Comment by bdamm

I understand where you're coming from, but until the math is accepted by a court and a procedure for validating authenticty is established within the society of judges, the burden for introducing this kind of evidence falls on whomever decides it is essential enough for their case to succeed. That's a very expensive proposition, so you can't really say that it is the process until a plaintiff or defendent with large enough pockets to afford the conversion of the legal society takes up the cause. Until then it's just random gibberish, and unavailable to the average person as a court admissible statement of authenticty for a digital artifact. The fact is that the "loose consensus" of "private societies" DOES determine acceptability, when that private society is the law society. Judges are only subject to the rules and regulations that other judges and prosecuters decide apply. There's nothing cosmic about it - it is very much rooted in the people who apply the law.