component · 0x0001

Master Zone.

All components · Survivorship · Delegation

The Master Zone is the root of all authority in a POZ record. Every other section lives or dies by what the Master Zone says about it. There is exactly one per record, and it carries a hash chain from genesis to the current revision.

what it holds

An original master hash and an original timestamp, set at genesis and carried forward forever — a permanent identity for the record.
A serial number that increments with every revision, and a current timestamp.
A list of master keys, each tagged with a survivorship group and a value.
A list of sub-zone delegations, naming which keys can grant or deny entries in each sub-zone.
The signatures that authorize this revision.
The previous master hash — the chain link.
A current master hash, computed once the signatures meet the threshold.

the hash chain

flowchart LR G["Serial 1 (genesis)
previous = 0
current = H(content_1)"] S2["Serial 2
previous = current₁
current = H(content_2)"] S3["Serial 3
previous = current₂
current = H(content_3)"] G --> S2 --> S3

fig 01 · each revision links to the previous via previous_master_hash. The genesis revision sets original_master_hash — a permanent ID — and links back to zero.

A verifier walking the chain confirms that each revision's serial number is exactly one greater than the prior, that each timestamp is strictly later, and that previous_master_hash matches the prior current_master_hash. A break in the chain is a security event.

draft, sign, apply

Master Zone revisions follow a three-phase workflow so that signatures can be collected asynchronously, from different keyholders, in any order:

sequenceDiagram autonumber participant U as Holder participant K1 as Key A participant K2 as Key B U->>U: Draft new content (serial++, signatures cleared) U->>K1: Sign signable content K1-->>U: signature₁ U->>K2: Sign signable content K2-->>U: signature₂ U->>U: Threshold met → compute current_master_hash → apply

fig 02 · the draft/sign/apply workflow — signatures gathered out-of-band before the zone is finalized.

The signable content excludes current_master_hash and the signature data — both are computed outputs that don't exist when signing starts. Once enough signatures are collected to satisfy any one survivorship group, the full hash content (everything except current_master_hash itself) is hashed and the zone is finalized.

fig 03 · the Master Zone has two hash scopes. Signers sign the stable parts; the computed hash includes the signatures and everything else they don't see when signing.

public Key Map (0x0000)

Keys live in a single Public Key Map, identified by SHA-3 hash and assigned a zero-based index. All other sections — including the Master Zone — refer to keys by index. This keeps the record compact and makes it easy to track which keys are used where.

constraints

A Master Zone MUST contain at least one master key.
At least one survivorship group MUST be satisfiable. Implementations should warn if no group can ever reach 100, since the record would then be permanently unmodifiable.
Genesis revisions have previous_master_hash = 0 and serial = 1.