file or text to be independently validated. You will have to upload the file, or enter the text. Once added to the validator, it will digest the file or text and check if it matches the hash found on the certificate. If it matches, it will mark as a "validation success". If it does not match, it will mark as a "validation fail".
Print PDF - this allows the user to independently export the PDF. This allows the browser to either print or save the PDF for the user.
This provides a quick reference for modern devices to scan the QR Code and open the URL. Handy for when a physical copy of the certificate is used.
This is the time the certificate is fully created in ScoreDetect.
You will notice that the "created at" comes slightly after the Public Blockchain Data creation time. This is because ScoreDetect completes the blockchain transaction and writes the data to our ScoreDetect database so that the certificate can be created on the ScoreDetect website.
There are two kinds of certificates: File Upload, or Plain Text Upload.
During the upload phase, we only securely encrypt the data transmission. To bolster our security, we do not store any of your uploaded files during the certificate creation process. Only the "hashed checksum" is used from the uploaded file.
This indicates that the certificate content consists of an uploaded file. The uploaded file is only done on your browser and no data from the file is transmitted anywhere else.
This indicates that the certificate content consists of an uploaded plain text content. The uploaded plain text is only done on your browser and no data from the file is transmitted anywhere else.
The plain text content retains as close as possible to the original data. This includes respecting all whitespaces, punctuations, and symbols. Of course, we only gather the "hashed checksum" of the text content, further bolstering our security.
This states the version number of the certificate in a chain of verification certificates. Certificates can only be chained if the previous certificate does not exist in a chain yet; and both the previous certificate and the new certificate come from the same owner.
The higher the number, the better the integrity in the entire chain of certificates, because it can display a revision history over time.
This is how fast the certificate was created, as an indication to the speed at which ScoreDetect can create from the initial request, processing, and response data.
A healthy speed is around 3-6 seconds, which is considerably faster than other competitors’ minutes and hours on the internet to create a certificate.
This is the web browser URL of the certificate. You can show this to anyone and they will be able to retrieve the contents of the certificate file. The user can also perform actions on the certificate at their own independence.
This is the blockchain URL which relates to the certificate.
In our example, we are using this URL:
You can scroll down and notice the "VerificationCertificate" input name.
For validation against the blockchain timestamp, you can be reassured that this is the same with what is found on the ScoreDetect certificate, in the "SHA-256 Checksum".
Notice that the SHA-256 Checksum is exactly the same as what is found on the blockchain transaction earlier.
We have created a smart contract for all the certificates used in ScoreDetect.
Because ScoreDetect runs on an immutable (never-ever-changing) smart contract, you can rest assured that it will never change — ever.
The code is also public for everyone to see. So that you can make sure that we have no ability to modify the code or the blockchain transaction. It stays where it is.
You can see the Smart Contract here in our demonstration certificate:
This is the checksum that we have found within the Public Blockchain URL.
It is used for you to independently verify the data located in the Public Blockchain URL (timestamp, checksum) with the Certificate (timestamp, checksum).
This is a public record of the transaction made on the blockchain. It is a decentralized, open-source network. We have obtained this directly from the blockchain.
This is the raw data of the blockchain transaction. This can be used for further validation. You can also independently call the blockchain explorer API to confirm that the raw body is the same.
