Security & Provenance

Nephele Workshop's security module solves two core problems: proving that you drew this image, and proving that someone stole your image.

Three Core Tools

We recommend using them together:

1. Before publishing, use Watermark & Credit to embed an invisible watermark, raising the cost of tracing for image thieves.
2. Right after finishing a work, run Digital Certification immediately to lock in the creation time and file state.
3. When you discover infringement, use Watermark Trace to quickly confirm the link, then run Evidence Capture on the infringing page to form a complete chain of evidence.

Why Illustrators Need Digital Certification

After the flood of AI-generated content, "who drew this image" has become harder to prove than before. Digital Certification issues a "birth certificate" for your work through a third-party timestamping authority:

• Proof of time — An RFC 3161 standard timestamp, proving that you already possessed this file before a certain point in time.
• Proof of integrity — Any modification breaks the hash chain; the original file you present must be exactly identical to the one certified.
• Statement of ownership — The certification package contains structured metadata such as author identity and a manifest of works.

Why You Need Evidence Capture

When people discover infringement, their first instinct is often to take a screenshot. But an ordinary screenshot is legally fragile:

• No URL or time information.
• No page source code, so there's no way to prove the content really came from that website.
• No server certificate, so there's no way to prove the connection was to the real server.
• No file hash, so once the screenshot is compressed its integrity cannot be verified.

Nephele's Evidence Capture performs automated forensic-grade preservation: it packages a web page's screenshot, source code, certificate, and network traffic into a timestamped, tamper-proof archive.

Best Practices

1. Certify immediately after finishing a work

Don't wait until a dispute arises to remember. Certify on the day a work is completed (or, at the latest, before publishing). The earlier the timestamp, the stronger its evidentiary weight.

2. Store source files and finished works together

• Select your PSD / CSP / SAI / KRA / Procreate source files together with the exported PNG/JPG finished work.
• Certification that includes source files is automatically upgraded to "Full Certification," which is clearly marked in the PDF report.
• Certification with only the finished image follows "Lite Certification" — equally valid, but with a narrower proof dimension.

3. Safeguard your .nep file and original files

• A .nep is a certification package in ZIP format, containing the timestamp, PDF report, and a copy of the original files.
• The original files must not be modified in any way (including re-exporting a file with the same name), or verification will fail.
• We recommend backing up the .nep and the original files separately (e.g. cloud drive + local NAS).
• You can set password protection (AES-256), but this requires installing pyzipper.

4. Gather evidence the moment you discover infringement

An infringing page can be deleted at any time. Once you discover it:

1. Immediately use the Evidence Capture tool to preserve the page.
2. At the same time, use Reverse Image Search to track down other reposting channels.
3. Merge all evidence results into a single evidence package.

5. Understand the two tiers of timestamps

Nephele first requests an RFC 3161 timestamp issued by an authoritative TSA. If the network is unreachable or the TSA service fails, it automatically falls back to a local timestamp.

6. Don't rely on Nephele alone

Nephele helps you preserve evidence in a standardized format, but rights enforcement is a systematic effort:

• Small-amount / in-platform disputes: submitting the evidence package directly through the platform's complaint process is usually enough.
• Large commercial infringement: we recommend engaging a lawyer, and obtaining notarization from a notary office where necessary.
• Cross-border disputes: pay attention to the rules of evidence admissibility in the target country.

Nephele's role is to lower the technical barrier and cost of preserving evidence.

Verifying Your Certification

Every Digital Certification comes with a verification link:

https://verify.arisfusion.com?id=<root_hash_prefix>

You can also open the .nep file or the .tsa timestamp file directly within the Nephele software to verify it.

Next Steps

• Digital Certification in detail — feature entry point, workflow, and the difference between Lite and Full
• Evidence Capture in detail — what gets collected, CAPTCHA handling, and evidence package structure
• Technical Audit Document — implementation source code, cryptographic details, known limitations, and threat model for certification, evidence collection, and invisible watermarking (white-box, publicly disclosed for security researchers' reference)
• Reverse Image Search — discovering infringement leads