TollBooth

Deterministic non-ML admission-control primitive

Argon2id PoW · 6 invariants · Ghost Verify in 24–72hrs

47238

Humans Verified

14891

Bots Blocked

8.2ms

p95 Verify Latency

99.85%

Bot Reduction

🔐 Live Demo — Try It Now

Click below to execute the full protocol in your browser. WASM Argon2id solves the proof-of-work, server (this page) verifies it, returns a signed admission token. Two seconds end-to-end.

// Click a button above to run the protocol...

Six Named Invariants (The IP)

1. Bounded Verifier CostO(1) per verify regardless of client effort. One CBOR parse + one Ed25519 verify + one Redis lookup + one SET NX + one Argon2id recompute.

2. Server-Authoritative Difficultyd = clamp(base + α·log₂(1+abuse/baseline), d_min, d_max). Client cannot negotiate.

3. Atomic Replay PreventionRedis SET NX tb:used:{cid}:{jti} with TTL=token exp. Each token consumed exactly once.

4. Session Bindingsb = SHA256("__vg_sid=" || cookie_b64url). Only permitted derivation. Cross-session = reject.

5. Canonical Signed AdmissionCTAP2 canonical CBOR + Ed25519. Byte-identical across all encoders.

6. Human-Safe Ceilingd_human_safe_max caps p95 Pixel-6 solve time to <2.7 seconds. Humans don't notice.

Protocol Flow

📥 Challenge
POST /v1/challenge

→

⚙️ Solve PoW
Argon2id WASM

→

📤 Submit
POST /v1/submit

→

🎫 Token
gft1.cbor.sig

→

✅ Verify
POST /v1/siteverify

Memory Profiles

Profile	Memory	Pixel-6 p95	Use Case
`p8`	8 KiB	~30ms	Low-friction (homepage)
`p16`	16 KiB	~100ms	Production default
`p32`	32 KiB	~250ms	High-risk (login/checkout)
`p64`	64 KiB	~600ms	Emergency ceiling

Token Format

gft1.<b64url(CBOR_CANONICAL(payload))>.<b64url(Ed25519_sig)>

payload = {
  ver: 1, kid: "k2025-01", sk: site_key,
  cid: ULID, oh: SHA256(origin), act: action,
  sb: 32_bytes_session_binding,
  iat: unix_seconds, exp: iat + 60,
  mode: "standard", params: "p16", d: 9,
  jti: UUID_128bit
}

Verification Chain (12 Steps, Cheapest-First)

Always returns HTTP 200. No protocol-level oracle for attackers. Response body identical shape regardless of failure path.

Parse gft1.payload.sig format
CBOR canonical decode
Validate kid against active rotation
Ed25519 signature verify
Time skew ±120s + exp check
Origin hash match: oh == SHA256(request_origin)
Session binding match against __vg_sid cookie
Redis cid lookup
Rate limits per IP/sb/sk
Global budget cap + concurrency semaphore
Argon2id recomputation + d-leading-zeros verify
Atomic SET NX tb:used:{cid}:{jti} EX=exp-now

Ghost Verify on Your Traffic

Single shell script. Buyer subdomain. 24–72 hour observation. Independently verifiable KPIs: bot reduction %, human latency delta, CostPerSuccess multiplier, false positive rate. Zero blocking, zero modification.

hello@usetollbooth.com · Frozen IP · Pre-employment capital asset

For Acquirers

Frozen at v1.0.0-pre-employment-frozen. SHA-256 manifest. Reproducible Docker. Zero-GPL SBOM (CycloneDX). GPG-signed commits. RFC 3161 notarized.

Diligence package: 9 documents, 36 pages — Technical Specification (12pp), Protocol + 6 Invariants (6pp), Source Tour (5pp), Ghost Verify Methodology (4pp), Reproducible Build Proof (3pp), CycloneDX SBOM, KEY_LIFECYCLE.md (2pp), CHAIN_OF_TITLE.md (3pp), PRE_EMPLOYMENT_NOTICE.md (1pp).

Acquisition surface: source repo, Go verifier, Rust Argon2id core, WASM module, JS widget, Redis schema, Ghost Verify harness, KPI generator, reproducible Docker, pinned dependency manifests, SBOM, signed release manifest, domain usetollbooth.com, GitHub repo, signing-key handoff procedure (YubiKey at closing).

Under mutual NDA: full source, Ghost Verify deployment on your infrastructure, KPI validation against your traffic samples.