Cross-Medium Composite Disruption Signatures

Mechanism

The disclosed mechanism treats a composite disruption signature as a typed, credentialed record that specifies (a) a named causal hypothesis, (b) an enumerated set of constituent observation channels drawn from distinct sensing media, (c) per-channel acceptance predicates expressed in terms of declared physical units and bounded uncertainty, and (d) a coherence specification describing the inter-channel relationships that must hold for the signature to fire. The signature is not a free-form rule. It is a structured object whose fields are constrained by the governance schema and whose contents are signed by a credentialed authority within the relevant domain.

Each constituent observation channel declares its sensing medium, its measurement modality, its native sampling cadence, its expected dynamic range, and the observation type the channel produces. For a GPS spoofing signature, the channels typically include a time-reference channel (drift between disciplined oscillator and received GNSS time), a position channel (delta between dead-reckoned and reported position), an adjacent-band RF channel (power excursion in the bands flanking the GNSS allocation), and a spectrum-shape channel (departure of the received correlation peak from the canonical autocorrelation profile). Each channel carries a declared uncertainty envelope; observations outside the envelope are treated as unobservable rather than as zero.

The coherence specification is the structural core of the signature. It enumerates required relationships between channels: temporal alignment windows (the position glitch must occur within a bounded delay of the time-reference excursion), magnitude couplings (the adjacent-band RF excursion must scale with the depth of the spectrum-shape departure within declared bounds), and spatial coherence (multiple receivers within a declared baseline must observe consistent excursions). The coherence specification is what an adversary cannot easily fabricate. Reproducing one channel is straightforward; reproducing four channels with the precise inter-channel relationships the signature requires is a structural barrier scaling roughly multiplicatively with the number of independent media involved.

Signature evaluation runs as a deterministic predicate over a windowed buffer of admissible observations. The evaluator consumes the live multi-medium telemetry, projects each channel onto the signature's declared schema, evaluates the per-channel acceptance predicates, and then evaluates the coherence specification across the channels that passed individual acceptance. The evaluation produces a typed result: a fired signature with a recorded confidence, a near-miss with the specific coherence clause that failed, or a non-match. Every evaluation records its inputs, the signature version evaluated, and the credentialing authority of record.

The credentialing chain is integral, not adjacent. A signature is signed by the authority responsible for the relevant domain — defense authorities sign adversarial-attribution signatures within their declared scope, spectrum regulators sign jamming-detection signatures, meteorological authorities sign natural-propagation signatures, and equipment vendors sign aging-drift signatures within their certified equipment classes. Operating systems admit signatures only from authorities they have explicitly credentialed. A fired signature carries forward the credentialing authority as part of the resulting attribution observation, so downstream consumers can apply their own admissibility policy to the attribution itself.

Operating Parameters

A signature declares its temporal coherence window in physical time units (typically tens of milliseconds for RF-coupled phenomena, hundreds of milliseconds to seconds for thermal or propagation phenomena, and microseconds for time-reference phenomena). The window is bounded above by the expected coherence horizon of the underlying physical process and bounded below by the worst-case clock-disagreement budget across the contributing sensors. Windows outside the declared bounds are governance violations and the signature is rejected at admission.

Per-channel acceptance predicates express thresholds in declared physical units rather than dimensionless scores. A power excursion threshold is specified in dBm above a declared noise-floor reference; a time-reference drift threshold is specified in nanoseconds against a declared reference standard; a position glitch threshold is specified in meters against a declared geodetic datum. The unit declarations are part of the schema and are mechanically checked against the channel's declared modality.

Coherence-specification parameters include allowed jitter in inter-channel temporal alignment, allowed deviation from the declared magnitude coupling, and the minimum number of receivers that must agree for spatial-coherence clauses. A typical multi-receiver coordinated-jamming signature requires three or more receivers within a declared baseline to observe consistent broadband excursions within a bounded jitter window. The minimum-receiver count is itself part of the signature and is set by the credentialing authority based on empirical false-alarm characterization.

Confidence thresholds for attribution are graduated. A signature may declare a tentative-fire threshold producing a low-confidence attribution and a confirmed-fire threshold producing a high-confidence attribution. The graduated thresholds compose with downstream confidence governance, so the same signature can drive an advisory-mode response at the lower threshold and a constrained-mode response at the higher threshold without requiring two separate signatures.

Signature lifetime is bounded. Each signature carries an issued-at timestamp, a credentialing authority, an expiry, and a revocation handle. Signatures past expiry are not evaluated. Revocation propagates through the governed mesh and removes the signature from admissibility before the next evaluation cycle. Signature versions are immutable: a revised signature is a new record with a new identifier, and the prior version remains evaluable for retrospective audit reconstruction.

Alternative Embodiments

One embodiment instantiates the signature evaluator as an in-process predicate library co-located with the sensing pipeline; another instantiates the evaluator as a sidecar service consuming admissible observations through a typed channel; a third distributes evaluation across the receivers themselves with each receiver evaluating the channels it owns and forwarding partial-match certificates to a coherence aggregator. The mechanism is independent of the deployment topology so long as the evaluation is deterministic, the signature record is admissibly credentialed, and the resulting attribution carries forward the lineage.

