Quantization-Triggered Backdoors in Language Models: Cross-Quantizer Transferability and the Validation--Deployment Gap
arXiv:2608.27512v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Post-training quantization is often treated as a semantically neutral optimization for edge deployment of Large Language Models. When a full-precision source checkpoint is evaluated and quantization is applied downstream without equivalent re-evaluation, this workflow creates a structural validation--deployment gap: because quantization is a many-to-one mapping over parameter space, source-precision certification does not guarantee behavioral equiv