◎ OS PUB Apache 2.0 ← All specifications

P165 — AIEP — Evidence Trust Propagation Protocol

Publication Date: 2026-04-12 Status: Open Source Prior Art Disclosure Licence: Apache License 2.0 Author/Organisation: Phatfella Ltd Schema: AIEP_OS_SPEC_TEMPLATE v1.0.1 — https://aiep.dev/schemas/aiep-os-spec-template/v1.0.1

Field of the Invention

[0001] The disclosure relates to trust scoring and propagation mechanisms for evidence artefacts in computing environments.

[0002] More particularly, the disclosure concerns an evidence trust propagation protocol for use within an Architected Instruction and Evidence Protocol (AIEP) system, defining how trust scores assigned to source evidence artefacts are inherited, attenuated, and updated across derived artefacts, citation chains, and federation node transfers.

Framework Context

[0003] This invention operates within an Architected Instruction and Evidence Protocol (AIEP) environment as defined in United Kingdom patent application number GB2519711.2, filed 20 November 2025, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.

Summary of the Disclosure

[0004] A computer-implemented evidence trust propagation protocol comprises: assigning each evidence artefact an initial TrustScore in the range [0.0, 1.0] based on source classification, retrieval method, and provenance depth; defining TrustPropagationRules specifying: (i) citation propagation — derived artefacts inherit TrustScore as min(parent_scores) × derivation_decay_factor; (ii) federation propagation — trust is attenuated by node_trust_coefficient on cross-node transfer; (iii) adversarial challenge outcome — artefacts with FailedChallengeRecord incur mandatory trust decrement; computing updated TrustScores on each state-changing event; logging TrustUpdateEvents in the evidence provenance chain; and refusing to promote an artefact to active reasoning context if its TrustScore falls below the deployment-configured TrustFloor threshold.

[0005] TrustScores are not manually editable by runtime operators. They are computed quantities fully determined by propagation rules and event history.

[0006] The technical effect is modification of computing system behaviour by enforcing trust degradation across evidence derivation and federation chains, preventing untrusted evidence from entering active reasoning without governance override.

Claims

[0007] A computer-implemented method for evidence trust propagation comprising: assigning initial TrustScores at ingestion; propagating trust through citation and derivation chains with decay; attenuating trust at federation node boundaries; decrementing trust on adversarial challenge failure; logging TrustUpdateEvents; and blocking low-trust evidence from active reasoning context below TrustFloor.

[0008] A system for evidence trust propagation comprising one or more processors and a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions to execute the method of claim 1.