Proof Infrastructure vs Traditional Evidence Collection
Traditional evidence collection gathers logs, exports, and screenshots that must be trusted. Proof Infrastructure produces tamper-evident evidence that anyone can verify. The difference is whether evidence must be believed or can be checked.
Proof Infrastructure
Produce self-verifying, tamper-evident evidence that can be confirmed by any party.
Traditional evidence collection
Assemble records, exports, and attestations to document that something happened.
Side by side
Traditional evidence collection
Strengths
- Familiar and requires no special instrumentation.
- Works with existing systems and exports.
- Flexible for ad-hoc evidence needs.
Limitations
- Evidence must be trusted and can be altered.
- Collection is manual, slow, and error-prone.
- Often forces exposure of sensitive data.
Proof Infrastructure
Strengths
- Evidence is verifiable and tamper-evident.
- Generated automatically, not reconstructed later.
- Privacy-preserving through cryptographic commitments.
Limitations
- Requires instrumenting systems to emit proofs.
- Best for events you can commit to at the source.
When each approach fits
Choose traditional evidence collection
Use traditional collection for ad-hoc or legacy evidence where instrumentation is impractical.
Choose Proof Infrastructure
Use Proof Infrastructure when evidence must be trustworthy, verifiable, and privacy-preserving.
How they complement each other
Where systems can emit proofs, Proof Infrastructure replaces fragile collection with verifiable evidence; elsewhere, traditional collection still fills gaps — together improving overall evidence quality.
Related concepts
See it in action
Inspect a proof artifact and run independent verification in the live demo.