DeepTrust: A Hybrid Transformer-CNN Model for DeepFake Detection With Zero-Knowledge-Based Blockchain Authentication

Abstract

Deepfake technology poses a growing threat to digital trust across journalism, law, and politics. Current CNN-based detectors capture local artifacts but struggle with high-quality fakes and offer no way to prove their predictions are genuine. This paper presents DeepTrust, a framework combining a hybrid CNN–Transformer detector with Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP) verification and blockchain-based record-keeping. The detection model fuses spatial features from an attention-enhanced Xception network, global context from ViT-B/16, and spectral cues from a Frequency Encoder through a cross-attention mechanism. Predictions are cryptographically committed using a Pedersen scheme with the Fiat-Shamir heuristic, then stored on a proof-of-work blockchain. Evaluated on FaceForensics++, Celeb-DF, DFD, and 140K Real vs Fake, DeepTrust achieves 97.00% accuracy and 0.999 AUC on FaceForensics++, with balanced per-class accuracy despite imbalance ratios up to 1:8.5. ZKP overhead remains below one millisecond per prediction.