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Crypto surface (keygen/encrypt/decrypt/sign) has 0% coverage and 17/17 UNKNOWN hardware #2590

Closed as not planned

Description

@noahgift

The cryptographic surface has zero test coverage and zero hardware verification.

Measured, from docs/audits/surface_audit_clustered.csv

cluster 13  orchestrate-pacha-secrets    17 features    0.0% covered    17/17 UNKNOWN hardware

The features include keygen, encrypt, decrypt, sign.

Every other zero-coverage cluster is uncovered surface. This one is uncovered
crypto — and unlike contracts-pv (0 UNKNOWN, so at least hardware-verified), here
all 17 are both ungated and unverified. Nothing has confirmed these work on any
machine.

Why crypto is not just another cluster

For most features, "no gate" means a defect ships and someone notices. For key
generation, signing and encryption, the failure modes are silent by construction:

  • a keygen producing low-entropy or deterministic keys looks identical to a correct one
  • an encrypt/decrypt round-trip that passes proves nothing about whether the
    ciphertext is actually secure
  • a sign that verifies against its own verifier proves nothing about interoperability
    or about rejecting a forged signature

These do not announce themselves in a dogfood sweep the way a 404 or a panic does. A
sweep that exercises them and reports success is the weakest kind of evidence, and
the one most likely to be mistaken for the strongest.

What coverage has to mean here

Not "the command runs." At minimum:

  • keygen → distinct keys across invocations, and a known-answer test where the
    algorithm admits one
  • encrypt/decrypt → round-trip plus a negative: a tampered ciphertext must FAIL,
    not silently return garbage
  • sign → verifies a valid signature and rejects a forged one. A verifier that
    accepts everything passes the positive test perfectly.
  • at least one host in the matrix must move verified_hardware off UNKNOWN

Each of those negatives is the discrimination check this repo already applies elsewhere:
a gate that is GREEN for both the correct and the tampered input is not measuring what it
claims.

Note on priority

I am not claiming a defect exists here — no one has looked, which is the point. Given
17 features, all UNKNOWN, in a domain where failure is silent, this is the cluster I would
gate first among the nine zeros, ahead of larger ones like http-orchestrate-banco (95
features) where failures are loud.

Refs #2582

Activity

  1. added this to the 0.69.0 milestone on Sep 10, 2026
  2. added
    automationBot-maintained dashboard, not a defect — skip in triage
    P1High priority
    on Sep 11, 2026
  3. modified the milestones: 0.69.0, 0.73.0, 0.70.0 on Sep 17, 2026
  4. noahgift commented on Sep 23, 2026

    @noahgift
    MemberAuthor

    triage 2026-09-23 (aprender-dd, standing triage owner): milestoned to 0.70.0, theme Fast Train (CI, gates, pv, release tooling, hygiene); it moved out of backlog (the 2026-09-17 overflow bucket, not a release).

  5. added
    kind:codeWork is a code change (derived rule, #4159)
    on Sep 24, 2026
  6. modified the milestones: 0.70.0, backlog on Sep 24, 2026
  7. noahgift commented on Sep 25, 2026

    @noahgift
    MemberAuthor

    Parked by APR-EPIC-001: over S3 budget (rank 14/142). Reopen = pull. Applied by aprender-d1 under a 3-lane quorum receipt (handoff/balance-quorum-rev4.json).

  8. added
    parkedClosed over epic budget (APR-EPIC-001 rule 5). Reopen = pull.
    on Sep 25, 2026
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    P1High priorityautomationBot-maintained dashboard, not a defect — skip in triagekind:codeWork is a code change (derived rule, #4159)parkedClosed over epic budget (APR-EPIC-001 rule 5). Reopen = pull.

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