📄 Certified Scientific Paper Repository

This repository contains officially signed, verified scientific papers issued by the Kapodistrian Academy of Science. Each document is digitally certified and tamper-evident through embedded SHA-256 cryptographic hashes and audit metadata.

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✅ Repository Purpose

• 🔏 Ensure authenticity and integrity of scientific publications.
• 🧾 Maintain a verifiable audit trail for each signed release.
• 📚 Provide researchers and institutions with trusted, immutable access to certified documents.

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🧬 Document Integrity

Each .pdf in this repository has:

• A cryptographic SHA-256 hash embedded in the footer.
• A timestamp and digital signer ID.
• Embedded metadata (author, institution, ORCID, version, etc.).
• A corresponding .sha256 and .meta.txt file for independent validation.
• An audit log entry stored in KAS_audit.log.

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📂 File Structure

[year]{month}/Paper_Title_v1.2_SIGNED_KAS_2025-05-09.zip
      ├── Paper_Title_v1.2_SIGNED_KAS_2025-05-09.pdf
      ├── Paper_Title_v1.2_SIGNED_KAS_2025-05-09.sha256
      ├── Paper_Title_v1.2_SIGNED_KAS_2025-05-09.meta.txt
      ├── KAS_audit.log

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🛡️ Verification Instructions

Open the PDF file.
Scroll to the last page to find the embedded SHA-256 hash, timestamp, and signer ID.

Match the hash.
Compare the hash shown in the PDF with the one in the .sha256 file using any SHA-256 tool.

Review metadata.
Open the .meta.txt file to confirm authorship, ORCID, institutional affiliation, and declared version.

Cross-check audit log.
Look inside KAS_audit.log for the certified entry corresponding to the paper’s filename.

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🔧 Technical Notes

• Hashes are generated using hashlib.sha256 in Python.
• Footer content is injected using PyMuPDF (fitz) with a monospaced font (courier) for clarity.
• The last-page textbox is carefully sized to prevent overflow or wrapping of the SHA-256 string.

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🏛️ Issuing Authority

Kapodistrian Academy of Science
Scientific Certification Program
🌐 kapodistrian.edu.gr
✉️ validation@kapodistrian.edu.gr

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📜 License

All certified works remain under the copyright and distribution terms
as stated by the original authors. This repository guarantees their
authenticity, not their licensing terms.

For questions regarding usage, please contact the corresponding author listed in each .meta.txt file.