Project summary

More Holocaust-era records are online than ever, which is a huge win for access. But generative AI can now produce a convincing fake of a 1943 deportation for almost no cost, and once fakes are that cheap, real documents get easier to dismiss too. If someone can wave away a genuine record as "probably AI", denying a documented atrocity costs nothing. We think that's an urgent epistemic security problem.

Authentic Memory is a small German non-profit (gemeinnützige UG). Archives sign their digitised files with their own hardware keys, and we anchor those signatures with independent public timestamps. Anyone can later check that a file is exactly what the archive signed, unchanged, and that it existed in that form on that date. So far we've anchored 68,555 files across 4 institutions.

Our current grants, which run until April 2027, cover the anchoring infrastructure, the core technology and the onboarding of partner institutions. They fund only a minimal level of outreach and no research beyond the core programme. This fundraiser adds to those grants within the same period: more outreach while onboarding is still covered, a separate research project on how AI forgery threatens archives, and work to make verification visible to archivists, journalists and the public.

What are this project's goals? How will you achieve them?

1. Anchoring more institutions sooner: Our current grants run until April 2027, and every archive that joins before then is onboarded under that funding. We have committed to our funders to onboard 10 institutions by then; our own goal is at least 15, plus a pipeline of 50 more. Signing archives one at a time is slow, so we are also approaching associations and umbrella organisations, where one agreement can cover several collections.

2. Research. As a separate project outside our funded programme, we will keep a dated, public record of what generative tools can fake for each type of media, so that claims such as "this was anchored before convincing fakes existed" rest on evidence. We will publish our threat model, including the limits of our system, and test our public verifier with non-specialists such as students and journalists, to check whether they read a verification result correctly.

3. Visibility. Our current grant funds one pilot workshop. With this funding we will run further training for archivists, journalists and educators, give talks at gatherings of archive leaders, and write a short recommendation for funders of digitisation projects on building anchoring into the projects they support.

How will this funding be used?

Our existing grants cover the anchoring infrastructure, the technology and a minimal level of outreach. We will report how the money raised here is spent in the financial section of our annual report. We plan to spend it on the following, in order of priority:

• $10K (minimum): outreach to new institutions beyond what our grants allow, meaning travel, onboarding meetings and conference presence. This is the most time-sensitive part, because institutions that join before April 2027 are onboarded under our current funding.

• Up to $25K: adds the research project and publishing its results.

• Up to $50K: adds the training sessions, talks and the funder recommendation.

• Beyond $50K: a reserve for costs our current grants don't cover, such as unexpected expenses during onboarding.

Who is on your team? What's your track record on similar projects?

Team: Pablo Toussaint: Founder & Director

Tech:

• Peter Van Garderen: Chief Technology Officer

• Sumit Vekariya: Software Engineer

• Jay Sojitra: Software Engineer

• Chijioke Ugwuanyi: Software Engineer

Institutional Partnership: Emma Yanai

Communication:

• Rosa Bauer: Head of Communications & Impact

• Hannah Kennedy: Communications Intern

Operations and Research: Sonakshi Chauhan

Academic advisory board:

• Ali Sunyaev (Vice President & Professor of Information Infrastructures, TU Munich)

• Jacob N. Shapiro (John Foster Dulles Professor of International Affairs, Princeton University)

• Anja Ballis (Professor of German Didactics, Holocaust Education, LMU Munich)

• Luciana Duranti (Professor Emerita of Archival Science & Diplomatics, University of British Columbia)

Memorial sites and archives are cautious about cryptographically signing their records, but we have gained early trust from our pilot partners. Records from the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site and the NS Documentation Centre are already anchored in our network. National archives and genocide memorials in Europe and Asia are now onboarding.

We work with institutions and research organisations including Starling Lab for Data Integrity (Stanford/USC), EHRI-ERIC, memorial archives and InterPARES. Our academic advisory board connects us to TU Munich, Princeton University, LMU Munich and the University of British Columbia. Together, this integrates our infrastructure with archival practices and builds on the research base that already exists.

Our work is funded by Google.org, Germany’s Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM) and the EVZ Foundation (Remembrance, Responsibility and Future). Each one carried out its own due diligence before funding us.

What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails?

The most likely failure is time. Archives move slowly, and some of the institutions we are speaking with won't be ready to sign before April 2027, when our current funding cycle ends. Much of the anchoring will therefore happen after that date, and without new funding we could not keep onboarding these institutions free of charge. The extra outreach this project pays for is meant to bring as many institutions as possible to the point of signing while onboarding is still covered. Whatever happens, the files already anchored stay verifiable.

How much money have you raised in the last 12 months, and from where?

Authentic Memory is funded by the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM) and Google.org, with grants totalling €400,000 for a joint program, and by the Foundation EVZ with €50,000. The funds cover the anchoring infrastructure, the standard, pilots and onboarding of partner institutions.