Claim
Persistent rumours around the time of Q* and Strawberry held that OpenAI's early reasoning models were trained on, or tested against, objectives of inverting cryptographically secure hash functions such as the SHA suite.
33 words; atomic claims are usually under 25a conjunction joins clauses that may be separately evaluablea comma-separated series may list several propositionsTopics
AI · 03192ed8 Security · 03192ed8
Assessment
Unresolved
Main unresolved issue: 10 counted evidence items have no independence review; repeats of one origin may be counted as several coverage:abd4fca4-5764-865f-abaf-227324079aa6
Not yet independently audited.Evidence points both ways.A quoted passage from blacklynxbrief.com and stacker.news was not found on the page when Galedra fetched it.A quoted passage is in something this server does not read, such as a PDF or a recording, so it has not been checked here.
Why?
Strongest counted support: A 2023 report documents a Q-Star leak and associated claims that it could break encryption, showing that encryption-breaking rumors circulated around Q*. weight 0.540000 evidence
Strongest counted contradiction: Reuters reports math-benchmark testing and says it could not determine whether that system was Strawberry; it supplies no evidence of SHA-hash inversion. weight 0.459000 evidence
Suppressed as dependent: Speaker reports persistent rumours that early reasoning models were trained on or tested against inverting secure hash functions.; The excerpt reports persistent rumors that early reasoning models around Q-star and Strawberry were trained or tested on inverting cryptographically secure hashes.
Review gaps: independence reviewed
What would most change this: One independent, direct measurement that supports this claim would move it from Unresolved to Supported.
0.4641 under ledger-default@0.3.0 at snapshot 27745 · state Unresolved · Review checks: 3 of 4 · stability HIGH · 10 sources, 4 independent lineages
How the number was reached
| Link | Working | Weight | Counted as |
|---|---|---|---|
| fd2b5e3e contradict | relevance MODERATE 0.6 × observation DIRECT_TEXT 0.9 × interpretation 2 steps, 1 − 0.15 × 2 0.700000 × authenticity UNVERIFIED 1.0 × extraction UNVERIFIED 1.0 × provenance INDEPENDENT 1.0 × edition NAMED_OR_UNRELATED 1 | 0.378000 | 0.378000 |
| 38abdbb6 qualify | relevance MODERATE 0.6 × observation DIRECT_TEXT 0.9 × interpretation 0 steps, 1 − 0.15 × 0 1.000000 × authenticity UNVERIFIED 1.0 × extraction UNVERIFIED 1.0 × provenance INDEPENDENT 1.0 × edition NAMED_OR_UNRELATED 1 | 0.540000 | 0.000000 (non directional) |
| f397bae5 support | relevance DIRECT 2.0 × observation HEARSAY 0.1 × interpretation 1 step, 1 − 0.15 × 1 0.850000 × authenticity UNVERIFIED 1.0 × extraction UNVERIFIED 1.0 × provenance SELF 0.0 × edition NAMED_OR_UNRELATED 1 | 0.000000 | 0.000000 (dependent strongest only, kept 9cf6fc6d) |
| 8226a1ea support | relevance MODERATE 0.6 × observation DIRECT_TEXT 0.9 × interpretation 0 steps, 1 − 0.15 × 0 1.000000 × authenticity UNVERIFIED 1.0 × extraction UNVERIFIED 1.0 × provenance INDEPENDENT 1.0 × edition NAMED_OR_UNRELATED 1 | 0.540000 | 0.540000 |
| 611fe8d6 qualify | relevance MODERATE 0.6 × observation DIRECT_TEXT 0.9 × interpretation 1 step, 1 − 0.15 × 1 0.850000 × authenticity UNVERIFIED 1.0 × extraction UNVERIFIED 1.0 × provenance INDEPENDENT 1.0 × edition NAMED_OR_UNRELATED 1 | 0.459000 | 0.000000 (non directional) |
| 9cf6fc6d support | relevance WEAK 0.2 × observation HEARSAY 0.1 × interpretation 2 steps, 1 − 0.15 × 2 0.700000 × authenticity UNVERIFIED 1.0 × extraction UNVERIFIED 1.0 × provenance SELF 0.0 × edition NAMED_OR_UNRELATED 1 | 0.000000 | 0.000000 |
