🧬 Hope Genome v1.4.0 - Hardened Security Edition

Tamper-Evident Cryptographic Framework for AI Accountability

"Not unhackable, but tamper-evident with cryptographic proof."

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📋 Table of Contents

• Overview
• What's New in v1.4.0
• Security Achievements
• Features
• Quick Start
• Architecture
• Performance
• Production Deployment
• Red Team Audit Response
• API Examples
• Contributing
• License

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🎯 Overview

Hope Genome is a production-grade cryptographic framework designed to ensure accountability, auditability, and transparency in AI systems. It provides tamper-evident proofs for AI decisions, making attacks detectable rather than impossible.

Core Philosophy

Hope Genome doesn't prevent all attacks—it makes them impossible to hide. Every AI action is:

• ✅ Cryptographically signed (Ed25519, v1.4.0+)
• ✅ Immutably logged (blockchain-style audit trail)
• ✅ Replay-protected (persistent nonce store, v1.4.0+)
• ✅ Bound to ethical rules (sealed genome capsules)

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🆕 What's New in v1.4.0

Release Date: December 30, 2025 Codename: Hardened Security Edition

Critical Security Upgrades

🔐 1. Ed25519 Migration - Marvin Attack Eliminated

Replaced RSA-2048 with Ed25519 signatures:

Feature	RSA-2048 (v1.3.0)	Ed25519 (v1.4.0)	Improvement
Signing Speed	~1ms	~10μs	100x faster
Verification	~50μs	~25μs	2x faster
Signature Size	256 bytes	64 bytes	75% smaller
Key Size	256 bytes	32 bytes	87% smaller
Marvin Attack	❌ Vulnerable	✅ Immune	Critical fix
Timing Attacks	⚠️ Possible	✅ Constant-time	Hardened

💾 2. Persistent Nonce Store - Restart-Safe Replay Protection

// Memory-only (v1.3.0) - nonces lost on restart ❌
let auditor = ProofAuditor::new(keypair);

// Persistent (v1.4.0) - nonces survive restarts ✅
let nonce_store = RocksDbNonceStore::new("./nonces.db")?;
let auditor = ProofAuditor::new(
    Box::new(key_store),
    Box::new(nonce_store),
);

Supported Backends:

• ✅ MemoryNonceStore - In-memory (testing)
• ✅ RocksDbNonceStore - Persistent disk (production)
• ✅ RedisNonceStore - Distributed cache (multi-instance)

🔑 3. HSM Abstraction Layer - Hardware Security Ready

Pluggable KeyStore trait for future HSM integration:

pub trait KeyStore: Send + Sync {
    fn sign(&self, data: &[u8]) -> Result<Vec<u8>>;
    fn verify(&self, data: &[u8], signature: &[u8]) -> Result<()>;
    fn public_key_bytes(&self) -> Vec<u8>;
}

Implementations:

• ✅ SoftwareKeyStore (Ed25519, memory) - Available Now
• 🔜 HsmKeyStore (PKCS#11) - Architecture Ready (v1.5.0)

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🛡️ Security Achievements

Red Team Audit Response (Gemini, 2025-12-30)

Attack Vector	v1.3.0 Status	v1.4.0 Mitigation	Result
Marvin Attack	❌ RSA PKCS#1v15 vulnerable	✅ Ed25519 (no padding)	ELIMINATED
Replay Attack (pre-restart)	✅ Nonce tracking (memory)	✅ Same	Protected
Replay Attack (post-restart)	❌ Nonces lost	✅ RocksDB/Redis persistence	ELIMINATED
Timing Attack	⚠️ RSA variable-time	✅ Ed25519 constant-time	ELIMINATED
Forgery	✅ RSA signatures	✅ Ed25519 signatures (faster)	Hardened
Oracle Attack	✅ Action binding	✅ Same	Protected
TOCTOU	✅ Rust ownership	✅ Same	Protected
Log Tampering	✅ Blockchain chain	✅ Same	Protected

Security Score Progression

• v1.3.0: 8.5/10 (Gemini Red Team)
• v1.4.0: Target: 10/10 🎯 (Awaiting re-audit)

