Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by freeone3000 1081 days ago
Why should we trust your certificate more than it looking shiny? What exactly are you certifying and why should we believe you about it?
1 comments

You shouldn't trust any old certificate more than it looking shiny. But if a third party that you recognise and trust happens to recognise the jewelry or the jeweler themselves, and goes so far as to issue a certificate attesting to that, that becomes another piece of evidence to consider in your decision to purchase.
Art and antiquities are the better analogy.

Anything without an iron-clad chain of provenance should be assumed to be stolen or forged.

Because the end product is unprovably authentic in all cases, unless a forger made a detectable error.