# AI verification proposal

A proposal built with the Proposal Explorer of the AI Verification Tech Map (https://trustbutveri.fyi/), from its records of 2026-10-09. Interactive version: https://trustbutveri.fyi/explorer/?mechanisms=M-0009,M-0013&cols=prover,tested

How to read it: a claim is something one party wants to verify about another's AI hardware or software. A mechanism is a general technique for verifying claims; it is "aimed at" a claim when that is its direct purpose, and "supporting" when it contributes without being aimed at it. A claim is addressed when a mechanism in the proposal is aimed at it and is not excluded by the filters; addressed does not mean verified, so check that mechanism's development status, security evidence and findings. Definitions: https://trustbutveri.fyi/about/methodology/ (roles, properties and findings) and https://trustbutveri.fyi/about/readiness/ (development status).

## Filters

Filters apply to mechanisms only and describe the setting the proposal is for.

None set. Every mechanism on the map was available.

## Overview

One row per mechanism, read from its record. Open failures: critical / significant / minor. The last three columns are the editors' reading of what the verifier sees. Findings are grouped as known failures, scope limitations and open questions. Only known failures count as failures. Counts are an inventory of published findings, not a risk score.

| Mechanism | Development | Security evidence | Prover | Attack testing | Hardware | Open failures | Weights | Inputs and outputs | Training data |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Hardware-enabled guarantees (flexHEG) and guarantee processors | Proposed | Published security analysis | Adversarial | Analysis | New chip design | 0 / 3 / 0 | hidden | hidden | hidden |
| Network taps and certifiers | Proposed | Published security analysis | Adversarial | Analysis | Retrofit device | 0 / 2 / 0 | depends | depends | depends |

## Claims

No claims chosen.

## Mechanisms

### Hardware-enabled guarantees (flexHEG) and guarantee processors

A proposed add-on for AI chips: an auditable guarantee processor, sealed in a tamper-protected enclosure, that would check and enforce agreed rules on chip use. ([Hardware-enabled guarantees (flexHEG) and guarantee processors](https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/flexheg-guarantee-processors/))

- Assessment: mechanism family.
- Development: Proposed (legacy code R1), assessed for checking and enforcing training-compute limits on chips, against adversaries up to states.
- Security evidence: Published security analysis. Independent evaluation: unassessed. Formal proof: unassessed. Deployment assurance: unassessed.
- Claims in this proposal: none of them.
- Threat model: adversarial prover. Hardware: new chip design. Prover cooperation: required. Attack testing: analysis. Category: On-chip & hardware-enabled.
- What the verifier sees: model weights hidden; inputs and outputs hidden; training data hidden. The guarantee processor sees the chip's traffic inside a sealed enclosure and reports only whether rules were kept.

### Network taps and certifiers

Devices on a cluster's network links that copy and hash all traffic, so a verifier can later check sampled records against declared work. ([Network taps and certifiers](https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/network-taps-and-certifiers/))

- Assessment: mechanism family.
- Development: Proposed (legacy code R1), assessed for committing a complete record of cluster traffic, so declared inference can be checked.
- Security evidence: Published security analysis. Independent evaluation: unassessed. Formal proof: unassessed. Deployment assurance: unassessed.
- Claims in this proposal: none of them.
- Threat model: adversarial prover. Hardware: retrofit device. Prover cooperation: required. Attack testing: analysis. Category: Off-chip devices & sensors.
- What the verifier sees: model weights depends; inputs and outputs depends; training data depends. Only hashes leave the site; records picked for a challenge are opened for replay at a verification facility.


## Properties

**Built for an adversarial prover**

- Hardware-enabled guarantees (flexHEG) and guarantee processors
- Network taps and certifiers

**Failures since mitigated**

- Verifier dictionary attacks on hashes (in Network taps and certifiers) [7]


## Attack testing

Attack testing records published testing for this use. It does not by itself show independent review, a formal proof or that a deployed system is secure.

