WordPress.org

الدارجة الجزايرية

Get WordPress
WordPress.org

Plugin Directory

TIP Protocol

TIP Protocol

By The AI Lab
Download

Description

TIP Protocol puts your name and the date on everything you publish with WordPress, in a way anyone can check.

When you press Publish, the plugin creates a signed public record of the post. The record says who made it, when it was published, and whether AI was involved. It also holds a fingerprint of the words, images, audio and video in the post. Anyone holding a copy can compare it with the record and see whether it was changed. Readers get a small badge under the post and can check the record in any browser, with nothing to install.

Every signed post becomes a Verifiable Asset. A Verifiable Asset is any piece of digital content that carries a CTID (Content TIP ID): a permanent, signed public record of who made it, when, how it was made, and a fingerprint that shows whether it has changed since.

Who is it for

Anyone who publishes on WordPress and wants credit for their own work.

  • Songwriters and singers. Post lyrics, a demo or a release page with the audio attached. The record names you, shows the date you published, and fingerprints up to two audio files per post.
  • Filmmakers and video creators. Post a trailer, a short or behind-the-scenes stills. Up to two videos and six images per post are fingerprinted along with the text.
  • Journalists and newsrooms. Sign every article under the reporter’s byline and the outlet’s name, and tell readers whether AI helped write it.
  • Researchers and scientists. Get a signed, dated record of when your findings, preprints or lab notes went public on your site.
  • Schools, colleges and universities. Sign course pages, announcements and faculty work under the institution’s name, and label AI-assisted material openly.
  • Law firms and legal publishers. Sign client alerts, articles and public notices, so anyone can later check that a copy matches what you published and when.
  • Bloggers, writers and digital creators. Show readers that the post on your site is the original, signed by you.
  • Brands and marketing teams. Show customers how each piece was made, including where AI helped.
  • Government, nonprofit and public-interest sites. Let readers confirm a notice really came from you.

How it works

  1. Install the plugin and connect your TIP-ID. A person gets a personal Author ID at vp.theailab.org. An organization gets its ID from The AI Lab after a review.
  2. Write and publish as usual. Label the post Original Human, AI-Assisted, AI-Generated or Mixed.
  3. Confirm with Face ID, Touch ID, Windows Hello, a fingerprint or a security key. The plugin signs the post and records it on the TIP network.
  4. A badge appears under the post. Anyone can click it to see who made it, when, and how.

What it proves, and what it does not

A signed post proves who published it, when, how it was made, and whether it has changed since. It does not prove that what the post says is true, it does not stop anyone from copying your work, and it does not stop AI companies from training on it.

Under the hood

  • Verifiable AI content labels. Tag every post as Original Human (OH), AI-Assisted (AA), AI-Generated (AG), or Mixed (MX). The label is cryptographically signed, so it is not a self-claim that anyone can copy. Readers, search engines, and automated verifiers can all confirm it.
  • Cryptographic publisher identity. A site-level TIP-ID and optional per-author TIP-IDs sign your content with post-quantum ML-DSA-65 signatures (FIPS 204). Readers see a verified trust badge; verifiers see a tamper-proof signature trail back to your domain.
  • No browser extension required. Reader-facing verification works in any modern browser through HTTP response headers, HTML meta tags, JSON-LD provenance, and an accessible bundled <tip-badge> web component. Your audience does not need to install anything.
  • Plays nicely with your SEO stack. When Yoast SEO or Rank Math is active, TIP Protocol merges provenance into the existing JSON-LD graph instead of competing with it. No duplicate schema, no conflicting article markup.
  • Versioned and correction-aware. Each registration is versioned. An article that gets corrected, updated, or expanded later still resolves to a clean provenance trail with a clear change history.
  • Encrypted-at-rest identities. Private signing keys never leave WordPress. They are AES-256-GCM encrypted with PBKDF2-derived keys using WordPress salts as input, and the admin UI never echoes them back to the browser.
  • Open, free, and global. The TIP Protocol specification is open. The plugin is GPL-2.0-or-later. The workflow is the same whether you publish from Tokyo, Berlin, Sao Paulo, Lagos, Mumbai, or New York.

