aere-node/AUDITS.md

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# Security audits and reviews
**AERE Network has had no third-party security audit.** That is the first line of this page on
purpose, and it stays here until it is no longer true. Everything below describes what we have
verified ourselves, which is a weaker thing, and we do not want the difference blurred.
Last updated: 2026-09-01.
---
## External audits
| scope | auditor | date | report |
|---|---|---|---|
| — | none | — | — |
There is nothing to put in this table yet. When there is, the full report goes here, including any
findings we chose not to fix and why.
## What we have done instead, and what it is worth
- **Continuous self-verification.** The chain's live properties are re-measured automatically rather
than asserted in prose: validator set size, quorum, the post-quantum anchor threshold, the base-fee
floor, backup coverage, and the public verifier. A claim that stops being true shows up as a failed
check, not as stale documentation. This is real, and it is still *us checking us*.
- **Negative controls on every gate.** A check that has never been shown to fail is not evidence. For
each safety-relevant check we plant the defect it is supposed to catch and require it to go red,
then restore the source and require it to go green. A check that cannot fail is treated as broken.
- **A reproducibility package prepared for an external reviewer.** The consensus code under review,
a threat model naming the attack surfaces we consider realistic, a pinned reproduce guide, and a
manifest of file hashes. It is ready to hand over.
- **Independent verification by a second implementation.** The post-quantum anchor certificates on
the live chain are validated by a second client, written in a different language on a different
codebase, which reaches its own verdict on every anchor.
**None of that is an audit.** Self-verification finds the mistakes you thought to look for.
## Verify the chain yourself, without trusting us
The post-quantum anchor is designed so you do not have to take our word for it: from block
13,014,000 every 32nd block, and from block 17,225,968 every 128th, carries a post-quantum certificate
(Falcon-512, and from block 17,047,600 also SLH-DSA-SHA2-128s), and the block hash covers it. From
block 14,961,456 that certificate requires at least six valid seals of each scheme (six of nine
validators then, six of ten since 2026-09-11). The verifier is
public, the signatures are in the headers, and the check runs against any node — ours or your own.
## Reporting a vulnerability
Report to **security@aere.network**, or see <https://aere.network/security> for the full policy.
- We aim to acknowledge within 72 hours.
- Public credit on this page unless you ask to remain anonymous.
- We will not pursue legal action against good-faith research conducted under the published policy.
- If a report leads to a fix, the fix and the finding are published here together, including the
window during which the issue was live.
## What this page will never do
It will not describe a self-review as an audit, and it will not report a fix as complete before it
has been verified on the live chain. If you find a claim on this page that you can measure and
disprove, that itself is a valid security report, and we would like to receive it.