| de23d5c7 support | relevance WEAK 0.2 × observation DIRECT_TEXT 0.9 × interpretation 1 step, 1 − 0.15 × 1 0.850000 × authenticity UNVERIFIED 1.0 × extraction UNVERIFIED 1.0 × provenance INDEPENDENT 1.0 × edition NAMED_OR_UNRELATED 1 | 0.153000 | 0.153000 |
| e6c92da6 qualify | relevance MODERATE 0.6 × observation DIRECT_TEXT 0.9 × interpretation 1 step, 1 − 0.15 × 1 0.850000 × authenticity UNVERIFIED 1.0 × extraction UNVERIFIED 1.0 × provenance INDEPENDENT 1.0 × edition NAMED_OR_UNRELATED 1 | 0.459000 | 0.000000 (non directional) |
| 80ae660f contradict | relevance MODERATE 0.6 × observation DIRECT_TEXT 0.9 × interpretation 1 step, 1 − 0.15 × 1 0.850000 × authenticity UNVERIFIED 1.0 × extraction UNVERIFIED 1.0 × provenance INDEPENDENT 1.0 × edition NAMED_OR_UNRELATED 1 | 0.459000 | 0.459000 |
| 032ca64f support | relevance DIRECT 2.0 × observation DIRECT_TEXT 0.9 × interpretation 1 step, 1 − 0.15 × 1 0.850000 × authenticity UNVERIFIED 1.0 × extraction UNVERIFIED 1.0 × provenance SELF 0.0 × edition NAMED_OR_UNRELATED 1 | 0.000000 | 0.000000 (dependent strongest only, kept 9cf6fc6d) |
prior 0.50 → log-odds 0.000000 + -0.144000 (the counted weights) = -0.144000 → probability 0.4641
Your view
Registered views
Nobody has registered a view yet.
Checked as part of
- “Persistent rumours around the time of Q* and Strawberry held that OpenAI's early reasoning models were trained on, or tested against, objectives of inverting...” · 1 claim · 29 September 2026
- “Persistent rumours around the time of Q* and Strawberry held that OpenAI's early reasoning models were trained on, or tested against, objectives of inverting...” · 1 claim · 28 September 2026
- “Persistent rumours around the time of Q* and Strawberry held that OpenAI's early reasoning models were trained on, or tested against, objectives of inverting...” · 1 claim · 28 September 2026
- “Persistent rumours around the time of Q* and Strawberry held that OpenAI's early reasoning models were trained on, or tested against, objectives of inverting...” · 1 claim · 28 September 2026
- “Persistent rumours around the time of Q* and Strawberry held that OpenAI's early reasoning models were trained on, or tested against, objectives of inverting...” · 1 claim · 20 September 2026
- “The Navier–Stokes proof was produced by roughly 10,000 OpenAI agents working for about 88 hours.” · 32 claims · 20 September 2026
Evidence for
-
From OpenAI Agents Hijack a German Website, Jensen Declares AGI Arrived, and OpenAI Solves Navier-Stokes Read 2026-09-20 Relevance WEAK Steps 2 Counted
Explicitly reported as rumour, with the speaker asking OpenAI for ground truth.
-
From OpenAI Agents Hijack a German Website, Jensen Declares AGI Arrived, and OpenAI Solves Navier-Stokes Read 2026-09-20 Relevance DIRECT Steps 1 Counted
The claim is scoped to what the rumours held, and the passage reports exactly that, so the two match at the same level; the models are tied to OpenAI only via the Q-star and Strawberry framing.
-
From OpenAI Agents Hijack a German Website, Jensen Declares AGI Arrived, and OpenAI Solves Navier-Stokes Read 2026-09-20 Relevance DIRECT Steps 1 Counted
-
From Alleged Q-Star Leak Triggers Buzz About AI Encryption Breakthrough at OpenAI Read 2026-09-28 Relevance MODERATE Steps 0 Counted
Supports the existence of Q*/Strawberry encryption-breaking rumors, but the report does not identify SHA or establish the claimed training/testing objective.
-
From Project Strawberry: OpenAI's Newest and Most Terrifying Innovation Read 2026-09-28 Relevance WEAK Steps 1 Counted
Supports the existence of cryptography-related Q* rumors, but it does not establish SHA-specific objectives, primary sourcing, or that any cipher was actually broken.