Key capabilities

  • Register posts, pages, news items, events, products, and other public editor-supported content types on the TIP network with one click.
  • Emit TIP verification response headers and provenance meta tags from WordPress on every public page.
  • Enrich article JSON-LD schema with provenance fields, with smart handoff to Yoast SEO and Rank Math when they already manage the site schema graph.
  • Render accessible verification badges with a bundled local web component so no third-party CDN is required by default.
  • Manage publisher and creator TIP identities with encrypted private keys stored inside WordPress.
  • Import reviewed organization TIP-IDs from The AI Lab, or personal Author IDs exported from vp.theailab.org, through the built-in .tip.json connection flow. Locked files open in the browser with a date (date of birth for a person, date of incorporation for an organization).
  • Domain binding via .well-known/tip-protocol.json or DNS TXT records so the network can confirm a publisher legitimately claims a domain.
  • Team bylines. An organization credits the people on its team on the TIP network, each with a role on the post (author, editor, contributor, reviewer or correspondent), after the organization itself.
  • Audit log of registrations with CTID, change type, version history, signing officer roster, and registration status visible inside the admin.
  • GDPR-friendly. Integrates with WordPress personal data export and erasure tooling.
  • Biometric signing on every publish. Each signature is confirmed with Face ID, Touch ID, Windows Hello, a fingerprint or a security key (WebAuthn passkeys) on a device the writer added with their WordPress password. Publishing itself is never blocked.

How TIP Protocol differs from other provenance systems

TIP Protocol is built for the publishing surface that already exists in WordPress, not for the camera-to-cloud capture flow that systems like C2PA Content Credentials were designed around. Where C2PA focuses on signing images and videos at the moment of capture, TIP Protocol focuses on signing the final published article (text, media manifest, author roster, origin label) at the moment a publisher hits Publish in WordPress. Both approaches can coexist; TIP Protocol fills the editorial gap.

About the AI Trust Council

The AI Trust Council is the governance body that maintains the Trust Identity Protocol specification, sets the criteria for the Global Seal of Trust certification, and curates the AI Trust Registry of verified publishers. Operated under The AI Lab Intelligence Unobscured, the AI Trust Council keeps AI disclosure standards, content provenance methods, and reader-facing trust signals open, auditable, and aligned with how content actually moves across the modern internet. Specification updates, scoring rule changes, and Global Seal of Trust certification announcements are coordinated through the AI Trust Council and published on theailab.org.

About The AI Lab

The AI Lab Intelligence Unobscured is the research and standards organization behind Trust Identity Protocol, the AI Trust Council, the AI Trust Registry, and the Global Seal of Trust certification program. Founded by Dinesh Mendhe, The AI Lab builds open infrastructure for the AI-native internet: cryptographic content provenance, verified human identity, AI disclosure labeling, and the verification systems that make those signals trustworthy to readers, search engines, and platforms worldwide. The #HumanOrAI public campaign extends the same goal into everyday discourse: every published piece should answer “human or AI?” with a verifiable signal, not a self-claim. Learn more at theailab.org.

