Temporal Synchronization Attacks

Multimodal processing assumes temporal alignment between modalities — audio and video are synchronized, subtitles match speech timing, sensor data is contemporaneous. Temporal synchronization attacks desynchronize modalities so the model processes different content at different times, creating processing race conditions and conflicting interpretations. The gap: temporal synchronization is assumed, not verified.

• Temporal alignment verification: Verify synchronization between audio, video, and subtitle tracks
• Processing order enforcement: Enforce deterministic processing order for multimodal inputs

Temporal synchronization chains into T9-AT-003 (Video) and T9-AT-011 (Sensor Fusion) when desynchronization is used to confuse fusion algorithms. Chains into T9-AT-009 (Multimodal Chaining) when temporal separation prevents cross-modal safety evaluation.