**Testing history**

- Hardware-enabled guarantees (flexHEG) and guarantee processors: Analysis
- Network taps and certifiers: Analysis


## Limits

**Open significant failures**

- State attackers can likely defeat current secure enclosures (known failure, theoretical argument, in Hardware-enabled guarantees (flexHEG) and guarantee processors; https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/flexheg-guarantee-processors/evidence/flaws/1/) [2][4]. The flexHEG authors write that "nation-state attackers can likely compromise the best current secure enclosures", and that the marginal cost of circumvention per device is hard to estimate. RAND similarly judges that anti-tamper measures "would not be insurmountable for a determined and well-resourced adversary", although they raise costs and can reveal tampering.
- Firmware-only retrofits rely on Secure Boot, which fault injection can bypass (known failure, theoretical argument, in Hardware-enabled guarantees (flexHEG) and guarantee processors; https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/flexheg-guarantee-processors/evidence/flaws/2/) [2]. Part II notes that the most common attack on Secure Boot replaces the firmware and applies a voltage glitch while the signature is being checked. It also notes that sophisticated actors may use microprobing or laser voltage probing to read key registers.
- FLOP accounting can be laundered through external data (known failure, theoretical argument, in Hardware-enabled guarantees (flexHEG) and guarantee processors; https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/flexheg-guarantee-processors/evidence/flaws/4/) [2]. Results of earlier or parallel workloads could be hidden in the "external data" fed to a device, which would falsify the total FLOP count unless the inputs are explained or time delays are imposed.
- Output nondeterminism leaves covert capacity (known failure, theoretical argument, in Network taps and certifiers; https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/network-taps-and-certifiers/evidence/flaws/1/) [7][15]. Hashing cannot remove information hidden in the outputs themselves. The Secure Gateway Device paper estimates that about 0.1 bit per token remains even with seed-synchronized replay checks. For a 200k-GPU inference cluster at full load (2,000 tokens per GPU per second), that is about 40 Mbit/s of covert egress, enough to move a 1 TB model in under three days. The paper names this the core remaining challenge and points to deterministic replay or active scrubbing of hardware-induced entropy. An independent study found that an adversary who chooses the prompts roughly doubles the bits leaked per token under Gumbel-based inference verification; see Bounding unexplained information in outputs.

  Related mechanism: Deterministic and bit-exact inference (R3, not in the proposal). Deterministic replay is one of the two remedies the flaw's source names.

  Related mechanism: Bounding unexplained information in outputs (R2, not in the proposal). Bounds the hidden information outputs can carry by measuring what the declared computation fails to predict.
- Residual side channels in simple passive setups (known failure, theoretical argument, in Network taps and certifiers; https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/network-taps-and-certifiers/evidence/flaws/4/) [11]. Amodo's analysis of its own tapped prototype lists unvalidated header fields, timing of permitted traffic and variation in response formatting as residual channels, and concludes that the passive tap must be replaced by an active one.

**Scope limitations**

- Many important rules cannot be checked on-chip (scope limitation, theoretical argument, in Hardware-enabled guarantees (flexHEG) and guarantee processors; https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/flexheg-guarantee-processors/evidence/flaws/3/) [1][3]. Malicious intent "is not a technical property observable on-chip", and misuse depends on what is done with a computation's results. A guarantee processor cannot easily tell whether a network is the whole system or one expert in a mixture-of-experts system. Part III judges that a fully local ruleset "may not be entirely feasible" for the same reason.
- Coverage stops at flexHEG-equipped chips (scope limitation, open question, in Hardware-enabled guarantees (flexHEG) and guarantee processors; https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/flexheg-guarantee-processors/evidence/flaws/6/) [1][3]. Motivated actors will always be able to use some compute that is not flexHEG-equipped. Recalling existing consumer GPUs would likely be impractical, and reaching perfect coverage, or conclusively proving that no secret government data centres exist, would be "practically quite difficult".

  Related mechanism: Chip registries and manufacturing records (R1, not in the proposal). Accounts for which chips exist and who holds them.

