Public randomness you can verify, not just trust
QBEACON publishes public, timestamped, signed random values linked to preceding records. Signatures and chain commitments make changes detectable against previously retained records; they do not by themselves prevent an operator from presenting an alternative history.
Each pulse is signed with an Ed25519 key and carries a Merkle commitment, so anyone can independently re-verify the entire chain without trusting the operator. Relay sources are identified on each pulse: drand provides distributed threshold-signature randomness; ANU QRNG provides quantum-optical randomness. They are different sources with different assumptions. Bell-test pulses bind a value to a CHSH measurement on IBM quantum hardware. Every pulse's device_class and caveat fields state exactly what it rests on.
CVQC / Mahadev is a separate research direction based on computational assumptions, including LWE hardness. Our experimental work is not a production-complete implementation.
How it works, step by step
1. Entropy collection. The source recorded on each pulse supplies the input. A drand relay, an ANU quantum-optical relay, and a Bell experiment have different provenance; output statistics do not establish that provenance.
2. Signing & chaining. The new value is signed with the beacon's Ed25519 private key and chained to the hash of the previous pulse, so the ledger is tamper-evident.
3. Publication. Each signed pulse is published to the public ledger as it is produced, along with its Merkle root and device-class caveat.
4. Independent verification. Download records and the standalone verifier to recompute signatures, commitments, and any supplied Bell statistics. Pin a trusted public key. Physical-source provenance and experimental assumptions remain separate checks.