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Proofs
Definition
A proof is one of the two pieces of data needed to verify an online identity, the other being a claim.
Usually, the proof is a JSON document provided by the service provider containing publicly-available data of the user. This data may contain the username and a biography. Currently, a lot of service providers are supported because of the ability to write a proof statement inside a biography or something similar. Other service providers are supported by entering the proof statement in a post, in which case said service provider must provide JSON data for each post.
With regards to identity verification, the presence of a claim inside a proof verifies that claim.
See claims for details on how proofs and claims are (programmatically) related to each other.
A proof can also be a text of any length. This changes nothing about the definition above. It only means the search for the claim is simpler: no traversing a JSON document, just find the claim inside the text and the claim is verified.