  Related mechanism: Remote detection of data centres (R1, not in the proposal). Looks for undeclared facilities that hold other chips.
- Some links cannot be passively tapped (scope limitation, open question, in Network taps and certifiers; https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/network-taps-and-certifiers/evidence/flaws/2/) [8][16]. Cankaya notes that copper-connected scale-up domains (for example NVL72 racks and TPU v7 cubes) are much harder to tap than fibre, and that optical budgets make passive taps impractical on 400GBASE-SR8 multimode links. Amodo found no taps advertised for 53 GBaud links as of May 2026.
- Encrypted fabrics hide plaintext from both parties (scope limitation, open question, in Network taps and certifiers; https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/network-taps-and-certifiers/evidence/flaws/3/) [8]. Cankaya notes that with TEE-protected sessions whose keys are ephemeral and managed inside the TEE, neither the operator nor the manufacturer can recover session keys after the session, so tapped traffic could not be opened for recomputation. For other encrypted fabrics, the operator can retain keys.
- Completeness rests on physical monitoring left out of scope (scope limitation, open question, in Network taps and certifiers; https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/network-taps-and-certifiers/evidence/flaws/5/) [7]. The Secure Gateway Device paper assumes the facility is physically monitored, and states that the whole architecture depends on the device being the only communication channel. It names radio emanation, power-line signalling and thermal channels as covert channels beyond that scope.

  Related mechanism: Side-channel suppression for isolated facilities (R1, not in the proposal). Addresses the radio, power-line and thermal channels that network-level designs leave out.

**Open questions**

- Supply-chain diversion and hidden backdoors (open question, open question, in Hardware-enabled guarantees (flexHEG) and guarantee processors; https://trustbutveri.fyi/mechanisms/flexheg-guarantee-processors/evidence/flaws/5/) [2][3]. Components could be diverted before a guarantee processor is added, and backdoors could be introduced during design or manufacturing. Open-source designs and physical scans of randomly selected chips are proposed as countermeasures. Part III proposes international oversight of production and extensive testing of a random sample of finished devices.

  Related mechanism: Chip registries and manufacturing records (R1, not in the proposal). Records each chip's identity and owner from the fab onwards, which bears on diversion before a guarantee processor is fitted. It does not address hidden backdoors.

**Not yet demonstrated**

- Hardware-enabled guarantees (flexHEG) and guarantee processors: Proposed (legacy code R1), assessed for checking and enforcing training-compute limits on chips, against adversaries up to states
- Network taps and certifiers: Proposed (legacy code R1), assessed for committing a complete record of cluster traffic, so declared inference can be checked

**Need new chip designs**

- Hardware-enabled guarantees (flexHEG) and guarantee processors


## Possible additions

Mechanisms on the map, not in the proposal, that the records connect to an unaddressed or partly addressed claim, an open failure or a dependency. Pointers, not recommendations: each brings its own readiness level and findings, and none is claimed to close a failure.

- **Deterministic and bit-exact inference** (Operational use (legacy code R3), assessed for reproducing open-model inference from receipts in Gensyn's information-market service)
  - Bears on the open significant failure "Output nondeterminism leaves covert capacity" in Network taps and certifiers. Deterministic replay is one of the two remedies the flaw's source names.
  - Network taps and certifiers waits on it: Nondeterministic inference leaves covert capacity in outputs that hashing cannot remove.
- **Bounding unexplained information in outputs** (Research demonstration (legacy code R2), assessed for bounding how much hidden information can leave in checked inference outputs)
  - Bears on the open significant failure "Output nondeterminism leaves covert capacity" in Network taps and certifiers. Bounds the hidden information outputs can carry by measuring what the declared computation fails to predict.
- **Tamper evidence for verifier devices** (Research demonstration (legacy code R2), assessed for detecting probing of proposed verifier hardware, using server and electronics prototypes as evidence)
  - Hardware-enabled guarantees (flexHEG) and guarantee processors waits on it: State-level attackers who hold the hardware can likely compromise the best current secure enclosures.
  - Network taps and certifiers waits on it: Taps and gateway devices need tamper-evident housing and physical monitoring so that traffic cannot bypass them.
- **Chip registries and manufacturing records** (Proposed (legacy code R1), assessed for a checkable record of which chips were made and who declared owning them)
  - Hardware-enabled guarantees (flexHEG) and guarantee processors waits on it: Governing all relevant chips depends on knowing where they are, through chip registries and detection of undeclared facilities.
- **Side-channel suppression for isolated facilities** (Proposed (legacy code R1), assessed for bounding physical covert channels out of a verified enclosure)
  - Network taps and certifiers waits on it: Radio, power-line and thermal channels are not addressed by network-level designs.
- **Sampled inference recomputation** (Operational use (legacy code R3), assessed for checking untrusted workers' activations against the declared model, prompt and precision)
  - Network taps and certifiers depends on it.
- **TEE remote attestation for AI workloads** (Operational use (legacy code R3), assessed for showing which software ran to a party that distrusts the operator holding the hardware)
  - Hardware-enabled guarantees (flexHEG) and guarantee processors depends on it.