Integrations and compatibility

  • Yoast SEO and Rank Math: TIP Protocol detects either plugin and merges provenance into its existing JSON-LD schema graph instead of emitting a competing article schema block. No duplicate markup, no schema conflict.
  • WooCommerce: works with WooCommerce product pages and any other public editor-supported custom post type. Sign product descriptions, sponsored articles, and editorial product reviews with the same workflow as regular posts.
  • Page builders: Elementor, Beaver Builder, Bricks, Divi, and similar tools render TIP-signed content correctly because the badge web component and provenance meta tags emit at the WordPress template layer, beneath the page builder’s rendering pipeline.
  • Multisite: tested with both subdomain and subdirectory multisite installations. Each subsite manages its own publisher TIP-ID and contributor registry independently.
  • Caching plugins: WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache, LiteSpeed Cache, WP Super Cache, and similar work without configuration. The bundled trust badge is a small web component that caches cleanly along with the rest of the page.
  • Block editor and classic editor: both editors are fully supported with sidebar and metabox controls for AI origin labels and multi-author bylines.
  • WebAuthn-capable browsers: biometric confirmation before every signature, for personal and organization TIP-IDs alike (Touch ID, Face ID, Windows Hello, fingerprint readers, hardware security keys). Current Chrome, Edge, Safari and Firefox all support it. wp-admin must load over HTTPS.

TIP Protocol glossary

  • TIP-ID: a unique cryptographic identifier for a verified publisher, platform, or individual author. Format: tip://id/REGION-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. Used as the signing identity for every piece of registered content.
  • CTID (Content TIP ID): the per-piece-of-content identifier produced when a publisher registers a post on the TIP network. Persistent across content updates so a corrected article still resolves to its original provenance trail.
  • Verifiable Asset: any piece of digital content that carries a CTID. Every post signed with this plugin is one. See https://theailab.org/verifiable-assets
  • CNA-2.2: the current canonical normalization algorithm that defines exactly which bytes get signed. Cross-implementation compatibility hinges on every signer (WordPress plugin, browser extension, mobile clients) producing the same canonical bytes from the same inputs.
  • ML-DSA-65: the post-quantum digital signature algorithm (FIPS 204, formerly known as CRYSTALS-Dilithium) that TIP Protocol uses for content signatures. Resistant to attacks from both classical and quantum computers.
  • SHAKE-256: the extendable-output hash function (FIPS 202) used to derive the canonical hash that ML-DSA-65 signs.
  • Origin code / AI disclosure label: one of four labels publishers attach to every signed piece of content. Original Human (OH), AI-Assisted (AA), AI-Generated (AG), Mixed (MX). The label is part of the signed payload, so it cannot be modified after publication without invalidating the signature.
  • Trust badge: the reader-facing verification element rendered as the bundled tip-badge web component. Shows the verified publisher, origin label, trust score, and verification state.
  • AI Trust Registry: the public registry of verified publishers and platforms maintained by the AI Trust Council. Used by reader-side verifiers to confirm a TIP-ID maps to a known organization.
  • Global Seal of Trust: the certification program publishers earn by adopting the AI Trust Council’s open verification criteria.
  • Publisher Mode and Personal Mode: the two attribution patterns the plugin supports. Publisher Mode signs with an organization TIP-ID, credits the organization first and then any members of its team. Personal Mode signs with an individual creator’s TIP-ID, which is always the only author.
  • Domain binding: the proof a publisher controls the domain on which signed content appears. Done via either a .well-known/tip-protocol.json endpoint or a DNS TXT record at _tip-protocol.your-domain.com.

Resources

  • WordPress.org plugin page: https://wordpress.org/plugins/tip-protocol/
  • The AI Lab homepage: https://theailab.org
  • Personal Author TIP-IDs: https://vp.theailab.org
  • Source code: https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/tip-protocol/
  • Support forum: https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/tip-protocol/
  • Verifiable Assets explained: https://theailab.org/verifiable-assets
  • The AI Lab on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-ai-lab-org/
  • The AI Lab on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAILabOrg
  • The AI Lab on X: https://x.com/theailaborg
  • The AI Lab on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theailaborg/
  • The AI Lab on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61589147876006
  • The AI Lab on GitHub: https://github.com/theailaborg

Legal

This plugin is distributed under GPL-2.0-or-later.

Bundled legal and notice files:
* LICENSE.txt for the GPL software license notice
* NOTICE.txt for the bundle notice summary shown in the admin UI
* PATENTS.txt for informational patent disclosure
* TRADEMARKS.txt for informational trademark notice

Plugin attribution is optional and can be enabled in settings.

