CARRIED IN THE HEAD
the human-memory membrane

RECITAL

Did your marker cross by human memory. Every sibling watches a machine or a channel; this one watches the oldest covert channel there is: a person remembering. Your marker seen by someone, carried out of the building in their head, and later recited — no digital trail at all.

▲ a near-exact recall

A passphrase only you showed, recited near-exactly by someone who had access, after you showed it — carried by more than one person, with a held-out arm proving the harness isn't fabricating. It crossed through a mind.

▽ memory is lossy

A partial recall could be reconstruction or coincidence; silence means almost nothing. Even a certified recall is a lead — you can't prove it was memorised rather than written down.

detection
the passphrase
memorable words, real entropy
anchoring
shown to whom
who had access, and when
comparison
the recitation
fuzzy match · memory is lossy
witness
the gates
held-out · fidelity · access · corroboration
The instrument

Fuzzy, because memory is

You can't demand a verbatim 128-bit blob from a person, so the marker is a memorable passphrase and the match is fuzzy. That forces the bar high: only a near-exact recall, by someone who had access, after you showed it, is a memory crossing. Everything else is a control against reading a recall that isn't there.

1

Held-out arm

Passphrases shown to no one. If one is recited near-exact, it reached them another way — INVALID.

2

Fidelity gate

Only a near-exact recall (≥ 0.9) counts. A partial is FUZZY — reconstruction or coincidence, gated.

3

Access gate

The reciter must have had access. Near-exact by someone who never saw it came another way — gated.

4

Corroboration ≠ proof

Strength = how many independent people carried it. Never proof it was memorised vs written down.

Verify first

The control arm, live

This is the harness's own logic — recitation.py + score.py — running in your browser: the same Jaccard fidelity, the same held-out arm, the same fidelity and access gates. Fresh passphrases each round; flip the failure modes and watch a recall gate out. Nothing leaves this page.

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

the registry & the recitations

the panel · run & score

Faithful to score.py: fidelity = Jaccard word-overlap; a RECALL needs fidelity ≥ 0.9, had_access, recited after shown; a partial is FUZZY, a no-access near-exact is NO_ACCESS, both gated; a held-out passphrase recited near-exact spikes FPR and the run is INVALID. Corroboration = distinct reciters.
The honest scope

What a certified recall does — and does not — mean

What it does mean

A passphrase only you showed, recited near-exactly by someone who had access, after you showed it, with a held-out arm proving the harness isn't fabricating.

It crossed via a person's memory — carried out with no digital trail.

What it does not mean

It does not prove it was truly memorised (vs written down or photographed), name anyone's intent, or prove theft.

A corroborated lead — and a negative means little.

The colophon

Sound — and the limits it names out loud

Sound

  • python selftest.py proves — no network — that a near-exact recall with access is certified and corroborated; a held-out passphrase recited spikes FPR and the run is refused; a partial recitation is FUZZY-gated; a no-access near-exact is gated; a pre-show recitation isn't certified; a run with no arm is refused; an unrelated phrase falls below the floor.
  • The fidelity gate is the honest move: it refuses to read reconstructive memory as a crossing.
  • The self-test above is that exact logic — client-side.

Limits (and it says so)

  • Memorised vs copied is unprovable — a recall is a human-carried crossing, not proof of mechanism.
  • Entropy is bounded by memorability — use a large wordlist; a memorable phrase carries less than a hex canary.
  • One membrane only. See the map for the others.
  • A lead, not an accusation. It names no one's intent.
SOURCE · the runnable kit — github.com/DavidWise01/recital · canary.py (memorable passphrases) · recitation.py (fuzzy Jaccard match) · score.py (held-out + fidelity gate + access gate + corroboration) · harness.py · selftest.py (no network). Closure-Loop layered: Detection → Anchoring → Comparison → Witness → Lineage.