## Dependencies

**Missing prerequisites**

- TEE remote attestation for AI workloads (Operational use (legacy code R3), assessed for showing which software ran to a party that distrusts the operator holding the hardware), needed by Hardware-enabled guarantees (flexHEG) and guarantee processors
- Chip registries and manufacturing records (Proposed (legacy code R1), assessed for a checkable record of which chips were made and who declared owning them), needed by Hardware-enabled guarantees (flexHEG) and guarantee processors
- Sampled inference recomputation (Operational use (legacy code R3), assessed for checking untrusted workers' activations against the declared model, prompt and precision), needed by Network taps and certifiers
- Deterministic and bit-exact inference (Operational use (legacy code R3), assessed for reproducing open-model inference from receipts in Gensyn's information-market service), needed by Network taps and certifiers
- Tamper evidence for verifier devices (Research demonstration (legacy code R2), assessed for detecting probing of proposed verifier hardware, using server and electronics prototypes as evidence), needed by Network taps and certifiers
- Side-channel suppression for isolated facilities (Proposed (legacy code R1), assessed for bounding physical covert channels out of a verified enclosure), needed by Network taps and certifiers

**Shared foundations**

- Tamper evidence for verifier devices, relied on by Hardware-enabled guarantees (flexHEG) and guarantee processors and Network taps and certifiers

**Blockers**

- Hardware-enabled guarantees (flexHEG) and guarantee processors: Integrated flexHEG needs substantial help from the accelerator manufacturer, and the authors estimate 3.7–7.9 years, from when the manufacturer starts work, for such hardware to displace other accelerators in frontier development. (access & governance) [2]
- Hardware-enabled guarantees (flexHEG) and guarantee processors: State-level attackers who hold the hardware can likely compromise the best current secure enclosures. (hardware trust; waits on Tamper evidence for verifier devices) [2][4]
- Hardware-enabled guarantees (flexHEG) and guarantee processors: Rival states would need to trust the design and manufacture of guarantee processors and enclosures, for example through open design, redundant processors from each side or oversight of production. (hardware trust) [1][3]
- Hardware-enabled guarantees (flexHEG) and guarantee processors: Restricting future rule updates would need a formal language for rules, which the authors judge most likely infeasible for early flexHEG versions. (protocol soundness) [1]
- Hardware-enabled guarantees (flexHEG) and guarantee processors: Governing all relevant chips depends on knowing where they are, through chip registries and detection of undeclared facilities. (coverage & hidden compute; waits on Chip registries and manufacturing records) [3]
- Network taps and certifiers: No complete verification tap has been demonstrated at production frontend link rates, and on the tested CPU no hash algorithm reached line rate with minimum-size frames. (performance & compatibility) [16][17]
- Network taps and certifiers: Nondeterministic inference leaves covert capacity in outputs that hashing cannot remove. (evidence binding; waits on Deterministic and bit-exact inference) [7]
- Network taps and certifiers: Taps and gateway devices need tamper-evident housing and physical monitoring so that traffic cannot bypass them. (hardware trust; waits on Tamper evidence for verifier devices) [7][9]
- Network taps and certifiers: Radio, power-line and thermal channels are not addressed by network-level designs. (coverage & hidden compute; waits on Side-channel suppression for isolated facilities) [7]
- Network taps and certifiers: Red-teaming by specialists is called for but has not been reported. (adversarial validation) [7]


