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C2PA is actually an open protocol, à la SMTP. the whole spec is at https://spec.c2pa.org/, available for anyone to implement.

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The standard itself being open is irrelevant. I'm not sure why this is always brought up for attestation standards. It is fundamentally impossible to trust the signature from open-source software or hardware, so a signature from open-source software is essentially the same as no signature.

The need for a trusted entity is even mentioned in your specification under the "attestation" section: https://spec.c2pa.org/specifications/specifications/1.4/atte...

So now, if we were to start marking all images that do not have a signature as "dangerous", you would have effectively created an enforcement mechanism in which the whole pipeline, from taking a photo to editing to publishing, can only be done with proprietary software and hardware.

We already have a centrally curated trust model in https. Browsers only treat connections as "secure" if they chain up to a root CA in their trust store. You can operate outside that system, but users will see warnings and friction. Some level of trust concentration isn’t new.

I'm curious if you think this is worse or not as bad as a best-case broad implementation c2pa...especially if there is a similar Let's Encrypt entity assisting with signatures.

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