The vocabulary, defined.
The same terms, with the same meanings, everywhere — on this site, in the product, and in the glossary printed inside every report. Words that hold still are part of how evidence survives scrutiny.
The record
Session
One controlled capture, from creation to sealing — run in Provena's remote browser environment, never on the operator's machine.
Session code
The public identifier of a session, in the format PRV-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX. Printed on reports and packages, and designed to survive being read over the phone and retyped.
Evidence
The preserved material a session produces: screenshots, video recordings, files, page snapshots, and technical logs.
Evidence package
The consolidated set — every preserved file plus the manifest — sealed as one unit. Physically, a plain ZIP file that opens with the tools any system already has.
Manifest
The package's inventory: every file listed with its name, path, size, and fingerprint. Missing or substituted contents show up against it.
Report
The human-readable presentation of the record, online and as an archival PDF. The report explains and exposes the record — the package remains the record itself.
The chain
Hash
A cryptographic fingerprint of content. The same bytes always produce the same fingerprint; a single changed byte produces a different one — which lets anyone compare content without revealing it. Provena's canonical hash is SHA-512.
Custody chain
The hash-linked ledger of everything that happened to the evidence: capture, transfer, storage, sealing, access, retention — written live, never reconstructed.
Custody event
One entry in the chain: what happened, when, in which sequence — carrying its own hash and the hash of the previous event.
Custody seal
The event that closes the material chain, fixing its recorded state. Like the package hash, the seal can be anchored with independent external providers.
Tamper-evident
Provena's integrity model: alteration is not claimed to be impossible — it is made visible. If any past event is changed, removed, or reordered, the chain stops reproducing, and the break is locatable.
Proof outside Provena
External proof (anchor)
The registration of a Provena hash — the package hash or the custody seal — with an independent provider outside Provena's systems. It supports proof that the record existed at a point in time. Hashes only: evidence files are never placed on-chain.
Blockchain anchor
An external proof recorded on a public ledger kept by thousands of independent machines. The entry can be looked up on any public explorer, at any time, without asking permission.
OpenTimestamps
A timestamping protocol that commits hashes to the Bitcoin blockchain. The proof is a small file (.ots) that can be verified with the protocol's own open tools.
Time-stamp authority (RFC 3161)
A certificate authority that signs a hash together with the time it was received. The proof is a signed token (.tsr) verifiable with standard tools such as OpenSSL.
Checking
Public check
The public verification workflow — no account needed. A session code confirms a preserved session; a file is fingerprinted locally in the browser, and only the fingerprint is sent — never the content.
Package viewer
A browser-based way to inspect a package's contents. The public viewer validates the package's hash before showing a single file.
Audit
The technical review workflow: commands, working scripts, hashes, custody data, and TLS records — everything an expert needs to re-check the record with their own tools. A technical process, not a legal conclusion.
Screenshot crop
A review helper cut from a preserved screenshot by a reviewer. Useful for discussion — but not Provena evidence, and not expected to pass the public check. The original screenshot remains the evidence.
People
Operator
The person who conducts the capture session: navigates, records, downloads, and ends the session.
Witness (watcher)
A person invited to observe a live session in real time, read-only — present at the moment the evidence is made.
The qualities
Integrity
The property that content is unchanged since preservation. In a Provena record, integrity is checkable: recompute the fingerprint and compare.
Authenticity
The question of whether evidence is what it claims to be. Provena supports the analysis with technical elements — controlled environment, hashes, custody — it does not decree the answer.
Provenance
Where the evidence came from and the path it travelled — origin, environment, and every step in between, documented in the chain.
Auditability
The property that makes the rest matter: every claim the record makes can be re-checked by someone else, with their own tools, without trusting Provena.
Words defined. Method explained.
The methodology page shows how these pieces fit together — and the FAQ answers what this page didn't.