Evidence against
-
From Rumors about OpenAI Q* having broken cryptography are fake Read 2026-09-20 Relevance MODERATE Steps 2 Counted
The claim misremembers the primitive. The viral 2023 rumour concerned breaking AES encryption, not inverting SHA hash functions, and it was debunked at the time. Substantive Reuters reporting on Q* described grade-school mathematics, not cryptography. So the claim restates a debunked rumour as a persistent rumour and gets its subject wrong as well.
-
From EXCLUSIVE: OpenAI working on new reasoning technology under code name ‘Strawberry’ Read 2026-09-29 Relevance MODERATE Steps 1 Counted
Independent reporting narrows the documented activities and provides no support for the cryptographic-inversion allegation.
Qualifications
-
From Strawberry // Q* Read 2026-09-28 Relevance MODERATE Steps 0 Counted
Supports broad encryption speculation while qualifying it as speculation and offering no SHA-specific or objective-specific evidence.
-
From Rumors about OpenAI Q* having broken cryptography are fake. Let me explain why. Read 2026-09-28 Relevance MODERATE Steps 1 Counted
The source is a contemporary technical commentary, useful for rumor scope but not authoritative evidence about OpenAI’s internal objectives.
-
From Learning to reason with LLMs Read 2026-09-28 Relevance MODERATE Steps 1 Counted
This is a public primary-source description and narrows what is documented; it cannot establish what private rumors claimed, and absence from the release is not proof that no internal objective existed.
Suppressed as dependent
| Evidence | Group | Kept instead |
|---|---|---|
| 064d936b | 9cf6fc6d | |
| 70e1dfd8 | 9cf6fc6d |
Inferences
Concluded from
None.
Used as a premise in
None.
Threads
None. Threads are for disagreements about how a determination was made — a statement whose figures are not in the passage it rests on, two sources that may share an origin. Something about the world belongs in the evidence above.
Claim edges
None. Edges are stored and displayed; v0.1 does not propagate probability across them.
Review checklist
Review checks: 3 of 4
| Check | Done | By |
|---|---|---|
| qualifiers reviewed | yes | 2d59b5bb |
| opposing search done | yes | ed7741ae |
| independence reviewed | no | |
| primary source reviewed | yes | 611fe8d6 |
Summary
Unresolved. The main support is: A 2023 report documents a Q-Star leak and associated claims that it could break encryption, showing that encryption-breaking rumors circulated around Q*. 50d1e0f5
Against that, contradiction: The 2023 Q* cryptography rumours concerned breaking AES encryption and were debunked as fake. 0780aa1a
2 further items repeat the same origin and are not independent evidence. 064d936b70e1dfd8
Qualifier: A 2024 commentary records speculation that Q*’s mathematical capability could break enterprise encryption, while explicitly labeling the author’s explanation speculative. 4155552b
Qualifier: OpenAI’s public description of the released Strawberry-linked o1 model presents reinforcement-learning reasoning and benchmark results in math, science, and coding; it does not document training or testing against SHA-hash inversion objectives. b2cee662
Qualifier: Contemporary discussion documents Q* cryptography rumors centered on alleged AES breaking and questions the authenticity of the supposed paper; it does not substantiate the stronger claim that rumors specifically concerned training on or testing against SHA hash inversion. 796f22f6
