Certivu vs C2PA
C2PA is an open standard for content provenance. Certivu is a service that signs and verifies AI-generated content with post-quantum ML-DSA signatures, adds resilient watermarking and fingerprinting fallbacks, and can export C2PA manifests for interoperability. They solve overlapping problems with different trade-offs.
Side by side
C2PA is a specification, not a single product — exact behavior depends on the implementer. The C2PA column describes the common case in current deployments.
Content outlives its cryptography
Classical signature algorithms — RSA, ECDSA, Ed25519 — will be broken by sufficiently large quantum computers. Content signed today needs to remain verifiable for a decade or more. Certivu uses ML-DSA (Dilithium), finalized by NIST as FIPS 204, from day one.
We do not use RSA or ECC anywhere in our signing stack.
Provenance survives transformation
Embedded manifests and tokens are the fast path, but they can be stripped by recompression, screenshots, or re-uploads. Certivu layers an invisible watermark plus perceptual-hash and acoustic fingerprint lookups so provenance can often be recovered after metadata is gone.
These are resilience signals, not proof. The cryptographic signature remains the source of truth.
Common questions
Is Certivu a replacement for C2PA?
Not exactly. C2PA is an open standard for content provenance manifests. Certivu is a service that signs and verifies AI-generated content using post-quantum ML-DSA signatures and adds resilient watermarking and fingerprinting fallbacks. Certivu can export a C2PA-compatible manifest for any record, so the two are complementary rather than mutually exclusive.
Does C2PA use post-quantum cryptography?
Not today. C2PA manifests are typically signed with classical algorithms such as RSA, ECDSA, or Ed25519, which are vulnerable to future quantum attacks. Certivu signs exclusively with ML-DSA (Dilithium), the NIST FIPS 204 post-quantum standard.
What happens if the provenance metadata is stripped?
Stripping the embedded manifest or token removes the fast path for both C2PA and Certivu. Certivu adds resilient fallbacks — an invisible watermark plus perceptual-hash and acoustic fingerprint lookups — so provenance can often still be recovered after the metadata is gone. These fallbacks are resilience signals, not proof; the cryptographic signature remains the source of truth.
Can I use both Certivu and C2PA?
Yes. Certivu exports C2PA-compatible manifests, so you can sign with Certivu's post-quantum signatures and still interoperate with C2PA-aware tools and viewers.
Verify provenance for free
No account required to verify. 500 free signatures per month to sign.