Antefacts

Operator key

The key every Antefacts record is signed with, published so nobody has to ask us.

A signed record is only checkable if the public key is somewhere the checker can find it independently. This page is that place. Anyone holding a record we issued can verify it against the key below without contacting us and without our cooperation.

Active key
Key identifier
operator:key-2026-09. This is the value carried in operator_key_id on every record the key signs.
Operator
Level Zero LLC, trading as Antefacts.
Algorithm
ECDSA on NIST P-256, SHA-256.
SPKI SHA-256
13a9686950ae20f37ca522b61f077fb36b3360374a7504cfbffc004ec0de7299
Status
Active from September 2026. The ledger index from which it first signs is recorded in the key registry when the first entry is made.
Custody
The private half was generated inside, and has never existed outside, a hardware security module validated to FIPS 140-3 Level 3 (CMVP certificate 4884). It is non-exportable by construction. Signing occurs inside the module; only the signature leaves it. Every signing call is written to an audit log the signing identity cannot alter.
Public key

SubjectPublicKeyInfo, PEM

-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----
MFkwEwYHKoZIzj0CAQYIKoZIzj0DAQcDQgAEMUs/S4a6kIemn68nyZt6YBVNKnd0
/d484ngDbb1og53oJfS6LoW98EU2HKuX1ZRVST5IFwtiIUsWUKME/cGJxw==
-----END PUBLIC KEY-----

To confirm you have the right key, compute the SHA-256 of the DER encoding of this SubjectPublicKeyInfo and compare it to the fingerprint above. With OpenSSL: openssl pkey -pubin -in key.pem -outform DER | sha256sum.

Rotation

What happens when this key is retired

A key rotation is itself a ledger entry, sealed under the retiring key, naming the incoming one and the index from which it applies. The retired key’s public half stays published here indefinitely, whatever happens to the private half, so that every historical record remains verifiable forever. A record signed by a key that cannot be resolved from this page is non-conforming, and a verifier is required to fail on it rather than try other keys.

Where a rotation is due to suspected compromise, the rotation record says so, names the ledger index from which entries are suspect, and that index may not be later than the last independently published root before discovery.