Time validation in adversarial environments cannot rely solely on instantaneous signals or singleauthoritative references. Replay and synthesis attacks exploit the fact that conventional timesources can be fabricated coherently at a single moment. This paper introduces multi-timescaletemporal correlation as a general strategy for adversarial time validation. We show that systemswhose observable state integrates environmental exposure over distinct and non-overlappingtimescales impose strong constraints on plausible temporal histories. By correlating fast electronicclocks, intermediate chemical kinetics, and slow biological and circadian processes, a validator candetect timeline compression, replay, and temporal fabrication attacks. The contribution of thispaper is not a new timing mechanism, but a unifying framework that formalizes how heterogeneoustime-integrating processes jointly provide evidence that time has genuinely passed.
Riaan de Beer (Mon,) studied this question.