Audit-Oriented Canonical Document Integrity Architecture: Dual-Fingerprint Model with Canonical Rendering and Drift Separation

This publication presents the architectural and formal disclosure edition of an Audit-Oriented Canonical Document Integrity Framework designed to overcome limitations of traditional checksum-based verification systems.

Conventional file hashes detect binary modification but cannot distinguish between layout drift and semantic change across heterogeneous rendering environments. The proposed architecture introduces a dual-fingerprint model combining:

• Canonical semantic hashing using a Merkle-based normalized parsing pipeline

• Multi-band spectral structural fingerprinting under a pinned Canonical Rendering Profile (CRP)

The system formally separates authority (cryptographic chain and signature) from witness layers (structural spectral analysis), ensuring non-interference between integrity proofs and structural diagnostics.

This publication includes:

• Formal system model and invariants

• Security reduction to standard cryptographic assumptions

• Threat taxonomy and adversarial model

• Drift classification and localization logic

• Governance and operational hardening guidelines

• Reproducibility and benchmark execution blueprint

The optimized production-grade reference implementation, advanced scheduler modules, parameter tuning profiles, and industrial benchmark datasets are not included in this disclosure edition and are available under commercial licensing.

This release is intended as a formal architectural and theoretical disclosure.