## What the verifier sees

- Model weights: shown by none; depends on the design for Network taps and certifiers; hidden by Hardware-enabled guarantees (flexHEG) and guarantee processors; not involved in none; unspecified for none.
- Inputs and outputs: shown by none; depends on the design for Network taps and certifiers; hidden by Hardware-enabled guarantees (flexHEG) and guarantee processors; not involved in none; unspecified for none.
- Training data: shown by none; depends on the design for Network taps and certifiers; hidden by Hardware-enabled guarantees (flexHEG) and guarantee processors; not involved in none; unspecified for none.

## Implementations

- Hardware-enabled guarantees (flexHEG) and guarantee processors: none on the map
- Network taps and certifiers: [AI 2040 inference-only verification stack](https://trustbutveri.fyi/implementations/ai-2040-inference-only-verification-plan/) (R1, proposed architecture); [Low-trust AI compute verification system overview](https://trustbutveri.fyi/implementations/low-trust-compute-verification-system-overview/) (R1, proposed architecture); [SASH confidential network logger](https://trustbutveri.fyi/implementations/sash-confidential-network-logger/) (R1, research prototype)

## Sources

1. Flexible Hardware-Enabled Guarantees for AI Compute, J. Petrie et al. (2025). https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.15093
2. Technical Options for Flexible Hardware-Enabled Guarantees, J. Petrie & O. Aarne (2025). https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.03409
3. International Security Applications of Flexible Hardware-Enabled Guarantees, O. Aarne & J. Petrie (2025). https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.15100
4. Hardware-Enabled Governance Mechanisms: Developing Technical Solutions to Exempt Items Otherwise Classified Under Export Control Classification Numbers 3A090 and 4A090, G. Kulp et al. (2024). https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WRA3056-1.html
5. Secure, Governable Chips: Using On-Chip Mechanisms to Manage National Security Risks from AI & Advanced Computing, O. Aarne et al. (2024). https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/secure-governable-chips
6. Hardware-Enabled Mechanisms for Verifying Responsible AI Development, A. O'Gara et al. (2025). https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.03742
7. Fingerprinting All AI Cluster I/O Without Mutually Trusted Processors, N. Cankaya et al. (2026). https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.10724
8. The Fundamentals and Feasibility of Secure Network Taps for Verifying AI Datacenter Use, N. Cankaya (2026). https://nacicankaya.substack.com/p/research-note-the-fundamentals-and
9. A System Overview for Near-Term, Low-Trust AI Compute Verification, N. Cankaya (2026). https://intelligence.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/A-system-overview-for-near-term-low-trust-AI-compute-verification.pdf
10. Verification Plan, R. Dean (2026). https://ai-2040.com/supplements/verification-plan
11. Fitting a Network TAP to our Inference Verification Prototype, Amodo Design (2026). https://amododesign.com/notes/2026-09-15-network-tap-inference-verification/
12. Amodo-Design/Inference-Recomputation-Prototype (GitHub repository), Amodo Design (2026). https://github.com/Amodo-Design/Inference-Recomputation-Prototype
13. inference-verification: Inference Verification Prototype, Singapore AI Safety Hub (SASH) (2026). https://github.com/sg-ai-safety-hub/inference-verification
14. Internationalising AI Verification, Singapore AI Safety Hub (SASH) (2026). https://www.aisafety.sg/research/internationalising-ai-verification
15. Adversarial Entropy Inflation Against Gumbel-Based Inference Verification, N. Kezins (2026). https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.23375
16. Network Tapping for AI Verification: A Technical Assessment, Amodo Design (2026). https://amododesign.com/notes/2026-05-03-network-tapping/
17. Network Traffic Hashing, Amodo Design (2026). https://amododesign.com/notes/2026-07-03-network-traffic-hashing/