Proposal Explorer

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Excluded by your filters: Timed challenge-response and memory-occupation challenges and Remote detection of data centres

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.

• Timed challenge-response and memory-occupation challenges: Analysis · excluded by filters
• Remote detection of data centres: Analysis · excluded by filters

Excluded by your filters

• Timed challenge-response and memory-occupation challenges Development status: Research demonstration. Minimum: Operational use.
• Remote detection of data centres Development status: Proposed. Minimum: Operational use.

Open significant failures

1 failure in 1 mechanism

• Remote memory narrows the timing margin in Timed challenge-response and memory-occupation challenges

  Data-centre remote memory access returns in about 1–2 µs, against about 70–200 ns for local DRAM. The MIRI overview says verification of memory saturation depends on ruling out remote access by latency or physical disconnection. It names pre-staging data into local memory as the remaining evasion and proposes an unpredictable, capacity-filling challenge to close it. ¹

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

  Related mechanism Research demo Bandwidth limits and compartmentalization: Physical disconnection is proposed to exclude remote memory between the separated groups during a challenge. It depends on the isolation boundary being enforced. A pointer, not evidence that this failure is mitigated. Add

Scope limitations

• Facilities can be disguised or hidden in Remote detection of data centres

  Halstead and Larsen discuss two ways to hide a facility. One is to disguise it as a legitimate industrial site. The other is to build it underground, with cooling that avoids visible heat plumes. They note that the underground option requires bespoke engineering. ¹¹

  Scope limitation · Theoretical argument. On the record

• Small sites may not be detectable in Remote detection of data centres

  Halstead and Larsen conclude that a sufficiently small covert project could not be ruled out with confidence. In their estimates, the chance of detection is lower for smaller sites. Krawec notes that small data centres in existing buildings may lack the distinctive features of large facilities. ^{11 13}

  Scope limitation · Theoretical argument. On the record

  Related mechanism Proposed Chip registries and manufacturing records: Accounts for chips from the fab onwards, which does not depend on a site being visible. A pointer, not evidence that this failure is mitigated. Add

Open questions

• Error rates not quantified in Timed challenge-response and memory-occupation challenges

  Monfared et al. show separable timing distributions. Their acceptance rule passes a GPU when its mean time per round stays at or below a chosen maximum, and an appendix outlines statistical tests for the proof-of-work puzzle. They leave hardware-specific threshold values to future work and report no false-positive or false-negative rates. ³

  Open question · Open question. On the record

• Search for unknown sites is undemonstrated in Remote detection of data centres

  Krawec reports that telling data centres apart from other industrial facilities systematically is difficult. Automating detection would need large amounts of training imagery and a purpose-trained model. In Krawec's words, automated data-centre detection "remains primarily conceptual at present". ¹³

  Open question · Open question. On the record

Not yet demonstrated

Proposed Remote detection of data centres

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

• Research demo Bandwidth limits and compartmentalization Add

  Excluded by filters: development: Research demonstration

  • Bears on the open significant failure “Remote memory narrows the timing margin” in Timed challenge-response and memory-occupation challenges. Physical disconnection is proposed to exclude remote memory between the separated groups during a challenge. It depends on the isolation boundary being enforced.
  • Timed challenge-response and memory-occupation challenges waits on it. Outside help, such as remote memory, must be excluded during challenges.

Blockers

6 blockers recorded

• Timed challenge-response and memory-occupation challenges
  • No network-level memory challenge across data-centre servers has been demonstrated. Adversarial validation ¹
  • Challenges that fill memory displace workloads; filling a pod's volatile memory takes tens of minutes and SSDs take hours. Performance & compatibility ^{1 3}
  • Outside help, such as remote memory, must be excluded during challenges. Coverage & hidden compute. Waits on Bandwidth limits and compartmentalization ¹
• Remote detection of data centres
  • Wide-area, automated detection of data centres is not yet practical and needs large training datasets. Coverage & hidden compute ¹³
  • No measured detection or false-alarm rates for finding undeclared facilities have been published. Adversarial validation ^{11 13}
  • Recent high-resolution imagery is costly, is limited by weather and needs trained analysts. Access & governance ¹³

From the family or selected implementation's record. ?

Model weights

Not involved: Timed challenge-response and memory-occupation challenges and Remote detection of data centres.

Inputs and outputs

Not involved: Timed challenge-response and memory-occupation challenges and Remote detection of data centres.

Training data

Not involved: Timed challenge-response and memory-occupation challenges and Remote detection of data centres.

Timed challenge-response and memory-occupation challenges

• Proposed Data-centre memory challenging Proposed architecture, Machine Intelligence Research Institute
• Research demo GPU contention probes Research prototype
• Proposed Low-trust AI compute verification system overview Proposed architecture, Machine Intelligence Research Institute
• Research demo SAGE Research prototype
• Research demo VRAM-residency challenge Research prototype

Remote detection of data centres

None on the map

1. A System Overview for Near-Term, Low-Trust AI Compute Verification, N. Cankaya (2026). Original
2. Verification Plan, R. Dean (2026). Original
3. Timing and Memory Telemetry on GPUs for AI Governance, S. K. Monfared et al. (2026). Original
4. SAGE: Software-based Attestation for GPU Execution, A. Ivanov et al. (2023). Original
5. SWATT: SoftWare-based ATTestation for Embedded Devices, A. Seshadri et al. (2004). Original
6. Proofs of Space, S. Dziembowski et al. (2015). Original
7. Secure Code Update for Embedded Devices via Proofs of Secure Erasure, D. Perito & G. Tsudik (2010). Original
8. Software-Based Memory Erasure with Relaxed Isolation Requirements, S. Bursuc et al. (2024). Original
9. On the Difficulty of Software-Based Attestation of Embedded Devices, C. Castelluccia et al. (2009). Original
10. Refutation of "On the Difficulty of Software-Based Attestation of Embedded Devices", A. Perrig & L. van Doorn (2010). Original
11. Covert AI Projects, B. Halstead & T. Larsen (2026). Original
12. Verifying International Agreements on AI: Six Layers of Verification for Rules on Large-Scale AI Development and Deployment, M. Baker et al. (2025). Original
13. Tracking Hyperscale AI Data Center Growth with Satellite Imagery, C. Krawec (2026). Original
14. Introducing the Frontier Data Centers Hub, Epoch AI (2025). Original
15. AI Data Centers Documentation – Methodology, Epoch AI (2026). Original