safety security
Unvetted Retrieval Got an Expiration Clock
A fail-closed protocol bounded how long newly ingested RAG content could remain visible before verification committed.
Summary
A fail-closed protocol bounded how long newly ingested RAG content could remain visible before verification committed.
Continuous vector-store ingestion creates a window in which new content can be retrieved before vetting finishes. The proposed protocol makes that visibility provisional: an item enters under a deadline, disappears if verification has not committed, and can be contained along its lineage. Under verifier backlog across five workloads, the median number of poisoned retrievals fell from 34 to seven versus asynchronous admission without a deadline. Making every item wait for verification eliminated provisional exposure but delayed clean first visibility to 6.3 seconds, compared with about three milliseconds for provisional admission. The guarantee still depends on the verifier: false promotions leave poison visible, while false refusals hide clean material.
Why it matters
A fail-closed protocol bounded how long newly ingested RAG content could remain visible before verification committed.
Limits and context
- The proposed protocol makes that visibility provisional: an item enters under a deadline, disappears if verification has not committed, and can be contained along its lineage.
Key claims
A fail-closed protocol bounded how long newly ingested RAG content could remain visible before verification committed.
Qualification: The proposed protocol makes that visibility provisional: an item enters under a deadline, disappears if verification has not committed, and can be contained along its lineage.
Evidence: source-2026-10-06-013
Sources
- arXiv preprint 2610.05826arXiv · primary research
Corrections
No corrections have been recorded for this story.