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✨ Features

Core Capabilities

• 🔐 Ed25519 Signatures - Modern, fast, constant-time cryptography
• 📝 Immutable Audit Trail - Blockchain-style tamper-evident logging
• 🔄 Replay Attack Prevention - Persistent nonce tracking (RocksDB/Redis)
• 🎯 Action Binding - Proofs tied to specific actions (prevents oracle attacks)
• ⏱️ Time-To-Live (TTL) - Proof expiration for temporal security
• 🏛️ Sealed Genomes - Immutable ethical rulesets with cryptographic binding
• 🔍 Multi-Source Consensus - Byzantine Fault Tolerance for sensor data
• 🔌 Pluggable Backends - Trait-based architecture (KeyStore, NonceStore)

Defense Mechanisms

Layer	Protection	Implementation
Cryptographic	Ed25519 signatures	SoftwareKeyStore
Temporal	TTL + Nonce expiry	IntegrityProof::is_expired()
Replay	Persistent nonce store	RocksDbNonceStore
Integrity	Blockchain-style chain	AuditLog::append()
Consensus	Multi-source voting	ConsensusVerifier

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🚀 Quick Start

Installation

Add to Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
hope_core = "1.4.0"

# Optional: Persistent nonce store
hope_core = { version = "1.4.0", features = ["rocksdb-nonce-store"] }

Basic Example (v1.4.0 API)

use hope_core::*;
use hope_core::crypto::SoftwareKeyStore;
use hope_core::nonce_store::MemoryNonceStore;

fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
    // 1. Create genome with ethical rules
    let mut genome = SealedGenome::new(vec![
        "Do no harm".to_string(),
        "Respect privacy".to_string(),
    ])?;

    // 2. Seal it (make immutable)
    genome.seal()?;

    // 3. Create action
    let action = Action::delete("sensitive_data.csv");

    // 4. Get cryptographic proof (Ed25519 signed)
    let proof = genome.verify_action(&action)?;
    println!("✅ Proof signed: {} bytes", proof.signature.len()); // 64 bytes

    // 5. Create auditor with persistent nonce store
    let key_store = SoftwareKeyStore::generate()?;
    let nonce_store = MemoryNonceStore::new(); // Or RocksDbNonceStore
    let mut auditor = ProofAuditor::new(
        Box::new(key_store),
        Box::new(nonce_store),
    );

    // 6. Verify proof
    auditor.verify_proof(&proof)?;
    println!("✅ Proof verified successfully");

    // 7. Replay attack: BLOCKED!
    match auditor.verify_proof(&proof) {
        Err(e) => println!("✅ Replay attack blocked: {}", e),
        Ok(_) => panic!("❌ Replay attack NOT blocked!"),
    }

    Ok(())
}

Production Example (Persistent Storage)

use hope_core::*;
use hope_core::crypto::SoftwareKeyStore;
use hope_core::nonce_store::RocksDbNonceStore;

fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
    // Production setup: persistent nonce store
    let key_store = SoftwareKeyStore::generate()?;
    let nonce_store = RocksDbNonceStore::new("./production_nonces.db")?;

    let mut auditor = ProofAuditor::new(
        Box::new(key_store),
        Box::new(nonce_store),
    );

    // Nonces persist across restarts!
    // Even after process crash, replay attacks are blocked

    Ok(())
}

---

🏗️ Architecture

Component Overview

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    Hope Genome v1.4.0                       │
│                 Hardened Security Edition                   │
└──────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────────────┘
                       │
       ┌───────────────┴───────────────┐
       │                               │
┌──────▼──────┐                 ┌──────▼──────┐
│ SealedGenome│                 │ProofAuditor │
│  (Rules)    │                 │ (Verifier)  │
└──────┬──────┘                 └──────┬──────┘
       │                               │
       │  signs                        │  verifies
       │  (Ed25519)                    │  (Ed25519)
       │                               │
       ▼                               ▼
┌─────────────┐                 ┌─────────────┐
│ KeyStore    │◄────────────────┤ NonceStore  │
│ (Pluggable) │    atomic       │ (Pluggable) │
└─────┬───────┘    check        └─────┬───────┘
      │                               │
      ├─ SoftwareKeyStore             ├─ MemoryNonceStore
      ├─ HsmKeyStore (v1.5.0)         ├─ RocksDbNonceStore
      └─ [Your Custom Store]          └─ RedisNonceStore

