THE GAP THAT FAILED
the air-gap membrane

FARADAY

Did your marker cross a gap that was supposed to hold. Its siblings watch your work cross a page, the weights, a human relay, or live inference. Faraday watches the gap you built to have no path: a marker planted inside a claimed-isolated enclave, turning up outside it. The cage that should have contained it, leaked.

▲ air-gapped-in, found-outside

A marker only you planted, inside an air-gapped enclave, found outside it after planting — with a held-out arm proving the harness isn't fabricating. The gap that claimed no path was crossed. It names which enclave and which of the four kinds of gap failed.

▽ a negative is quiet

You cannot watch every place outside. Silence means almost nothing — and a breach is a lead: the egress path is inferred, never proven, and no operator is blamed. A gap failing is evidence, not an accusation.

detection
the marker
128-bit token, ~zero prior probability
anchoring
isolation
air-gapped or connected · which gap kind
comparison
the escape
found outside the boundary
witness
the controls
held-out · isolation gate · corroboration
The instrument

The isolation gate is the whole trick

A marker turning up outside is only a breach if the enclave it came from claimed to have no way out. If the enclave had a legitimate path — a sync, a share, an export — an appearance outside is expected, not a failure. Isolation is the axis; everything else guards against reading a breach that isn't there.

1

The isolation gate

Only an air-gapped enclave's marker outside is a breach. A connected enclave had a path, so its leak is expected — gated out.

2

Held-out + inside

A marker planted nowhere that appears = fabrication = INVALID. And the sighting must be genuinely outside — a marker still within the boundary never left.

3

Names the gap · not proof

A breach names the enclave and which of the four kinds — distance, sovereignty, design, impermanence — failed. But the egress path is inferred, and no operator is blamed.

Verify first

The control arm, live

This is the harness's own logic — escape.py + score.py — ported faithfully: the same isolation gate, the same held-out arm, the same inside and impossible gates. Fresh 128-bit markers via WebCrypto; flip the failure modes and watch a breach gate out. Nothing leaves this page.

◎ HARNESS · run_panel + score, ported faithfully — the real controls, client-side (no network)

the registry & the escapes

the panel · run & score

Faithful to score.py: a BREACH needs isolation=="air_gapped", where=="outside", and observed ≥ planted; a connected enclave gates to EXPECTED (it had a path); a held-out marker anywhere spikes FPR and the run is INVALID. Each breach is tagged with the enclave and its gap kind. Base-rate = checks × 2−128.
The honest scope

What a certified breach does — and does not — mean

What it does mean

A marker only you planted, inside an air-gapped enclave, found outside it after planting, with a held-out arm proving the harness isn't fabricating.

That is real evidence a gap that claimed to hold was crossed — and it names which enclave and which of the four kinds of gap failed.

What it does not mean

It does not prove the egress path, blame an operator, or prove theft. A gap failing is evidence, not an accusation — a corroborated lead, temporal/structural.

And a negative means little: you cannot watch every place outside.

The colophon

Sound — and the limits it names out loud

Sound

  • The controls are real and verifiable: python selftest.py proves — no network — that an air-gapped enclave's marker found outside is certified as a BREACH (tagged with the enclave and gap kind, corroborated), a held-out marker spikes FPR and the run is refused, a connected enclave's marker is EXPECTED-gated, a still-inside sighting isn't certified, and a pre-plant sighting is IMPOSSIBLE.
  • The isolation gate is the honest move: it refuses to call an export a breach.
  • The self-test above is that exact logic — run_panel + score — client-side.

Limits (and it says so)

  • Isolation is claimed, not proven. The gate is only as honest as the containment you record — "air-gapped" enclaves are notoriously porous.
  • Markers leak by routes you don't model. When in doubt, mark an enclave connected — the gate errs toward fewer breaches.
  • One membrane only. See the map for the others; the air-gap-ladder for the four kinds of gap.
  • A lead, not an accusation. The egress path is inferred; no operator is named.
SOURCE · the runnable kit — github.com/DavidWise01/faraday · canary.py (128-bit markers + isolation + gap kind) · registry.py · escape.py (a place outside + scan) · score.py (held-out + isolation gate + inside + impossible + corroboration) · harness.py · selftest.py (no network). Closure-Loop layered: Detection → Anchoring → Comparison → Witness → Lineage.