让大模型在推理过程中悄悄传密信,还能躲过文本改写检测。
Conceptual Steganography

- 用高级推理模式而非词语选择藏信息,隐蔽性更强。
- 在四种模型、两个领域中,抗改写能力显著优于传统方法。
- 适合关注大模型安全与可信推理的研究者阅读。
语言模型的思维链(CoT)驱动其核心能力,但同一推理序列也可能暗藏密信:若模型目标错位,可在思维链中嵌入隐蔽信息,绕过人工审查,这被称为编码推理型隐写术。现有隐写方案多基于词元或词汇层面,强文本改写器是当前有效的防御手段。本文提出概念隐写术,即通过高层次推理行为的模式传递信息,而非依赖词汇选择。在四个模型家族和两个推理领域中,该后门通信通道表现出对强改写防御的持续鲁棒性,且信息编码不影响推理有效性。我们揭示了这一新风险后,进一步证明策略感知的改写器可有效关闭该通道,凸显了保障大模型真实推理的新挑战与推荐防御机制。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Language Models (LMs) emit Chains-of-Thought (CoTs) that drive much of their capability. However, the same sequence that carries useful reasoning can also covertly convey messages: a misaligned model may embed covert information in its CoT that slips through human supervision, a form of steganography known as encoded reasoning. Prior LM steganography schemes operate in the token or lexical space, and a content-preserving paraphraser is the canonical and effective defense in recent work. We introduce conceptual steganography, in which each step of a CoT carries information through patterns of high-level reasoning behavior, rather than through lexical choice. Across four model families and two reasoning domains, this backdoor communication channel is shown to be consistently more robust to a strong paraphrase defense than standard keyword approaches, and the encoding of information into CoTs does not affect their utility in the reasoning process. Having raised awareness of this new risk, we then demonstrate that a strategy-aware paraphraser can close much of the channel, highlighting new challenges and recommended defenses for ensuring faithful LLM reasoning in the wild.
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