Accessibility

TIP Protocol includes keyboard-accessible verification badges, focus-visible controls, descriptive editor help text, semantic public trust UI, and screen-reader-friendly verification details. The public badge details panel supports keyboard open/close behavior and Escape to dismiss.

External services

This plugin connects to external TIP services to deliver its core provenance features.

TIP node API

The plugin sends registration, verification, and trust-score requests to the configured TIP node endpoint.

Data sent:
* publisher or creator TIP-ID
* content registration payloads
* canonical, exact, and perceptual hashes
* content signatures
* verification lookups for trust scores

Service provider: The AI Lab Intelligence Unobscured, Inc.
Service URLs: https://node.theailab.org by default, or your configured TIP node URL
Service purpose: content registration, provenance verification, trust score retrieval

Optional badge CDN

If you switch the badge delivery mode from Bundled local copy to CDN, reader browsers will load the public badge script from the TIP badge CDN.

Data sent:
* standard browser request metadata needed to fetch the script

Service provider: The AI Lab Intelligence Unobscured, Inc.
Service URL: https://badge.theailab.org
Service purpose: optional remote delivery of the TIP badge web component

Privacy

TIP Protocol adds suggested privacy-policy text in WordPress and integrates with WordPress personal data export and erasure tools for stored user TIP identity data.

Blocks

This plugin provides 1 block.

  • TIP Verification Badge

Installation

  1. Upload the plugin folder to /wp-content/plugins/.
  2. Activate the plugin in WordPress.
  3. Open TIP Protocol in the WordPress admin menu.
  4. Import a reviewed .tip.json package for a publisher TIP-ID or creator TIP-ID.
  5. Verify your domain and review the publishing defaults.
  6. Publish content and confirm the TIP badge, headers, and provenance metadata on the front end.

FAQ

What is TIP Protocol and what does the plugin do?

TIP Protocol (Trust Identity Protocol) is an open content-provenance specification. The WordPress plugin lets publishers and creators sign their published content with a cryptographic identity, label whether AI was used to write it, and surface a verifiable trust badge to readers. It works as an editorial layer on top of WordPress without requiring a browser extension.

How does TIP Protocol handle AI-generated content?

Every post can carry one of four origin labels: Original Human (OH), AI-Assisted (AA), AI-Generated (AG), or Mixed (MX). The label is part of the cryptographically signed payload, so it cannot be modified after publication without invalidating the signature. Readers and verifiers see a verified AI-disclosure label, not a self-claim.

Does TIP Protocol replace C2PA or Content Credentials?

No. They solve adjacent problems. C2PA and Content Credentials focus on signing images and video at capture time, typically inside a camera or generative tool. TIP Protocol focuses on signing the final published article (text, media manifest, author roster, AI label) at the moment a publisher hits Publish in WordPress. They can coexist on the same site.

What is a TIP-ID?

A TIP-ID is a unique cryptographic identifier in the format tip://id/REGION-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. Publishers receive a reviewed publisher TIP-ID from The AI Lab. Individual writers can generate a personal creator TIP-ID on vp.theailab.org. Both types are imported into WordPress as a signed .tip.json package.

Where do editors set the AI / origin label?

In the block editor, open the post sidebar and use the TIP Protocol panel. In the classic editor, use the TIP Origin Declaration metabox. The label can also be confirmed or changed in the biometric sign popup that opens right after you publish.

Why does TIP Protocol ask for Face ID, Touch ID or my fingerprint when I publish?

Every signature is confirmed on one of your devices with Face ID, Touch ID, Windows Hello, a fingerprint or a security key, so a signature needs both your WordPress account and a device you set up. Right after you publish, a popup asks you to confirm, then signs the post and registers it on the TIP network. The first time, the popup asks for your WordPress password and sets up the device; you are emailed whenever a device is added or removed. Your fingerprint or face never leaves the device. WordPress stores each device’s public key, its name, and when it was added and last used. You can add or remove devices in your WordPress profile, and administrators can remove a user’s device if it is lost.