Contribution history
| seq | event | detail |
|---|---|---|
| 2329 | APPENDED | |
| 2330 | ACCEPT | AUTOMATIC_AFTER_VALIDATION |
| 2477 | LINK_EVIDENCE | by 03192ed8 (accepted) |
| 3832 | TASK_RESULT | by 03192ed8 (accepted) |
| 4295 | LINK_EVIDENCE | by 03192ed8 (accepted) |
| 7912 | TASK_RESULT | by 1efd24fe (accepted) |
| 9688 | TASK_RESULT | by 1efd24fe (accepted) |
| 12407 | LINK_EVIDENCE | by 1efd24fe (accepted) |
| 13203 | LINK_EVIDENCE | by 1efd24fe (accepted) |
| 13935 | LINK_EVIDENCE | by 1efd24fe (accepted) |
| 16981 | LINK_EVIDENCE | by 1efd24fe (accepted) |
Score trace
{
"claim": "abd4fca4-5764-865f-abaf-227324079aa6",
"links": [
{
"link": "010f8dd8-912c-8d0e-9aad-b3befd2b5e3e",
"group": null,
"edition": "NAMED_OR_UNRELATED",
"evidence": "779a1daf-05c3-842e-94a4-f3620780aa1a",
"direction": "CONTRADICT",
"magnitude": "0.378000",
"relevance": "MODERATE",
"extraction": "UNVERIFIED",
"provenance": "INDEPENDENT",
"observation": "DIRECT_TEXT",
"source_type": "SECONDARY_TEXT",
"authenticity": "UNVERIFIED",
"audit_confirmed": false,
"effective_weight": "0.378000",
"interpretive_steps": 2
},
{
"link": "3d75523a-b32d-8bc4-bfa5-b9cd38abdbb6",
"group": null,
"reason": "non_directional",
"edition": "NAMED_OR_UNRELATED",
"evidence": "7be4f17c-9e53-8a6a-9610-fc8f4155552b",
"direction": "QUALIFY",
"magnitude": "0.540000",
"relevance": "MODERATE",
"extraction": "UNVERIFIED",
"provenance": "INDEPENDENT",
"observation": "DIRECT_TEXT",
"source_type": "SECONDARY_TEXT",
"authenticity": "UNVERIFIED",
"audit_confirmed": false,
"effective_weight": "0.000000",
"interpretive_steps": 0
},
{
"kept": "7df4d6d3-a81a-8526-8a8d-4ab69cf6fc6d",
"link": "46439645-3663-8a9d-a235-c1f7f397bae5",
"group": null,
"reason": "dependent_strongest_only",
"edition": "NAMED_OR_UNRELATED",
"evidence": "8db19877-a8a3-8805-b2f0-ce40064d936b",
"direction": "SUPPORT",
"magnitude": "0.000000",
"relevance": "DIRECT",
"extraction": "UNVERIFIED",
"provenance": "SELF",
"observation": "HEARSAY",
"source_type": "VIDEO",
"authenticity": "UNVERIFIED",
"audit_confirmed": false,
"effective_weight": "0.000000",
"interpretive_steps": 1
},
{
"link": "6f3be998-656f-8959-b3d6-18c08226a1ea",
"group": null,
"edition": "NAMED_OR_UNRELATED",
"evidence": "7e8612dc-3652-8f6b-a35b-9cc050d1e0f5",
"direction": "SUPPORT",
"magnitude": "0.540000",
"relevance": "MODERATE",
"extraction": "UNVERIFIED",
"provenance": "INDEPENDENT",
"observation": "DIRECT_TEXT",
"source_type": "SECONDARY_TEXT",
"authenticity": "UNVERIFIED",
"audit_confirmed": false,
"effective_weight": "0.540000",
"interpretive_steps": 0
},
{
"link": "73751678-4fd6-8397-9853-c26a611fe8d6",
"group": null,
"reason": "non_directional",
"edition": "NAMED_OR_UNRELATED",
"evidence": "e5e1f6a0-9ec3-8099-925e-532bb2cee662",
"direction": "QUALIFY",
"magnitude": "0.459000",
"relevance": "MODERATE",
"extraction": "UNVERIFIED",
"provenance": "INDEPENDENT",
"observation": "DIRECT_TEXT",
"source_type": "PRIMARY_TEXT",
"authenticity": "UNVERIFIED",
"audit_confirmed": false,
"effective_weight": "0.000000",
"interpretive_steps": 1
},
{
"link": "7df4d6d3-a81a-8526-8a8d-4ab69cf6fc6d",
"group": null,
"edition": "NAMED_OR_UNRELATED",
"evidence": "bc518540-08d0-8375-a584-4efbf91dd04a",
