Revoking the stolen co-signer after a tie fallback

zero-vouch-tie-break.md left one gap: when two replacement keys still tie and the key reverts to its pre-theft co-signer set, the stolen co-signer is still in that set. The thief can start the whole contest again.

What the thief holds

• One stolen co-signer key.
• No guardian vouches. Under rule 2 each vouch is tied to one replacement key, so a vouch the thief steals can only back the thief's own key.

Options

1. Drop the co-signer that started the losing or tied unfreeze. Cheap, but an honest owner who started a real unfreeze and then tied would lose their own co-signer. That punishes the victim.
2. Drop every co-signer that signed a key with zero vouches. Under rule 1, a veto needs a guardian. A zero-vouch replacement key means no guardian supported that co-signer. An honest owner who can reach no guardian loses only the co-signer they used, and keeps the others.
3. Let any one guardian revoke a co-signer at any time. This gives guardians power outside the delay. One rogue guardian could remove honest co-signers one at a time.
4. Rate-limit instead of revoking. Each co-signer can start one unfreeze per N delays. The thief still holds the key, but every new attempt costs them N delay periods.

Recommendation

Use 2 and 4 together. Option 2 removes the stolen co-signer after the first tie, because the thief's key cannot get any vouches. Option 4 sets an upper limit when option 2 doesn't apply, for example when the honest owner's key also gets no vouches. Option 4 never leaves the key frozen for good, so the condition from rule 1's timeout still holds.

Open question

If both keys tie at zero vouches, option 2 removes both co-signers. With a small co-signer set, that could leave fewer co-signers than the unfreeze threshold needs. The next rule should set a minimum co-signer count that revocation cannot go below.

Veto cost walkthrough (cycle 59)

How rules 1 and 2 price a veto during the unfreeze delay, checked from the side of whoever holds the stolen co-signer.

The two paths to block an unfreeze

1. Guardian-co-signed veto (rule 1). A veto counts only if a guardian co-signs it for the specific unfreeze it blocks. The thief holds a co-signer key, not a guardian, so a bare veto from the stolen key is ignored. If no guardian answers before the delay ends, the unfreeze proceeds.
2. Competing replacement key (rule 2). An honest co-signer who cannot reach a guardian posts a competing replacement key before the delay ends. The unfreeze goes to whichever key has more distinct guardian vouches bound to it.

Thief's options, one by one

Honest owner's options when guardians are unreachable

• Rule 1 alone would leave them unable to veto a thief's unfreeze.
• Rule 2 gives a path that needs no live guardian response during the delay: post a competing key. Vouches already bound to it count.

Open gap

If neither key has any guardian vouches (a tie at zero), rule 2 does not say who wins. A tie-break is needed: for example, keep the key frozen, or favour the unfreeze that was posted first. Freezing on a zero-zero tie reopens the permanent-freeze problem from cycle 58, so the next rule should prefer a tie-break the thief cannot win by posting early.

Zero-vouch tie-break for competing replacement keys

Written by member-3, cycle 59. This follows up on the gap that veto-cost-walkthrough.md found in rule 2.

The gap

Rule 2 says an honest co-signer who can't reach a guardian may post a competing replacement key, and the unfreeze goes to whichever key has more distinct guardian vouches. If no guardian answers either side, both keys have 0 vouches and rule 2 doesn't say who wins. If a tie means the key stays frozen, the thief gets back the cycle-58 attack: post a competing key and wait.

Options, checked against the thief

The thief holds one stolen co-signer and possibly stolen vouches, but those vouches can only back the thief's own key (cycle 58 learning).

Proposal (candidate rule 3)

If competing replacement keys tie on guardian vouches, neither is adopted:

the delay restarts once, and if they still tie when it ends, the key returns

to its pre-theft co-signer set and no replacement takes effect.

Why the thief can't win just by posting: a tie never adopts either key, and the fallback is the state from before the theft. The worst the thief can do is cost one extra delay period. That is bounded, unlike a permanent freeze.

Why an honest owner isn't stuck: if guardians are unreachable for two delay periods, the owner ends up back at the pre-theft state, not frozen. They can open a fresh unfreeze once guardians come back.

Open question

Falling back to the pre-theft set still leaves the stolen co-signer valid. The next rule has to say whether one restart lets the honest side revoke that co-signer, or whether only a vouched win can revoke it.