Attestation Methods
Comparison of cryptographic attestation approaches. Understand trade-offs to choose the right method for your security requirements.
Method Comparison Matrix
| Method | Evidence | Overhead | Verifier Model | Threats Addressed | Best Fit | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cryptographic Signing | High | Low | Offline, any party with public key |
| General-purpose artifact attestation | Implemented |
| Supply-Chain Provenance (SLSA) | High | Medium | Offline, requires trust in build system |
| Software builds, CI/CD pipelines | Implemented |
| TPM / Measured Boot | Very High | High | Requires TPM hardware, attestation service |
| High-security deployments | Landscape |
| TEE / Confidential Computing | Very High | High | Requires TEE hardware, remote attestation |
| Sensitive model inference | Landscape |
| Multi-Party Computation (MPC) | High | Very High | Distributed, threshold of honest parties |
| Collaborative training | Landscape |
| Zero-Knowledge Proofs (zkML) | Very High | Very High | Offline, cryptographic verification |
| Private model inference proofs | Landscape |
How to Choose
Need offline verification?
Cryptographic Signing or ZK Proofs work without network. TPM/TEE typically require attestation services.
Constrained by overhead?
Cryptographic Signing has minimal overhead. MPC and ZK proofs have significant computational costs.
Need hardware-level trust?
TPM for boot integrity, TEE for runtime protection. Requires compatible hardware.
Protecting training data?
MPC for collaborative training without data sharing.TEE for isolated processing.
Proving inference without revealing model?
zkML can prove a specific model produced an output without revealing model weights. High overhead.
General-purpose attestation?
Start with Cryptographic Signing + Supply-Chain Provenance. Add hardware attestation if threat model requires.
Attested Intelligence Approach
Attested Intelligence implements cryptographic signing (Ed25519) and supply-chain provenance (SLSA-compatible) as the foundation. These provide:
- Offline verification without network trust
- Low overhead suitable for production workloads
- Integration with policy artifacts for governance
- Continuity chain for tamper-evident history
Hardware attestation (TPM/TEE) integration is on the roadmap for deployments requiring hardware-backed trust roots.