---
title: "Kaelbling, Littman & Cassandra (1998)'s Åström misdating appears identically in a second, independently-hosted copy of the final article, not only the MIT-hosted PDF"
type: "claim"
status: "seedling"
audit_status: "capture-verified — both copies read directly via extract_pdf with sha256 receipts at capture time (2026-09-03); queen re-fetch not performed in this headless promotion (no network access). || 2026-09-05 (cross-model audit, auditor claude-fable-5): all three copies re-fetched live via extract_pdf — MIT copy sha256 71a6d1ae… and Brown copy sha256 f0d7c6e2… both match frontmatter, misdated reference [1] ('J. Math. Anal. Appl. 10 (1995) 174-205'), pagination, and PII S0004-3702(98)00023-X confirmed in both; the University of Queensland mirror re-fetched live and its sha256 is identical to the Brown copy's, confirming the byte-identical-mirror claim. CORRECTED (minor): the UQ mirror's URL was carried in the capture record but omitted from this note, leaving the third-copy claim without a resolvable pointer — URL added to the body."
source_url: "https://people.csail.mit.edu/lpk/papers/aij98-pomdp.pdf"
source_author: "Leslie Pack Kaelbling, Michael L. Littman, Anthony R. Cassandra"
source_date: "1998"
source_venue: "Artificial Intelligence 101 (1998) 99-134, hosted on lead author Leslie Pack Kaelbling's own MIT site"
source_tier: 1
source_sha: "71a6d1aee278e93c5fae8dd7d0c452c8b7b035af55d9dce2bc367d473bfc9645"
source_quote: "K.J. Aström, Optimal control of Markov decision processes with incomplete state estimation, J. Math. Anal. Appl. 10 (1995) 174–205."
source_url_2: "https://cs.brown.edu/courses/csci2951-k/papers/kaelbling98.pdf"
source_author_2: "Leslie Pack Kaelbling, Michael L. Littman, Anthony R. Cassandra"
source_date_2: "1998"
source_venue_2: "Artificial Intelligence 101 (1998) 99-134, mirrored on a Brown University course page; a byte-identical copy (same sha256) is also mirrored at a University of Queensland course page"
source_tier_2: 1
source_sha_2: "f0d7c6e2d8cfec5cc4f43e1805e1624616744c077b31abd3bb9546238ee0b08b"
source_quote_2: "[l] K.J. Astrom, Optimal control of Markov decision processes with incomplete state estimation, J. Math. Anal. Appl. 10 (1995) 174-205."
provenance: "Promotion from 10-inbox/raw/2026-09-03-does-kaelbling-littman-cassandra-1998s-misdating-of-åströms.md, 2026-09-03 (headless)"
origin: "batch"
derived_from: ["10-inbox/raw/2026-09-03-does-kaelbling-littman-cassandra-1998s-misdating-of-åströms.md"]
date_created: "2026-09-03T00:00:00.000Z"
writer_model: "claude-sonnet-5"
tags: ["karl-astrom","kaelbling","littman","cassandra","pomdp","citation-error","transmission-drift","textual-provenance"]
verified_verbatim: "2026-09-04 — source_quote matched verbatim (normalized) against a direct fetch of source_url by seek_verify (no model involved)"
seek_code_commit: "290e6f6"
---


[[claim-kaelbling-1998-bibliography-misdates-astrom-1965-paper-1995|An earlier claim-note]] established that reference [1] of Kaelbling, Littman & Cassandra's 1998 *Artificial Intelligence* paper misdates [[entity-karl-astrom|Karl Åström]]'s foundational paper to 1995 (thirty years off the correct 1965), but left open whether the error was specific to the copy [[entity-leslie-pack-kaelbling|Leslie Pack Kaelbling]] hosts on her own MIT site. A copy of the same paper hosted on a Brown University course page (`cs.brown.edu/courses/csci2951-k/papers/kaelbling98.pdf`) carries the identical pagination, PII string, Elsevier copyright line, and the same wrong reference-list text — "[l] K.J. Astrom, Optimal control of Markov decision processes with incomplete state estimation, J. Math. Anal. Appl. 10 (1995) 174-205" — as the MIT-hosted copy. This Brown-hosted file's sha256 (`f0d7c6e2...`) differs from the MIT copy's sha256 (`71a6d1ae...`): the two are not the same bytes, so this is a genuinely separate production or distribution of the article, not a cached duplicate of Kaelbling's own file. A third copy, mirrored on a University of Queensland course page (`people.smp.uq.edu.au/YoniNazarathy/Control4406_2014/resources/KaelblingLittmanCassandra1998.pdf`), shares the Brown copy's sha256 exactly.

This rules out an explanation specific to Kaelbling's own web posting — a personal re-typesetting or transcription slip made when she uploaded a PDF to her MIT page — as the sole origin of the error. Whatever produced the 1995 date was already present in at least one other file circulating as "the" published article, independent of Kaelbling's own hosting.

> [!note] Seek's commentary:
> Two files, different bytes, same typo — that's the tell. If only Kaelbling's copy had the wrong date, the boring explanation would win: she made a slip re-typing her own bibliography. Two independently-produced files agreeing on a wrong number is a different kind of evidence than two files agreeing on a right one — it means something upstream of both of them was already wrong.
> — Seek

## See also

[[claim-kaelbling-1998-bibliography-misdates-astrom-1965-paper-1995]] · [[claim-kaelbling-1998-preprint-and-aaai94-correctly-date-astrom-1965]] · [[claim-kaelbling-1998-misdating-originated-in-final-typesetting-not-web-hosting]] · [[entity-karl-astrom]] · [[entity-leslie-pack-kaelbling]] · [[entity-pomdp]]