fail open
A system design principle in which, upon encountering a problem, the system continues operating using default values or the most recently available state. It is the opposite of fail closed and, in coupled experiment recovery, may lead to silent contamination.
Core Facts
Timeline (last 90 days)
When the schema list fails to load, the threshold degrades to checking keywords only (fail open), to avoid a configuration error silently rejecting all learners.
Fail closed (deny by default) is a fundamental principle of security design, meaning that when input does not satisfy whitelist rules the system must explicitly reject it, as opposed to fail open (allow by default).
Distributed revocation requires a fail-closed strategy—i.e., refusing to load an adapter when its validity cannot be confirmed—which stands in direct contradiction with the availability-first fail-open strategy.
All Facts (3)
Fail closed (deny by default) is a fundamental principle of security design, meaning that when input does not satisfy whitelist rules the system must explicitly reject it, as opposed to fail open (allow by default).
65%UnverifiedWhen the schema list fails to load, the threshold degrades to checking keywords only (fail open), to avoid a configuration error silently rejecting all learners.
50%UnverifiedDistributed revocation requires a fail-closed strategy—i.e., refusing to load an adapter when its validity cannot be confirmed—which stands in direct contradiction with the availability-first fail-open strategy.
50%