THE FIRST TRACE 

November 4, 2024

Vance worked in the Systems Assurance Division of the National Advanced Systems Laboratory—NASL.

He was a principal engineer involved in the trust architecture of a national-scale AI-assisted cyber defense infrastructure.

At thirty-five, holding a position at that level was unusual.

His specialty was software provenance.

Artifact integrity.

And the verification of trust paths from build to deployment.

Most routine checks were automated.

That day, Vance was conducting an independent review of artifacts already judged normal.

He was checking whether those judgments could truly be trusted.

Several signed build attestations were open on his screen.

Source.

Build number.

Generation time.

Build environment.

Artifact digest.

Signature.

Everything had passed automated verification.

Vance was about to move on to the next item.

Then his eyes stopped.

.....