| # Provenance and anonymisation |
|
|
| ## What is published |
|
|
| | file | contents | transformation | |
| |---|---|---| |
| | `ledger_metric_samples.jsonl` | 84 samples recorded by a self-assessment job in production | field names neutralised; **no value, timestamp or count altered** | |
| | `gate_daily.jsonl` | per-day event counts from a guard log | aggregated; raw lines not published | |
| | `gate_summary.json` | window totals, firing count, first firing, silent days | aggregated; raw lines not published | |
|
|
| ## Transformation rules |
|
|
| ### Metric ledger — names only |
|
|
| Two field names referred to the operator and to the agent by name. They are |
| replaced with neutral identifiers (`user_refs_recent`, `self_refs_recent`) by |
| `tools/anonymise.py`. The replacement map lives in |
| `tools/field_renames.local.json`, which is gitignored — the names being |
| removed are themselves the sensitive part, so the map cannot ship with the |
| tool. |
|
|
| Every other byte is unchanged: same sample count, same timestamps, same values, |
| same non-English structure keys. |
|
|
| **Consequence:** any analysis that runs on the private ledger runs on this one |
| and produces the same numbers. That is the point of restricting the transform |
| to names. |
|
|
| ### Guard log — aggregation, not redaction |
|
|
| The guard log is **not published in any redacted form**. Its lines contain |
| filesystem paths, host identifiers, session tokens and operator-specific |
| strings at high frequency, and redacting them line by line is a losing game: |
| each pass invites the assumption that the pass was complete. |
|
|
| Instead only counts survive: how many events per day, per event type, per tool, |
| plus window totals. The claims in the case study are all claims about counts, |
| so aggregation loses nothing the argument needs. |
|
|
| Aggregation is the anonymisation. There is no later step where raw lines get |
| published. |
|
|
| ## The leak gate |
|
|
| `tools/anonymise.py` will not certify a run it cannot first demonstrate is |
| capable of failing: |
|
|
| - **Generic patterns** ship with the tool (drive paths, POSIX home |
| directories, UNC shares, e-mail addresses, credential shapes, PEM blocks, |
| bare IPv4). These are the same for every operator, so they can be public. |
| - **Operator patterns** live in `tools/forbidden.local.txt`, gitignored. |
| - `--self-test` runs every generic pattern against an input that provably |
| contains its trigger and fails the run if any pattern stays silent. |
|
|
| The self-test exists because of the package's own thesis: a gate that has never |
| been observed to fire is not a gate. A leak check that has never been observed |
| to catch anything is a comment. |
|
|
| ## Reproducing the datasets |
|
|
| The raw inputs are not in this repository. To rebuild the published files from |
| your own logs: |
|
|
| ```bash |
| python tools/anonymise.py \ |
| --ledger /path/to/self_assessment.jsonl \ |
| --gate /path/to/guard_log.jsonl \ |
| --out data/ |
| ``` |
|
|
| Expected output shape: |
|
|
| ``` |
| [ledger] 84 samples -> data/ledger_metric_samples.jsonl |
| [gate] <N> events -> 16 daily rows |
| [gate] firings=5 first_fire=2026-09-19T14:52:23.011940+00:00 silent_days_before=13 |
| [self-test] generic patterns=7 fired=7 |
| [self-test] PASS — the leak gate fires on known-positive input |
| |
| leak check: clean (3 files, 18 patterns) |
| ``` |
|
|
| Numbers will differ with your logs. The structure and the two-stage check |
| should not. |
|
|