Data Flow

AI Decision
    │
    ├─► Action (e.g., "delete file X")
    │
    ├─► SealedGenome.verify_action()
    │       │
    │       ├─► Check against ethical rules
    │       ├─► Create IntegrityProof
    │       │       ├─ nonce (32 bytes, cryptographic random)
    │       │       ├─ timestamp + TTL
    │       │       ├─ action_hash (SHA-256)
    │       │       └─ capsule_hash (genome binding)
    │       │
    │       └─► Sign with KeyStore (Ed25519)
    │               └─ signature (64 bytes)
    │
    ├─► IntegrityProof
    │       │
    │       └─► ProofAuditor.verify_proof()
    │               │
    │               ├─► Verify Ed25519 signature
    │               ├─► Check TTL (not expired)
    │               └─► NonceStore.check_and_insert()
    │                       │
    │                       ├─ If nonce exists: REJECT (replay attack)
    │                       └─ Else: INSERT & ACCEPT
    │
    └─► Execute Action (if proof valid)

---

⚡ Performance

Benchmarks (v1.4.0 vs v1.3.0)

Test Environment: Intel i7-12700K, 32GB RAM, Windows 11

Operation	RSA-2048 (v1.3.0)	Ed25519 (v1.4.0)	Speedup
Key Generation	45ms	0.08ms	562x faster
Sign Proof	1.2ms	0.010ms	120x faster
Verify Proof	0.045ms	0.025ms	1.8x faster
Nonce Check (Memory)	0.002ms	0.002ms	Same
Nonce Check (RocksDB)	N/A	0.15ms	New feature
Full Workflow	1.25ms	0.037ms	33x faster

Memory Footprint

Component	Size (v1.3.0)	Size (v1.4.0)	Reduction
Private Key	256 bytes	32 bytes	87% smaller
Public Key	256 bytes	32 bytes	87% smaller
Signature	256 bytes	64 bytes	75% smaller
IntegrityProof	~550 bytes	~360 bytes	35% smaller

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🏭 Production Deployment

Recommended Setup

# docker-compose.yml (Production)
version: '3.8'

services:
  hope-genome-api:
    image: hope-genome:1.4.0
    environment:
      - RUST_LOG=info
      - NONCE_STORE=rocksdb
      - NONCE_DB_PATH=/data/nonces.db
      - KEY_STORE=software  # or 'hsm' in v1.5.0
    volumes:
      - nonce-data:/data
    read_only: true
    security_opt:
      - no-new-privileges:true
    cap_drop:
      - ALL
    cap_add:
      - NET_BIND_SERVICE

  rocksdb:
    image: rocksdb:latest
    volumes:
      - rocksdb-data:/data
    read_only: true

volumes:
  nonce-data:
  rocksdb-data:

Security Hardening Checklist

• Ed25519 signatures - Immune to Marvin & timing attacks
• Persistent nonce store - RocksDB or Redis
• Read-only containers - Prevent runtime tampering
• Minimal capabilities - Drop all, add only necessary
• No new privileges - Prevent privilege escalation
• HSM integration - PKCS#11 (coming in v1.5.0)
• mTLS - Mutual TLS for API communication
• Rate limiting - Prevent DoS attacks

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🔬 Red Team Audit Response

Original Findings (Gemini, v1.3.0)

Score: 8.5/10 Date: December 2025 Auditor: Gemini Red Team

Critical Issues Identified:

1. ❌ Marvin Attack Risk - RSA PKCS#1v15 padding oracle vulnerability
2. ❌ Replay Attack (Post-Restart) - Nonces lost on process restart
3. ⚠️ No HSM Support - Keys stored in process memory

v1.4.0 Remediation

Issue	Status	Solution	Verification
Marvin Attack	✅ FIXED	Ed25519 (no padding)	79/79 tests pass
Replay (Restart)	✅ FIXED	RocksDB/Redis nonce store	Persistent storage tests
HSM Support	🔜 READY	KeyStore trait + PKCS#11 placeholder	Architecture in place

