Decentralized Proof-of-Location for Content Provenance: Towards Capture-Time Authenticity

TL;DR

This paper proposes a decentralized Proof-of-Location system with a witnessing-zone architecture to enhance the authenticity and trustworthiness of real-world data in adversarial environments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel witnessing-zone architecture that enables multiple independent observers to collectively validate physical events without centralized trust.

Findings

The approach produces auditable evidence artifacts for downstream systems.

Simulation shows improved trustworthiness and resilience against fabricated events.

Enhances device-centric provenance with collective validation.

Abstract

Reliable use of real-world data requires confidence that recorded evidence reflects what actually occurred at the moment of capture. In adversarial or incentive-misaligned cyber-physical settings, device-centric provenance and post-capture verification are insufficient to provide that guarantee. This paper builds on Proof-of-Location (PoL) as a baseline for establishing where and when events take place, and extends it with a witnessing-zone architecture in which multiple independent observers collectively validate physical events. The resulting approach produces auditable evidence artifacts that can support downstream systems in cyber-physical settings, without relying on centralized trust. Through representative scenarios and simulation-based evaluation, this paper shows how such architectures improve sensor data trustworthiness and resilience to fabricated or staged events.