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VTAC

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VTAC

VTAC is the reason Mike Merrill has other people’s names tattooed on his body. Short for the K5M Validation of Trusted Authenticity Certificate, it was a trust mark approved by shareholders in 2009: a company vetted by KmikeyM got its name permanently inked on Merrill, on the argument that a tattoo is harder to fake than anything on a screen. It ran for fifteen years, produced two tattoos, and was replaced in 2025 by a successor called MIKE that works in the opposite direction.

The argument

The proposal starts somewhere unexpected, with the padlock in a browser address bar.

Merrill’s case was that Extended Validation certificates, the ones that used to put a company’s verified name beside the URL, rest on a circular kind of trust. A browser shows the green box because a certificate authority vouches for the company. But nobody vouches for the certificate authority. He pointed at Apple displaying a badge issued by VeriSign and asked the obvious question: “But who verifies VeriSign? Why would anyone trust VeriSign over Apple?”

VTAC was his answer, and it is either a joke taken seriously or a serious point made as a joke. A company would be vetted by KmikeyM, references provided and interviewed, and on passing it would receive the mark. The mark was not pixels.

“By applying pigment to the dermis, the VTAC becomes more secure than any virtual certificate currently being offered. It’s not pixels on the screen, but a physical permanent marking that shows users a company is really who they say they are.”

The first customer named in the proposal was Panic, at an $800 processing fee. Shareholders approved it in October 2009 with 97% in favor.

The revocation clause is the part that makes it more than a stunt. A company that violated the terms would lose certification and be listed as untrustworthy. Its green box would be replaced with a black one, and re-certification would not be permitted under any circumstances. The endorsement was designed to be permanent in both directions, which is the one property a real certificate authority cannot offer and the one a tattoo cannot avoid.

What was actually inked

Two tattoos were applied under VTAC: Panic Inc, the Portland software company that published Blippo+, and Alex Mahan.

Merrill also carries one tattoo that belongs to no program. The slogan MAKE IT HAPPEN, which he describes as a tattoo he got with himself.

MIKE, and the reversal

In April 2025 shareholders voted on whether to retire VTAC, which Merrill had come to feel was dated and generic. They chose the option that gave him the job of designing the replacement and bringing it back for approval. He did, and in June 2025 the Mutual Image Known Endorsement, or MIKE, was approved with 91% support.

The change is not cosmetic. VTAC ran one way: a company’s name went onto Merrill’s body and he vouched for them. MIKE is mutual. Both parties get a matching or thematically linked tattoo, agreed between them, ideally at the same place on the same day with the same artist.

And the program specifies that Merrill gets his second.

That single rule turns a certificate into a bond. Under VTAC the endorsement was something KmikeyM issued. Under MIKE it is something two people do to each other, and the other person commits first.

Two MIKE bonds exist so far, with the shareholders Douglas Dollars and Chris G.

Why it is on this wiki

VTAC is the clearest small example of how the project works when it is working. It takes a real piece of internet infrastructure, notices that the trust it provides is mostly assumed, and answers it with the most literal possible commitment. The joke and the argument are the same object, which is true of most of the things here that lasted.

It is also one of the few decisions from the first years still running in some form seventeen years later, having changed shape once, by vote.

See also

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