When a post signs with its author’s personal TIP-ID (sites without a site-wide TIP-ID), only that author can confirm the signature. Retracting a post (moving it to the trash) and updating its address after a permalink change are signed automatically, because they add no new authorship claim.

What happens when I publish from the mobile app, the REST API, WP-CLI or a scheduled post?

The post publishes normally. It is not signed yet, because those tools cannot show a biometric prompt, so it waits as “awaiting biometric signature” and appears under Waiting for a signature in the TIP Protocol dashboard widget. The next time its author opens the post in the WordPress editor, the sign popup opens once, and the TIP Protocol panel keeps a Sign with biometrics button until it is signed. Scheduling a post from the editor opens the popup straight away and signs the post with the address it will have once live, so it is signed before it goes live. Private posts are never prompted, because signing registers a post on the public TIP network; you can still sign one from the panel.

Sites that sign in through single sign-on, where users may not know a WordPress password, can turn off the password step for adding devices with the theailab_webauthn_require_password filter.

Does biometric signing need HTTPS?

Yes. Browsers only allow passkeys, Face ID, Touch ID and Windows Hello on secure pages, so wp-admin must load over HTTPS (plain http on localhost also works for development). The plugin shows an admin notice when it detects that wp-admin is not on HTTPS.

Can I use TIP Protocol on a multi-author blog or newsroom?

Yes. The site signs with your organization’s TIP-ID, and each post can also credit the people on your organization’s team on the TIP network. You invite writers on your Team page at vp.theailab.org/team, and once they accept, they appear in the byline picker. Each person credited on a post gets a role for that post (author, editor, contributor, reviewer or correspondent). The organization is always credited first, so it stays the owner of every post it signs. A free organization has two team seats, and larger teams can add seats on the Team page.

Does this work with WooCommerce, multisite, custom post types, and page builders?

Yes. TIP Protocol registers any public editor-supported content type, which includes WooCommerce products, custom post types, news/event types, and pages built with Elementor, Beaver Builder, Bricks, and similar tools. Multisite installations are supported.

Does the plugin add duplicate SEO schema if I already use Yoast SEO or Rank Math?

No. TIP Protocol detects active major SEO plugins. When Yoast SEO or Rank Math is present, TIP Protocol merges TIP provenance into their existing JSON-LD graph instead of emitting a competing article-schema block. When neither is active, TIP Protocol emits its own complete provenance-enriched article schema.

Does the public verification badge require a third-party CDN?

No. The badge ships as a bundled local web component by default. A CDN option is available in plugin settings if you explicitly choose it, but the default works fully offline and respects strict CSP environments.

What happens to private signing keys stored in WordPress?

Private keys are encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM. The key-derivation input includes WordPress salts plus a PBKDF2 stretch (200,000 iterations of SHA-256). The admin UI never exposes the stored encrypted private key back to the browser. Decryption only happens server-side at the moment of signing.

What file should I import into WordPress to connect an identity?

A reviewed .tip.json package that contains tip_id, public_key, private_key, algorithm, region, created_at, and (for organizational identities) vp_id. Publisher packages come from The AI Lab after organization review. Personal creator packages are exported from vp.theailab.org and can be DOB-locked for additional protection.

Is this plugin free and open source?

Yes. The plugin is licensed under GPL-2.0-or-later. The TIP Protocol specification is open. The plugin can be used commercially on any number of sites.

Where is the TIP network and where does my data go?

By default the plugin talks to the TIP node at https://node.theailab.org for registration and verification calls. You can configure a different node URL in plugin settings if you operate a self-hosted TIP node. Signing a post sends its address, its text, content hashes, the origin label, author TIP-IDs, and signatures to the TIP node, which uses the text to check the content (for example the AI-origin prescan). Biometric data is never sent anywhere.

Will TIP Protocol slow down my site?

