CAIN-42 · E52 · independent evidence

Trust must be verifiable without trusting the operator.

Every record is signed. Every record is committed to an append-only Merkle log. Every checkpoint can be countersigned by independent witnesses. And an auditor can verify all of it with a standalone CLI that imports no CAIN code.

CAIN imports in the auditor CLI

tree sizes tested for inclusion + consistency

6/6

sample verdicts correct (both verifiers)

4/4

tamper/equivocation/rollback cases detected

independence level of the local witnesses

Seven separate claims — never one green check

Dimension	What it establishes	What it does not
Authenticity	a pinned producer key signed the bytes	that the event is true
Integrity	content matches the leaf hashes	completeness
Inclusion	the record is in the committed tree	that other records exist
Ordering	sequence numbers are contiguous	that nothing was omitted
Completeness	the bundle matches the signed checkpoint	that the operator committed every event
Witness	N distinct operators accepted this checkpoint	event truth or operator honesty
Event truth	NOT ESTABLISHED	nothing here proves it

Verify it yourself

curl -LO https://cainstudio.online/open-source/downloads/cain42-open-core-0.1.3.tar.gz
tar xzf cain42-open-core-0.1.3.tar.gz && cd cain42-open-core-0.1.3
pip install cryptography httpx pytest

# library verifier
python3 -m cain.evidence.cli verify artifacts/evolution-52/valid/bundle.json \
        --pins artifacts/evolution-52/valid/pins.json

# standalone auditor: no CAIN imports
python3 auditor-kit/cain_evidence_verify.py verify \
        artifacts/evolution-52/tampered/bundle.json \
        --pins artifacts/evolution-52/tampered/pins.json

python3 -m pytest tests/test_evolution52_evidence.py -q

Exit codes: 0 VALID · 2 INVALID · 3 UNVERIFIABLE · 4 DISPUTED · 5 REVOKED · 6 INCOMPLETE.

Sample verdicts (regenerated by the test suite)

Bundle	Expected	Library	Standalone
valid	VALID	VALID	VALID
tampered record	INVALID	INVALID	INVALID
equivocation (both signed)	DISPUTED	DISPUTED	DISPUTED
revoked producer key	REVOKED	REVOKED	REVOKED
missing inclusion proof	INCOMPLETE	INCOMPLETE	INCOMPLETE
unpinned witness	UNVERIFIABLE	UNVERIFIABLE	UNVERIFIABLE

What is honest

The sample witnesses are two local processes under one administrator — independence level 1, not third parties.
No external witness operator has deployed. Gate G20 is BLOCKED.
A Merkle proof proves inclusion, not that the operator published every event.
Event truth is never established by cryptography; independent execution observation is a separate signal and conflicts force DISPUTED.
No third-party audit, no Sigstore/Rekor inclusion, no SLSA claim.

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