Provisional Reachability: Containing Agents by Making Every Crossing Revocable
An escrow-and-audit scheme bounds how many bits an agent can move before a secret becomes unreachable.
The paper proposes holding every agent crossing in escrow for one period, auditing each item independently with probability r, and revoking the window if an audit fails. An adversary sending c bits on each of k crossings expects kc(1-r)^k, giving a public bound of about c/(e r) bits per window. If held bits also decay, an L-bit secret becomes unreachable once decay exceeds throughput divided by L; over 20,000 windows, 100% of runs assembled at 0.9 times that threshold and 0% at twice it. End to end, the stack reduces a 100,000-bit leak to 59 bits while caller-keyed windows restore legitimate work from 12% to 100%.
- Escrow and random audits bound leakage near c/(e r) bits per window.
- Secret decay above g/L makes an L-bit secret unreachable.
- Deceptive names failed 18 of 18 trials; withholding references blocked commitment.
- The stack cut a 100,000-bit leak to 59 bits, a 1,704-fold drop.
- Escrow on 65 read-only tools still leaves about 2,400 bits per call.
From the original article
1 min read at arxiv.orgA companion paper found that what a defender must block over time has units: bits per period [Takashita, 2026a]. This paper sets it. Hold every crossing in escrow for one period, audit each held item independently with probability r, and revoke the window if any audit catches something.
By Yoshiaki Takashita · arxiv.org
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