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Abstract
The broad capabilities and substantial resources required to train Large
Language Models (LLMs) make them valuable intellectual property, yet they
remain vulnerable to copyright infringement, such as unauthorized use and model
theft. LLM fingerprinting, a non-intrusive technique that extracts and compares
the distinctive features from LLMs to identify infringements, offers a
promising solution to copyright auditing. However, its reliability remains
uncertain due to the prevalence of diverse model modifications and the lack of
standardized evaluation. In this SoK, we present the first comprehensive study
of LLM fingerprinting. We introduce a unified framework and formal taxonomy
that categorizes existing methods into white-box and black-box approaches,
providing a structured overview of the state of the art. We further propose
LeaFBench, the first systematic benchmark for evaluating LLM fingerprinting
under realistic deployment scenarios. Built upon mainstream foundation models
and comprising 149 distinct model instances, LeaFBench integrates 13
representative post-development techniques, spanning both parameter-altering
methods (e.g., fine-tuning, quantization) and parameter-independent mechanisms
(e.g., system prompts, RAG). Extensive experiments on LeaFBench reveal the
strengths and weaknesses of existing methods, thereby outlining future research
directions and critical open problems in this emerging field. The code is
available at https://github.com/shaoshuo-ss/LeaFBench.