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Robert Allan JamesandClaude Sonnet 5 2008c4596a Add FABRIC-3.7.md: Phase 8 PKI elevation-entrypoint design, fixes a real pointer-confusion hole
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New document, not a reopening of the closed FABRIC-3.5.md/FABRIC-3.6.md --
successor for exactly one topic, per those documents' own close discipline.

Records a security defect found by inspection while auditing Phase 4's
collateral damage to ELEVATE-GRANT: the old SEND-ELEVATE-REQUEST mechanism
passed a raw address (waddr/wu) computed in the sending VM's own memory
space across to Hera, which dereferences it in Hera's own space --
per-VM vaddr_t means those are never the same address space. Whoever
controls waddr controls what dictionary entry NAME>XT resolves to on
Hera, independent of the caller's actual pubkey/eligibility.

Design fix: never cross an address, only ever cross bytes -- generalizes
this session's own payload-aliasing fix (SkHermesMessage.payload_buf) one
level up. Send the target word's name as inline payload bytes, copy them
into a fixed kernel-owned buffer already in Hera's own memory on receipt,
and hand vm_interpret() only kernel-controlled integer literals referencing
that buffer. ELEVATE-GRANT itself is unchanged -- policy logic stays in
FORTH, per ACL.4th's own rule.

No code written or authorized by this document.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-22 21:44:06 -04:00