Published audit
The short essay is the judgment. This package is the inspection surface.
Canonicality: The essay Signal & Noise stands behind is Issue 22, The Price of Being Read. This is part of its published audit, not a second edition of the essay.
Correction added August 1, 2026: This audit is preserved as it stood on July 28 and is not silently rewritten. A direct check of Daniel Stenberg’s July 14, 2025 post resolved “Each.” as referring to each of the three or four security-team members: half an hour to three hours each, or 1.5–12 person-hours per report. The audit’s conservative reading therefore understated the cost by a factor of three to four; the primary essay uses the corrected sentence. The same directly checked post says that “about 5%” of 2025 submissions had proved genuine. This audit’s “below 5%” wording came from a January 2026 announcement that neither pass directly opened. That wording is not being declared false here; it remains unverified. The primary essay therefore uses “at about one in twenty.” The historical text and receipts on the full audited-version page remain unchanged; this note supersedes those two readings.
The redline
The adopted base and the frozen primary in one view: four applied changes, one declined proposal, and the author’s reasons.
The full audited version
The 4,052-word argument, seven named revision conditions, and 29 source receipts, preserved as it stood before compression.
What this audit can show
It can show
- Which exact words changed under the Floor Pass.
- Which sources and limits the longer argument carried.
- Which contrary outcomes were named before the claim could be tested.
It cannot show
- That the surviving thesis is correct.
- That every relevant queue or counterexample was found.
- That a source receipt is independent simply because it is public.
It did expose
- A source ambiguity the audit had preserved rather than resolved.
- A stronger percentage wording tied to a later primary that had not been directly read.
- A reverse correction in which the short primary became more accurate than its own audit.