The authors argue that computer science conferences should require tamper-proof proof that the experimental numbers in papers actually came from the code described. Right now, authors self-report results, sometimes share code, and control their own logs — none of which stops someone from reporting numbers that didn't come from the experiments they claim. They built K-Veritas, a prototype system in Go that produces cryptographically signed experiment reports, and call for conferences to adopt nonrepudiation (the property that you can't later deny or alter what computation you ran) as a standard requirement.
Main takeaways:
- Current peer review relies on author honesty; reviewers can't verify that reported numbers actually came from the described code
- The authors define "experiment nonrepudiation" formally: binding paper results to actual executed computations in a way authors can't alter
- K-Veritas is a proof-of-concept that produces signed reports without accessing training data
- They propose making tamper-evident attestations a conference submission requirement, similar to ethics checklists