SZDT

Signed Zero-trust DaTa. Pronounced "Samizdat".

It's time to make the web censorship-resistant. SZDT decouples trust from servers so that data can spread like dandelion seeds.

Whitepaper Quickstart GitHub

SZDT is signed CBOR with everything needed to cryptographically verify authenticity and integrity. Data can be seeded across cheap commodity HTTP servers or over p2p protocols like BitTorrent and Iroh.

Supporters

Specifications

SZDT is a set of building blocks for publishing censorship-resistant data.

SZDT Whitepaper
SZDT Explainer: Overview of SZDT concepts. Start here.
SZDT Memos Specification: CBOR metadata envelopes that can be cryptographically signed to create self-certifying data.
SZDT Sequence Specification: Bundle multiple CBOR objects into a single content-addressed CBOR Sequence.
SZDT Archives Specification: a file archiving format built on memos and sequences. Archives provide a censorship-resistant format for distributing collections of signed, verifiable files.

Features

Zero-trust: SZDT archives are verified using cryptographic hashing and public key cryptography. No centralized authorities are required.
Censorship-resistant: Because trust is decoupled from origin or transport, SZDT archives can be distributed via HTTP, Torrents, email, airdrop, sneakernet, or anything else that is available.
Decentralizable: SZDT decouples trust from origin, so data can be distributed to many redundant locations, including multiple HTTP servers, BitTorrent, hard drives, etc. Lots Of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe.
Anonymous/pseudonymous: SZDT uses keys, not IDs. No accounts are required.
Streamable: CBOR is inherently streamable, and Blake3 hashes enable streaming cryptographic verification.
Any kind of data: Memos can wrap API responses, file bytes, structured data, or anything else. They also provide a mechanism for adding self-certifying metadata (headers) to any data.