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Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting and Tamper evidence for verifier devices

No new hardware needed

Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting

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.

• Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting: Analysis
• Tamper evidence for verifier devices: Analysis

Open significant failures

3 failures in 2 mechanisms

• Known shortcuts let a miner claim somewhat more work than it did in Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting

  Pearl's specification lists known mining speedups: crafted inputs, precision shortcuts, seed grinding, work reuse, and faster kernels or hardware. A policy check caps the summands a miner may skip at one-sixteenth of those in a tile. For capacity bounding, any gap between work proven and work possible leaves spare capacity. ⁴

  Known failure · Theoretical argument · Significant · Open. On the record

• Seals are often defeated with simple methods in Tamper evidence for verifier devices

  Published defeats of general security seals. They warn about proposed verifier-device seals, but do not demonstrate defeat of an AI verification enclosure or sensor.

  In 1996 a Los Alamos vulnerability assessment defeated all 94 security seals it examined, with 132 defeats in total, using rapid, inexpensive, low-tech methods. It found that seal cost did not predict security. In 2001 Johnston reported that high-tech seals are often easier to defeat than low-tech ones. ^{13 14}

  Known failure · Demonstrated attack · Significant · Open · Mechanism-class evidence. On the record

• Attack classes outside published models in Tamper evidence for verifier devices

  The radio compensation result is emulated using measured channel data under a known-reference attacker model. It is not a physical bypass demonstration against an AI verifier enclosure.

  The authors of the batteryless cover say they cannot assess chemical-solvent attacks, which exceed their expertise, and deem cover removal impractical. Anti-Tamper Radio's reference can drift as the environment or measurement system ages; the authors suggest gradually renewing the reference. A 2025 follow-up by some of the same authors shows, by emulation on measured channel data, that an attacker who knows the reference channel and the needle's effect on it could inject a signal that cancels the change caused by a needle insertion. It proposes a reconfigurable intelligent surface that randomizes the channel as a countermeasure. ^{6 7 15}

  Known failure · Open question · Significant · Open · Mechanism-class evidence. On the record

Scope limitations

• Proves that work was done, not that no capacity remains in Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting

  Proof-of-work accounting bounds unmonitored compute only relative to an estimate of what the actor has. Attestable states that the verifier "needs a credible estimate of the compute available" to the actor, and that a proof "cannot discover a datacenter that was never declared". ¹

  Scope limitation · Theoretical argument. On the record

  Related mechanism Proposed Chip registries and manufacturing records: A registry of chips is one basis for the estimate of available compute that the flaw's source says the verifier needs. A pointer, not evidence that this failure is mitigated. Add

  Related mechanism Proposed Remote detection of data centres: Looks for data centres that were never declared, which a proof cannot discover. A pointer, not evidence that this failure is mitigated. Add

• Security depends on inspection protocols in Tamper evidence for verifier devices

  An inspection and protocol requirement drawn from safeguards and enclosure studies, not a reported break of a deployed AI verifier.

  Johnston argues that a seal is no better than the protocols for using it, and that inspectors are usually given little useful information on how to detect tampering. The Sandia survey notes that larger enclosures are hard to inspect fully and that sensor data must be authenticated. ^{11 14}

  Scope limitation · Theoretical argument · Mechanism-class evidence. On the record

Open questions

• Security rests on new hardness assumptions in Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting

  Komargodski and Weinstein base security on hardness assumptions about batches of low-rank random linear equations, and list PoUW "from more standard or well-studied assumptions" as an open problem. Pearl's floating-point variant introduces a further "quantized-subspace hardness" assumption. ^{3 4}

  Open question · Open question. On the record

Not yet demonstrated

Proposed Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting

Mechanisms on the map that are not in the proposal. Pointers, not recommendations. ?

The records connect no other mechanism to this proposal's gaps, open failures or dependencies.

Blockers

7 blockers recorded

• Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting
  • Bounding spare capacity needs a credible estimate of the compute available to the actor, including third-party access. Capacity bounds ¹
  • Proofs of work cannot find facilities that were never declared. Coverage & hidden compute ¹
  • As of September 2026 no implementation, demonstration or independent evaluation of proofs of work for capacity bounding has been published. Adversarial validation
• Tamper evidence for verifier devices
  • No tamper-evident enclosure has been designed for AI verifier hardware at retrofit scale. Hardware trust ¹²
  • Battery-backed designs add bulk, limit operating temperature (+10 °C to +35 °C for the IBM 4765) and complicate transport. Performance & compatibility ⁷
  • Active monitoring needs power, and visual inspection of large enclosures faces access limits. Access & governance ¹¹
  • No evaluation has been published in the AI verification setting. Adversarial validation ¹²

From the family or selected implementation's record. ?

Model weights

Depends on the design for Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting.

Not involved: Tamper evidence for verifier devices.

Inputs and outputs

Depends on the design for Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting.

Not involved: Tamper evidence for verifier devices.

Training data

Not involved: Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting and Tamper evidence for verifier devices.

Proofs of useful work for capacity accounting

• Operational use Pearl proof-of-useful-work blockchain Open-source project, Pearl Research Labs

Tamper evidence for verifier devices

• Proposed AI 2040 inference-only verification stack Proposed architecture, AI Futures Project

1. Pacing AI Requires Proof, Attestable (2026). Original
2. Mechanisms to Verify International Agreements About AI Development, A. Scher & L. Thiergart (2025). Original
3. Proofs of Useful Work from Arbitrary Matrix Multiplication, I. Komargodski & O. Weinstein (2025). Original
4. Pearl Floating Point Scheme Specification, Pearl Research Team (2026). Original
5. pearl: Monorepo for the Pearl network, Pearl Research Labs (2026). Original
6. Anti-Tamper Radio: System-Level Tamper Detection for Computing Systems, P. Staat et al. (2022). Original
7. Secure Physical Enclosures from Covers with Tamper-Resistance, V. Immler et al. (2019). Original
8. ImpedanceVerif: On-Chip Impedance Sensing for System-Level Tampering Detection, T. Mosavirik et al. (2023). Original
9. IBM 4765 Cryptographic Coprocessor Security Module: Security Policy, IBM Corporation (2012). Original
10. PHYSEC SEAL: Change detection for maximum safety, PHYSEC GmbH (2026). Original
11. Tamper-Indicating Enclosures, A Current Survey, H. A. Smartt & Z. N. Gastelum (2015). Original
12. A System Overview for Near-Term, Low-Trust AI Compute Verification, N. Cankaya (2026). Original
13. Physical Security and Tamper-Indicating Devices, R. G. Johnston & A. R. E. Garcia (1996). Original
14. Tamper Detection for Safeguards and Treaty Monitoring: Fantasies, Realities, and Potentials, R. G. Johnston (2001). Original
15. Anti-Tamper Radio Meets Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface for System-Level Tamper Detection, M. S. Tabar et al. (2025). Original