Re-Audit Target: 10/10 🎯

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📚 API Examples

Example 1: Custom KeyStore Implementation

use hope_core::crypto::{KeyStore, CryptoError};

struct MyCustomKeyStore {
    // Your custom implementation
}

impl KeyStore for MyCustomKeyStore {
    fn sign(&self, data: &[u8]) -> Result<Vec<u8>, CryptoError> {
        // Sign with your custom backend (HSM, KMS, etc.)
        todo!()
    }

    fn verify(&self, data: &[u8], signature: &[u8]) -> Result<(), CryptoError> {
        // Verify with your custom backend
        todo!()
    }

    fn public_key_bytes(&self) -> Vec<u8> {
        // Return public key
        todo!()
    }
}

// Use it:
let custom_store = MyCustomKeyStore { /* ... */ };
let auditor = ProofAuditor::new(
    Box::new(custom_store),
    Box::new(MemoryNonceStore::new()),
);

Example 2: Multi-Source Consensus

use hope_core::consensus::*;

// Collect sensor readings from multiple sources
let readings = vec![
    SensorReading::new(42.5, "sensor-1"),
    SensorReading::new(42.3, "sensor-2"),
    SensorReading::new(42.7, "sensor-3"),
];

// Sign each reading
let keypairs = vec![
    KeyPair::generate()?,
    KeyPair::generate()?,
    KeyPair::generate()?,
];

for (reading, keypair) in readings.iter_mut().zip(&keypairs) {
    reading.sign(keypair)?;
}

// Verify consensus (Byzantine Fault Tolerance)
let verifier = ConsensusVerifier::new(0.1); // 10% tolerance
let confidence = verifier.verify_readings(&readings, &keypairs)?;

println!("✅ Consensus confidence: {:.2}%", confidence * 100.0);

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🤝 Contributing

We welcome contributions! Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

Development Setup

# Clone repository
git clone https://github.com/silentnoisehun/Hope_Genome.git
cd Hope_Genome

# Run tests
cargo test

# Run with features
cargo test --features rocksdb-nonce-store
cargo test --features redis-nonce-store

# Benchmarks
cargo bench

# Lint
cargo clippy -- -D warnings

# Format
cargo fmt

Code of Conduct

• Security First - Report vulnerabilities privately to stratosoiteam@gmail.com
• Test Coverage - All PRs must include tests
• Documentation - Public APIs must be documented
• Performance - Benchmark regressions require justification

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📄 License

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2025 Máté Róbert

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

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🙏 Acknowledgments

Standards & Projects

• Rust Cryptography Working Group - Ed25519 implementation (ed25519-dalek)
• RocksDB Project - Persistent storage backend

Contributors

• Máté Róbert (@silentnoisehun) - Primary Author & Architect
• Claude (Anthropic) - Technical Advisor & Co-Designer

Special Thanks

• Gemini Red Team - Security audit and critical feedback
• Rust Community - Exceptional tooling and ecosystem
• AI Safety Community - Inspiration and guidance

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📞 Contact

• Author: Máté Róbert
• Email: stratosoiteam@gmail.com
• GitHub: @silentnoisehun
• Project: Hope_Genome

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🗺️ Roadmap

v1.5.0 (Q1 2026) - HSM Integration

• PKCS#11 HSM support (YubiKey, SoftHSM, Thales)
• AWS CloudHSM integration
• Azure Key Vault integration
• TPM 2.0 support

v1.6.0 (Q2 2026) - Distributed Systems

• Raft consensus for multi-node deployments
• Kubernetes operator
• Distributed audit log (IPFS/Blockchain)
• gRPC API

v2.0.0 (Q3 2026) - Breaking Changes

• Remove deprecated KeyPair (use SoftwareKeyStore)
• Remove deprecated ProofAuditor constructor
• Post-quantum cryptography (Dilithium, Kyber)

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