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Sprint projectOct 26, 2026

Leaking the Verdict, Not the Secret

Papawit Netinatsunton · Team Collusion

Submitted to AI Collusion Research Sprint. Sprint projects are early-stage work by participants, not Apart Research publications.

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Report: Leaking the Verdict, Not the Secret

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We tested whether open-weight models (3–32B) invent secret codes to pass a hidden fact, a candidate’s university prestige, past a monitor to a copy of themselves. None did. Instead they leaked it openly: small models named the university, and larger ones added a matching hire/no-hire recommendation that any model could read. Closing a private side channel made models stop trying rather than hide the signal. Targeted fixes (one blocklist round, constrained paraphrasing, a one-line regex) removed most of the leak. All seven LLM monitors missed it, mostly because they treated a recommendation as normal output.

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  1. 1Negligible. No clear problem addressed, or no meaningful novelty.
  2. 2Limited. Addresses a real problem but with a generic or well-trodden approach. Incremental at best.
  3. 3Moderate. Clear problem with a reasonable approach; some novelty in framing or method beyond routine application of existing tools.
  4. 4Significant. Important problem with an original approach, or identifies a neglected problem area. A valuable contribution others could build on.
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  4. 4Well presented. Easy to follow, well-structured, appropriate level of detail. Target audience would get it quickly.
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Cite this project

@misc{netinatsunton2026leaking,
  title = {{Leaking the Verdict, Not the Secret}},
  author = {Papawit Netinatsunton},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  note = {Submitted to AI Collusion Research Sprint, an Apart Research Sprint},
  howpublished = {\url{https://apartresearch.com/sprints/projects/leaking-the-verdict-not-the-secret-d836}},
  url = {https://apartresearch.com/sprints/projects/leaking-the-verdict-not-the-secret-d836}
}

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