In an embodiment specialized for coalition military operations, signatures are signed by allied authorities each operating within their credentialed scope, and the operating system admits the union of signatures from authorities the operator has explicitly credentialed. In an embodiment specialized for civilian critical-infrastructure protection, signatures are signed by sector-specific information-sharing organizations (ISACs) and regulatory authorities, and the operating system admits signatures consistent with the operator's regulatory posture. In a hybrid embodiment, military and civilian signatures coexist in the admissibility set, each evaluated within its credentialed scope without cross-contamination.

Channels can be drawn from any sensing medium for which a typed observation pipeline exists. Embodiments include acoustic channels for vehicle-acoustic-signature attribution, optical channels for blinding and dazzling attribution, inertial channels for spoofing detection through inertial-disagreement, magnetic channels for geomagnetic-anomaly attribution, and chemical channels for chemical-signature attribution in environmental-monitoring deployments. The mechanism does not constrain the medium set; it constrains only that each channel be typed, declared, and admissibly credentialed.

The coherence specification can be expressed as a closed-form predicate, as a constraint program over the channel observations, or as a credentialed model whose parameters are themselves part of the signed record. Closed-form predicates are preferred for auditability; constraint programs are appropriate where the coherence relationship is naturally expressed as a satisfiability question; credentialed parameterized models are appropriate where the underlying physical relationship is known but its precise parameters are characterized empirically by the credentialing authority.

In an embodiment supporting near-miss feedback, evaluations that fail the coherence specification but pass a configurable fraction of the constituent acceptance predicates are forwarded to the credentialing authority as candidate-novel-disruption records. The authority can then use the aggregated near-miss telemetry to refine the signature, propose a new signature for a previously uncharacterized cause, or determine that the near-misses represent a benign coincidence pattern that should be excluded.

Composition With Adjacent Primitives

Composite signatures compose with the broader Cognition Patent's admissibility, lineage, and governance primitives. A fired signature produces an attribution observation that itself enters the admissibility pipeline, where downstream consumers evaluate it against their own policies. The attribution is not a privileged signal; it is a typed observation carrying its credentialing chain forward, subject to the same admissibility rules as any other observation.

The mechanism composes with confidence-graduated actuation. A high-confidence attribution may authorize a constrained-mode physical response; a low-confidence attribution may authorize only an advisory-mode notification. The mode-selection logic consumes the attribution's recorded confidence alongside the operating governance policy and produces the appropriate physical mode. The composition is deterministic and lineage-recorded.

Lineage composition is structural. Every fired signature records the inputs it consumed, the signature version evaluated, the credentialing authority of record, and the resulting confidence. Audit reconstruction can replay any historical attribution from the recorded lineage and reproduce the same result. The lineage record is itself a credentialed observation, signed by the operating system's lineage authority, and is admissible into other operating systems that credential the same lineage authority.

Prior-Art Distinction

Heuristic disruption detection — rule-based detectors and machine-learned classifiers — produces useful signal but does not carry the credentialing chain that operational response across authority boundaries requires. A heuristic that flags possible jamming cannot tell the operating system who endorsed the detection criteria, what evidence supports the detection, or whether the criteria are current with adversary capabilities. The disclosed mechanism is structurally distinct: every fired signature carries forward an explicit credentialing authority, an immutable signature version, and a deterministic evaluation record.

Single-medium signature systems — RF fingerprinting libraries, optical-anomaly catalogues, acoustic-event taxonomies — operate within a single sensing medium and therefore cannot exploit cross-medium coherence as an anti-spoof. The disclosed mechanism is structurally distinct in requiring the coherence specification across independent media. Sensor-fusion architectures aggregate multi-modal observations but typically produce a fused state estimate rather than a credentialed attribution; the disclosed mechanism is structurally distinct in producing a typed, credentialed, lineage-bearing attribution rather than a fused estimate.

Threat-intelligence sharing platforms distribute indicators of compromise and threat reports across organizational boundaries. The disclosed mechanism is structurally distinct in that the shared artifact is a deterministically evaluable predicate rather than a free-form report, the credentialing chain is integral rather than informal, and the evaluation produces a typed observation that composes with downstream admissibility and actuation. The mechanism is positioned at the layer that cross-authority disruption response requires: a deterministic, credentialed, lineage-bearing predicate evaluated against typed multi-medium telemetry.

Disclosure Scope

The disclosure scope encompasses any system that constructs a credentialed multi-channel disruption signature, evaluates the signature against typed observations drawn from independent sensing media, requires inter-channel coherence as part of the firing condition, and produces a typed attribution observation carrying forward the credentialing chain. The disclosure is independent of the specific media set, the specific coherence-specification language, and the specific deployment topology, so long as the mechanism's structural elements — typed channels, credentialed signatures, deterministic evaluation, coherence-as-anti-spoof, and lineage-bearing attribution — are present.

The disclosure scope also encompasses the governance pathways for signature lifecycle: issuance by a credentialed authority, propagation through a governed mesh, admission by an operating system, evaluation against admissible telemetry, expiry and revocation handling, and retrospective audit reconstruction. Embodiments that omit any structural element fall outside the disclosed scope; embodiments that vary the medium set, the coherence-specification representation, or the deployment topology while preserving the structural elements remain within scope.