Datum
Tamper-evident provenance records for fossils, from discovery to sale.
Problem
A fossil’s value depends on where it came from, and that history is usually a paper trail assembled after the fact: a locality written from memory, a chain of sale reconstructed from receipts. Once a record can be edited quietly, nothing downstream can be trusted.
How it was solved
A field-capture prototype that records provenance at the moment of discovery rather than afterwards: locality, dates, and attributed entries as the specimen moves through excavation, prep lab, and sale. Every entry is sealed on the device, so a later edit breaks the seal visibly instead of overwriting history.
Everything stays local. No account, no server holding the record, and no dependency on Datum still existing in ten years.
Results
Running at datumrecord.com, including a live demonstration of tamper detection: alter a sealed record and the interface shows the broken seal rather than the altered value.