Author Identity

The short version

Most authors prove they wrote something by saying "I'm John Smith, here's my face." scm7k proves authorship with math instead.

Think of it like a wax seal. In the Middle Ages, a lord would press a unique metal stamp into hot wax to seal a letter. Anyone who received the letter could see the seal and know it came from that lord, because only that lord had that stamp. You didn't need to know the lord's face. You just needed to recognize the seal.

This works the same way, except the seal is a number and it's impossible to forge.

scm7k holds a secret number (the private key). From that secret number, a public number was generated (the public key, printed below). The private key can produce signatures that the public key can verify, but you cannot work backwards from the public key to figure out the private key. This is not a matter of difficulty. It is mathematically impossible.

So: if someone claims to be scm7k, they can prove it by signing a message. Anyone with the public key can check the signature. If it checks out, the message came from whoever holds the private key. If it doesn't, it didn't. No trust required. No identity documents. Just math.

The manuscript itself is also fingerprinted. Every word of the ten manuscript files was run through a one-way function that produces a unique string of characters (the hash below). Change a single comma in the manuscript and the hash changes completely. This proves the text has not been altered since it was signed.

The credentials

Any future work signed with the corresponding private key is by the same author. The private key is never published. Whoever holds it is scm7k.

How to verify (technical)

Try it yourself. The commands below use a real signed message. Copy and paste them into a terminal (Mac or Linux; OpenSSL is pre-installed). Every value is real. If it works, you've just verified that scm7k wrote PARALLAX.

Copy and paste this entire block into a terminal (Mac or Linux). It saves the attestation, the signature, and the public key, then verifies:

cat > attestation.txt << 'EOF'
AUTHOR IDENTITY ATTESTATION

I am the sole author of the work titled "PARALLAX."
I publish under the name: scm7k

This attestation binds my pseudonym to my cryptographic identity.
Any future work signed with the corresponding private key is by the same author.

Book title:           PARALLAX
Author (pen name):    scm7k
Manuscript SHA-256:   f8d0018097e68837d4f3ab062a9083c6b9d4af1a3e7bc5424863a7c52801d299
Public key SHA-256:   6460b5734a96043fa164486b32fb08093ae13a4c2708eef4d6440f333eb7bcca
Date:                 2026-03-13T08:00:00Z

To verify this attestation, check the detached signature (attestation.sig)
against the public key (author_public.pem):

    openssl pkeyutl -verify -pubin -inkey author_public.pem \
        -in attestation.txt -sigfile attestation.sig -rawin

The holder of the corresponding private key is the author of PARALLAX.
EOF

echo "7FO/x4vL+EVZnfp4XZe5SgfF01fpYOyBsDwbglXKsNEk5RHKyWvdisIyh48KDwbnpGmY8RiAFwPf/K/p3UiDCw==" | base64 -d > attestation.sig
echo "MCowBQYDK2VwAyEA7i5MQuQefsuSY0f56s9GJGSxzdp7gCyZQTCCxU+xiEU=" | base64 -d > author_public.der
openssl pkey -inform DER -pubin -in author_public.der -out author_public.pem

openssl pkeyutl -verify -pubin -inkey author_public.pem \
    -in attestation.txt -sigfile attestation.sig -rawin

If the last line prints Signature Verified Successfully, you've just mathematically confirmed that the holder of scm7k's private key wrote this attestation. Try changing a single character in the attestation and run it again. It will fail.

The private key is the identity. The public key is the invitation. The signature is the proof.

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