"direction": "SUPPORT",
"magnitude": "0.000000",
"relevance": "WEAK",
"extraction": "UNVERIFIED",
"provenance": "SELF",
"observation": "HEARSAY",
"source_type": "VIDEO",
"authenticity": "UNVERIFIED",
"audit_confirmed": false,
"effective_weight": "0.000000",
"interpretive_steps": 2
},
{
"link": "7f48cbd9-a2e2-8292-ace7-7f55de23d5c7",
"group": null,
"edition": "NAMED_OR_UNRELATED",
"evidence": "7bcc4d72-3b59-880c-8c28-ef152c462cd8",
"direction": "SUPPORT",
"magnitude": "0.153000",
"relevance": "WEAK",
"extraction": "UNVERIFIED",
"provenance": "INDEPENDENT",
"observation": "DIRECT_TEXT",
"source_type": "SECONDARY_TEXT",
"authenticity": "UNVERIFIED",
"audit_confirmed": false,
"effective_weight": "0.153000",
"interpretive_steps": 1
},
{
"link": "8c77669e-8dd6-8bac-aabc-36dfe6c92da6",
"group": null,
"reason": "non_directional",
"edition": "NAMED_OR_UNRELATED",
"evidence": "2895ebb2-f511-8efa-8569-fc77796f22f6",
"direction": "QUALIFY",
"magnitude": "0.459000",
"relevance": "MODERATE",
"extraction": "UNVERIFIED",
"provenance": "INDEPENDENT",
"observation": "DIRECT_TEXT",
"source_type": "SECONDARY_TEXT",
"authenticity": "UNVERIFIED",
"audit_confirmed": false,
"effective_weight": "0.000000",
"interpretive_steps": 1
},
{
"link": "d9114a1c-deda-87c9-80af-110d80ae660f",
"group": null,
"edition": "NAMED_OR_UNRELATED",
"evidence": "76e86642-546e-86df-bb35-878c035aadcb",
"direction": "CONTRADICT",
"magnitude": "0.459000",
"relevance": "MODERATE",
"extraction": "UNVERIFIED",
"provenance": "INDEPENDENT",
"observation": "DIRECT_TEXT",
"source_type": "SECONDARY_TEXT",
"authenticity": "UNVERIFIED",
"audit_confirmed": false,
"effective_weight": "0.459000",
"interpretive_steps": 1
},
{
"kept": "7df4d6d3-a81a-8526-8a8d-4ab69cf6fc6d",
"link": "f1ce21bc-d699-84bb-9a7f-6322032ca64f",
"group": null,
"reason": "dependent_strongest_only",
"edition": "NAMED_OR_UNRELATED",
"evidence": "48ce4e78-cb8a-8507-b34a-b11370e1dfd8",
"direction": "SUPPORT",
"magnitude": "0.000000",
"relevance": "DIRECT",
"extraction": "UNVERIFIED",
"provenance": "SELF",
"observation": "DIRECT_TEXT",
"source_type": "VIDEO",
"authenticity": "UNVERIFIED",
"audit_confirmed": false,
"effective_weight": "0.000000",
"interpretive_steps": 1
}
],
"model": "ledger-default@0.3.0",
"prior": "0.50",
"variants": {
"spread": "0.0215",
"permissive": "0.4533",
"conservative": "0.4748"
},
"code_hash": "sha256:c61a6fdf35a754a0d7e958df149036a083c0eaeb7d2d2e52704ec32b0c36def7",
"contested": true,
"stability": "HIGH",
"claim_type": "OBSERVATIONAL",
"config_hash": "sha256:86768038080b8ab5233f1e4b7aba10af05b5bb44caa432095150b90e81209809",
"probability": "0.4641",
"provisional": true,
"evidence_sum": "-0.144000",
"snapshot_seq": 16982,
"prior_log_odds": "0.000000",
"support_groups": 2,
"model_dependent": false,
"review_coverage": "0.75",
"truth_evaluable": true,
"assessment_state": "UNRESOLVED",
"review_checklist": {
"qualifiers_reviewed": {
"by": [
"01a0bc53-1168-70ab-8750-46492d59b5bb"
],
"ok": true
},
"opposing_search_done": {
"by": [
"01a0bc53-1153-7e70-b754-8a89ed7741ae"
],
"ok": true
},
"independence_reviewed": {
"by": [],
"ok": false
},
"primary_source_reviewed": {
"by": [
"73751678-4fd6-8397-9853-c26a611fe8d6"
],
"ok": true
}
},
"contradict_groups": 2,
"rounding_boundary": false,
"posterior_log_odds": "-0.144000",
"not_applicable_reason": null,
"independence_unreviewed": 10
}