arXiv AI By Gosha Kozhevnikov, Tyler Tracy

Screwtape: Adversarial Transcript Editing for Monitor Red-Teaming

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Screwtape is a pipeline that transforms real agent transcripts into adversarial edits designed to bypass action‑only monitors. Using an LLM attacker to modify transcripts and an LLM verifier to ensure consistency, the system generated 35 successful attacks on 94 Claude Code and Codex transcripts, with six confirmed by humans to also evade an external monitor. The study shows that a red‑teamer can discover monitor failures without direct access to a developer’s infrastructure, suggesting a method for improving safety oversight.

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