2.5 KiB
Browsec
Browsec is an independently governed Firefox downstream exploring plural, user-controlled trust for TLS certificates and browser extensions. It treats the conventional global Web PKI as one trust provider among several and allows narrowly scoped local and community trust decisions.
The project is currently developing TrustLab, a browser-neutral JavaScript testbed for trust plugins, immutable TLS facts, append-only decision journals, and scoped Boolean trust verdicts.
Names and identity
The project and its principal components are named as follows:
- Browsec is the browser project: an independently governed Firefox downstream built around plural, user-controlled trust.
- Velvet Hammer is Browsec's trust engine. It combines a calm, comprehensible interface with strict and uncompromising security semantics.
- TrustLab is the browser-neutral research tool and testbed in which the engine, plugins, diagnostics, and policy rules are developed against both synthetic and live TLS evidence.
- Browsec Trust API is the rigid interface through which trust plugins observe evidence, advise the decision process, or—when explicitly granted authority—return scoped Boolean verdicts.
The preferred engine presentation is:
Velvet Hammer — A plural trust engine for Browsec
Its emblem should be restrained rather than cartoonish: a polished spherical hammer head and short handle, possibly meeting or resting above a certificate chain link. The image represents smooth interaction around an inflexible security boundary—not aggression.
The name also gives us a small working vocabulary: a Velvet verdict, a Hammer rule, and TrustLab powered by Velvet Hammer. One sentence captures the engine's governing temperament:
The hammer permits no silent widening of scope.
And its project motto keeps the same principle courteous:
If one must be struck by security policy, let it be by a respectable velvet hammer: precise, accountable, and courteous enough to explain why.
Project documents
- Wake-up point and roadmap
- First-session continuity notes
- Public trust user-research questions
- Coarse-grained concept
- Architecture decisions
- Certificate Investigator design
- TrustLab
Collaborators
- sergeych — project creator, security architecture, and implementation
- Codex (OpenAI) — AI design and implementation collaborator