No. Reader-facing badges use a small bundled web component (about 8 KB), all provenance meta is emitted server-side as HTTP headers and HTML meta tags during the normal page render, and verification lookups for trust scores are cached. There is no extra browser fetch on every page load.

Reviews

There are no reviews for this plugin.

Contributors & Developers

“TIP Protocol” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Contributors

Translate “TIP Protocol” into your language.

Interested in development?

Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.

Changelog

2.6.2

  • Fix. The hourly revocation check kept its place in the TIP network’s revocation list as a date, but the network counts in milliseconds, so after the first check it could miss new revocations. It now keeps the network’s own timestamp.
  • Fix. A large team (paid plans allow up to 250 members) no longer looks up every member’s name at once, which could use up the plugin’s request budget and delay a signature. Names fill in a few at a time.
  • Improved. The classic editor’s byline fields are sanitized as they are read, and the readme keeps the latest releases while the full history moves to changelog.txt.

2.6.1

  • Fix (network replies). The TIP network wraps every reply as ok, status and data, and the plugin read several fields from the wrong level. As a result the AI check notice and the similar-content notice after signing never appeared, the trust score always showed the starting value of 500, the hourly revocation check never saw a revoked TIP-ID, and a registration lost the network’s transaction ID. The plugin now reads every reply in one place, and the content table stores the network’s status in its own terms.
  • New (replaced keys). Since the network’s 2.7.2 update a key replaced on vp.theailab.org by a rotation or recovery can no longer sign. The plugin now checks, about once an hour, whether the key stored here is still the TIP-ID’s active key. A replaced key shows as Key replaced on the Connect TIP-ID tab and in a notice on the dashboard and in the editor, and signing stops before the biometric step with what to do. When the network refuses a signature, the plugin asks once more and names the replaced key instead of a generic error.
  • New. The Connect TIP-ID tab shows each key the way vp.theailab.org names it, a short fingerprint such as 5BD5 463B, and the date the key was created when the backup records it.
  • Improved. Importing an old backup now says it is probably from before a key rotation or recovery, and points to a current backup on vp.theailab.org.
  • Improved (AI check). Since the network’s 2.7.8 update posts labelled AI-Assisted, AI-Generated or Mixed are scanned too, and that scan is information only. The plugin offers the one-click relabel only for a post still labelled Original Human, and only while the network still accepts a label change.
  • Improved. Plain messages for a post longer than the network accepts and for a signature from a retired key.
  • Compatibility. Tested with WordPress 7.1.
  • Tests. 799 to 839 assertions across 24 files, all passing, with a new test file for the network replies and key checks. Checked against the live network for the key state, the trust score, the post detail and the team roster, and in a real WordPress 7.1.3.
  • Verified against the TIP node repository (node 2.7.9), the verification portal and the browser extension as of 2026-10-25.

2.6.0

  • New. Team bylines. An organization credits the people on its team on the TIP network, after the organization itself, each with a role for the post (author, editor, contributor, reviewer or correspondent). Invite writers on your Team page at vp.theailab.org/team.
  • Fix (network compatibility). Since the TIP network’s 2.7 update the plugin signs exactly the bylines the network accepts. The organization is always listed first, so it stays the owner of every post it signs, and a personal TIP-ID is always its own only author.
  • Security. The classic editor builds byline rows without inserting names as HTML.

2.5.1

  • Fix. An organization TIP-ID with no personal byline can sign, listed as its own author.
  • Fix. Importing an organization TIP-ID file asks for the date of incorporation, the date that locks it.

2.5.0

  • New. Biometric signing on every publish. Every signature is confirmed with Face ID, Touch ID, Windows Hello, a fingerprint or a security key. Publishing is never blocked; unsigned posts wait in the dashboard until someone signs them.

The full history of every release is in changelog.txt in the plugin folder.

Meta

Ratings

No reviews have been submitted yet.

Your review

See all reviews

Contributors

Support

Got something to say? Need help?

View support forum