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Why mixing cryptographic proof with heuristics in one 'verified' field is risky

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A developer has raised a concern about the widespread misuse of the 'verified' field in codebases, arguing it dangerously conflates two distinct concepts. The first is cryptographic proof, a mathematically certain outcome, while the second is an inferred judgment based on heuristics or scoring models. When both are stored in the same boolean field, downstream code treats probabilistic guesses as hard facts, which can lead to real users being incorrectly blocked or trusted actors being misjudged. The author recommends reserving a single boolean strictly for cryptographically settled outcomes and storing all inferred signals separately as scores or opinion sets. They also flag similar risks with fields like is_bot, is_fraud, and trusted, and are seeking community input on naming conventions that clearly distinguish proven facts from estimates.

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