External review (both standing reviewers, 2026-07-24) returned DO NOT ATTEST.
The eleven Lean theorems compile with genuinely clean cones (both reviewers
independently reconstructed them), but two real defects were found and are
fixed here.
FIX 1 — the axiom audit was FAIL-OPEN (the critical blocker). check.sh Phase 3
grepped a single physical line of each `#print axioms` report; Lean WRAPS long
cones across lines, so for ht/fors_outer/APEX the audit checked only `[propext,`
and silently ignored the continuation lines — a disallowed axiom on line 2+
passed (the GPT reviewer demonstrated `review_evil_ax` passing). Since check.sh
is the sole source of the word "proven", this is unacceptable.
- New parser: FLATTEN the whole report (join newlines) BEFORE parsing, then
extract each certificate's complete bracketed cone with a literal-string
(regex-safe) scan and subset-check every axiom. Missing/empty report => FAIL
CLOSED. The audit now prints the count of axioms actually audited per cert
(apex: 8, previously 1).
- check-selftest.sh gains ATTACK 3: a smuggled axiom bundled with the apex so
its cone WRAPS with the evil axiom on a continuation line — the exact
exploit. Verified: all three attacks now rejected, attack 3 via the axiom
gate naming the continuation-line axiom. (Also fixed attack 2's leftover
EvilSpec.lean tripping attack 3's dead-file gate.)
FIX 2 — remove the overclaimed framing (refuted by both reviewers). Corrected
in README, the ApexSpec header + apex docstring, and (separately) the control
MANIFEST:
- "composes all ten loop-fidelity certificates" — FALSE. The apex proof is a
STRUCTURAL FACTORIZATION; it references NONE of the ten (grep: 0) and would
remain provable if one were deleted. They are independent local-fidelity
lemmas, not links in the apex proof.
- "every loop is individually fidelity-certified" — FALSE. base_2b's inner
accumulation loop is threaded opaquely and uncertified — and it determines
the FORS indices / WOTS digits, so a defect there could change the recomputed
root while all eleven theorems still hold.
- "the deployed verifier" — the proved subject is verify_mono, a private
#![allow(dead_code)] monomorphic facade NOT called by the public API; the
bridge to the deployed generic verifier is the finite differential test,
not a machine-checked refinement.
- "verify-path pyramid complete" — replaced with "intermediate verification
layer"; the apex is an ACCEPTANCE CHARACTERIZATION, not closed-form FIPS-205
correctness.
Also: FunsExternal header noted the Take axiom "remains" (stale — deleted in
de-plumbing round 2); corrected.
check.sh green over all eleven certificates under the fixed fail-closed parser
(exit 0, 8 axioms audited for the apex). Nothing about the theorems changed —
they were and are sound; only the audit tool and the claims about them are fixed.
NOT DONE (remaining reviewer blockers, tracked): reproducible extract tuple
(pin commits, de-hard-code extract.sh) + Cargo.lock / toolchain pin. Attestation
remains gated behind review round 2 + the operator halt + the appeal.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Full adversarial re-verification of the second-certificate window.
Everything of substance HELD:
- three-way fold fidelity EXACT: extracted wots_pk_from_sig_free_loop1
body == wotsChainFold step == Rust Algorithm 8, operation-for-operation
(chain_free with start=msg[i], steps=W-1-msg[i], slot tmp[i], addr
i as u32; adrs1 threaded forward; i' increment mirrors the range step)
- axiom sweep over all 7 WotsSpec decls minimal: pure iterator lemmas =
kernel-3; chain-touching = kernel-3 + oracle.f only
- button green fresh; non-vacuity PROVEN (a 1-index loop derives to
exactly one address-set + one chain_free at index 0)
- worktree clean, heads synced, Proofs/ free of sorry/admit/axiom
DRILL CATCH (self-test rot): check-selftest.sh hard-coded the single-cert
CERTS/PROOFS strings, so after the second certificate landed its
replacements silently no-oped and Attack 2 (smuggled axiom) started
failing via the DEAD-FILE gate instead of the AXIOM gate — a self-test
no longer testing what it claims. Fixed: inject the evil entries after
each array's opening paren (robust to the lists growing), with asserts
that abort if check.sh's array shape ever changes. Re-run: both attacks
now rejected via their correct gates, selftest green.
Lesson for the record: a self-test that pattern-matches the audited
config rots as the config grows; anchor on structure (the array opener),
never on current contents.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The window under audit claimed the campaign's first certificate, so this
drill was maximally adversarial. Everything of substance HELD:
- three-way model fidelity EXACT: extracted chain_free_loop.body ==
chainFoldN step == the Rust origin, operation-for-operation including
address threading
- button green fresh; axiom sweep over ALL 8 declarations minimal
(pure lemmas = kernel-3; oracle-touching = kernel-3 + oracle.f only)
- non-vacuity PROVEN: the concrete 1-step consequence (one address-set +
one hash call) derives from the certificate by rfl
- commit body of cfd50bb intact (the one flagged fragment was a bad
drill grep pattern, not an artifact); worktree clean; heads synced
NEW, from the drill (R3-5 tradition): verification/check-selftest.sh -
permanent adversarial self-test of the check.sh gates. Attack 1 (dead
Proofs file) and attack 2 (certificate with a smuggled axiom) must both
make check.sh fail; both verified rejected, selftest green, self-cleaning.
An audit that cannot fail is theater; this one demonstrably can.
Two notes for the record: (a) bind_congr is the generic Bind-class
congruence from core/Mathlib, not Aeneas.Std.Primitives (memory
corrected); (b) the certificate covers chain_free_loop - the thin
chain_free wrapper (bound computation + massert + clone) gets its
trivial composition lemma in the wots layer, where it is consumed.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
