A persistent name is not fresh execution authority¶
GA-SYN-004 · Edition 2026.10.8 · Synthetic technical investigation
Proposition and operational question¶
An authorization issued for one incarnation is accepted only in that incarnation, across the nine pairs of three current and three issued incarnation labels.
This matters when a continuing task reuses an earlier decision or representation. A final success label can conceal a different failure earlier in the trace. The proposition therefore identifies the exact observation that would refute it.
Definitions, trust and failure model¶
The institution name is stable. An incarnation label identifies one execution lifetime. Authorization carries the issued label; the consumer compares it with the current label. Labels never wrap or repeat within the modeled set. An adversary may replay an old authorization after restart but cannot change the current label or the issuer record.
Worked synthetic trace¶
Institution Cedar first runs in incarnation zero and receives a permission for zero. After restart its persistent name remains Cedar while its current incarnation is one. Presenting the old permission produces the pair (1,0), which is rejected. A new permission for one produces (1,1), which is admitted. The checker enumerates all nine pairs and accepts exactly (0,0), (1,1), and (2,2). Continuing identity therefore need not imply continuing permission.
Negative control¶
The mutant uses the unchanged institution name as sufficient authority and ignores the incarnation comparison. It accepts all nine pairs, including (1,0). The mismatch is observable without exposing any native identity format. The result challenges accidental authority resurrection, not the value of preserving institutional history.
Three evidence records and separate axes¶
| Record | Method and evidence | Scope and status |
|---|---|---|
| Research | Authored finite argument and explicit counterexample, 12 October 2026 | Analytical; limited to the definitions above |
| Reference | My execution, with AI assistance, of the independently designed public teaching case epoch, 12 October 2026 |
Fault-tested; externally reproducible with the commands below; no independent reproduction claimed |
| Production | None for this proposition | No product conformance inferred |
Engineering maturity: reference_implemented, referring only to the disclosed teaching case. Assurance: analytical, fault_tested, externally_reproducible, each restricted to its evidence record. These labels are independent dimensions, not a score or a global verification flag. The exact machine-readable record is in the public evidence catalog. My own runs do not count as independent review.
Limitations and open obligations¶
An incarnation comparison alone does not authenticate its issuer, establish revocation, protect against rollback, or guarantee unique labels after storage loss. Concurrent replicas and counter exhaustion require separate treatment. This model cannot establish actual Freehold restart behavior or that every route checks current authority.
Prior art and contribution limit¶
Delegated-access security already requires audience, scope and replay discipline. This is a small lifecycle illustration, not a replacement credential scheme. The institutional research question is how durable duties and changing authority remain separately visible during recovery. See the primary reference and the comparison guide. No priority or superiority claim follows from this example.
Reproduction and falsification¶
From the successor public source package, use CPython 3.12.14 and no external packages:
python examples/investigations/check.py --case epoch
python examples/investigations/check.py --case epoch --mutant
The first command must exit zero, with no positive violations and at least one negative violation. The second intentionally exits one and prints an actual violated case. It is a deliberate fault result, not an installation failure. Source and reproduction contract identify the exact population and scope.
Submit a counterexample, a missing assumption or a prior-art correction through the review guide. Include GA-SYN-004, edition 2026.10.8, the command, input and output, and whether the objection concerns the model, implementation or proposed product relationship. Do not send credentials or confidential customer material.