Hackathon results are independently checkable only when organizers publish more than a signed announcement. A digital signature can reveal whether signed records were changed; recomputation requires the rules and scoring inputs needed to reproduce the result. Neither check alone proves that judging was fair or that the inputs were correct.
What can readers verify?
There are two distinct checks. A signature check tests whether a record matches data signed by a particular key. A recomputation tests whether disclosed criteria, scores and aggregation steps produce the announced outcome.
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- Signature verification: Readers need the signed data, an authentic verification key and documented instructions or a tool for checking the signature. A passing check supports the integrity of the signed record; it does not establish that judges scored entries correctly or that the rules were fair.
- Recomputation: Readers need the applicable rules and the inputs used to calculate the result. A signed final ranking without those materials cannot be independently recalculated.
Unity Challenge NZ describes a public audit viewer for inspecting signed records, timestamps, aggregation and final outcomes on its Trust Centre. Its AI Judging Disclosure, last updated 1 July 2026, says: “Every individual judge run, every aggregation, and the final outcome is recorded with the full scoring rationale and signed using ECDSA P-384 digital signatures over a canonical JSON payload.” This is that operator’s stated implementation, not independent proof of judging quality or a universal standard.
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Make the evidence useful to both a person checking the record and someone attempting to reproduce the calculation. A practical publication set includes:
- Rules: Publish judging criteria, weights, terms and the version that applies before judging begins. Record which version governed each competition.
- Scoring inputs: Preserve individual scores or equivalent judge outputs, along with the final values used in aggregation.
- Aggregation details: Document the procedure, including input ordering, arithmetic, rounding and any tie-breaking rules. These details can change a result even when the scores are identical.
- Exceptions: Record reruns, replacements, overrides and other departures from the normal process, with reasons. Unity Challenge says its reruns are reserved for objectively verifiable technical failures and recorded.
- Machine-readable records: Where practical, publish records in a documented format so readers can inspect them and write their own verification or recomputation code.
How to make the signature check meaningful
A signature is useful only if readers can connect it to the right record and establish that the verification key is genuinely associated with the organizer. Unity Challenge says it signs canonical JSON records and publishes a public verification key. Canonicalization matters because different encodings or field ordering can represent equivalent data while producing different bytes to sign.
- Define the exact record format and canonical representation that will be signed.
- Identify the signing key in the published records and provide a trustworthy route to the corresponding verification key.
- Publish the signed records and provide a public verification path, explaining what a pass confirms and what it does not.
- Protect the signing key and document key changes or replacement procedures so readers can assess which key was valid for a given record.
A public audit viewer can lower the barrier to inspection, but readers should be told what it verifies. A signature pass confirms that the checked data matches the signature under the selected key; it does not validate the judging rationale or the truth of the scores.
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How to make recomputation reproducible
Disclose enough detail for an outsider to apply the actual scoring process, not merely view its output. That means publishing the applicable criteria and weights, the scoring inputs, and the exact aggregation logic. If software performs calculations, identify relevant runtime and dependency details and preserve the commands or procedure used. K-Veritas’ protocol specification describes recording commands, runtime fingerprints, dependencies and metrics for computational experiments; those are useful reproducibility concepts, not a hackathon-specific certification.
Readers should be able to trace the path from judge outputs to the aggregate and final ranking. If the published records omit a score, a rule version, a rounding method or an exception, the result may remain impossible to reproduce even if the final record has a valid signature.
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Use timestamps as supporting evidence
A timestamp can support a claim about when a record was finalized, but it is not a substitute for a signature or transparent scoring rules. Unity Challenge says it timestamps its final aggregate using an RFC 3161 timestamp authority. Organizers should identify what was timestamped and make the timestamp evidence available alongside the record, so readers can distinguish a timestamp on a final aggregate from one on the underlying scoring inputs.
Protect participants while exposing evidence
Auditability does not require public disclosure of names or submissions. Decide what information is necessary to verify the process, then design records to avoid exposing more. Unity Challenge says judges receive anonymized entries and that public records use anonymized identifiers rather than names or entry content. Organizers should explain how identifiers connect records across the judging and aggregation process without disclosing participant identities.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What a complete public audit still cannot prove
Even a well-documented, signed and reproducible result is evidence about the published record and calculation. It cannot, by itself, prove that every judge applied the criteria appropriately, that the criteria were equitable, or that the submitted inputs accurately represent what happened. Those questions require scrutiny of the rules, process and rationale, not just cryptographic checks.
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