Published January 27, 2026 | Version 1

Working paper Open

Description

Impostor systems arise in many modern technical infrastructures where systems compete for selection or trust by presenting signals of legitimacy. Traditional approaches to identifying such systems often focus on protocol violations, static correctness, or known indicators of malicious behavior. While effective in some cases, these approaches do not explain why impostor systems across diverse domains tend to exhibit similar behavioral pathologies even when they are syntactically valid and carefully engineered.

This paper introduces the Impostor Rigidity Principle, referred to informally as the Law of Impostor Systems, which provides a structural explanation for this convergence. The principle holds that systems attempting to impersonate legitimate adaptive infrastructure are constrained by the need to remain continuously favorable under selection pressure. Unlike legitimate systems, which can tolerate degradation, environmental coupling, and imperfect adaptation, impostor systems must tightly control their behavior to avoid loss of selection. This asymmetry restricts the range of behaviors impostor systems can safely exhibit and drives them toward rigid behavioral regimes, including excessive stability, weakly coupled variability, and persistence of favorable conditions under stress.

Rather than proposing a detection algorithm or domain-specific defense, this work presents a unifying explanatory framework for understanding impostor behavior across technical domains. By articulating why rigidity emerges as an inherent consequence of impersonation under selection, the Impostor Rigidity Principle offers a foundation for reasoning about system authenticity, monitoring, and design in environments where systems must compete for trust or preference.

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