Release 2026.08 · 11 active records

The hardware-confidence index.

Mechanism-centric reviews of location checks, operating licenses, workload verification, attestation, and the institutional conclusions attached to them.

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Full mechanism reviews, including source caveats, trust registers, and tests that would change the assessment.

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Sort by the properties of the claim. No composite badness score is maintained at this time.

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11 records
OS-00Control

Maturity: Proposed · Reviewed 2026-08-22

Ten thousand off-switches

Distribute thousands of dead-man switches through critical accelerator logic, each requiring fresh cryptographic licenses and halting its local operations when its usage allowance reaches zero.

Consortium finding

Replaces one remotely governed kill switch with a small on-die civilization of them, each waiting for permission to add.

Adversary realism5/5
Trusted dependencies5/5
Policy reach5/5
IV-10Workload

Maturity: Research agenda · Reviewed 2026-08-22

The honest twin server

Log every prompt, output, seed, model release, and code version, then have an isolated trusted server re-run a random sample to detect model weights hidden steganographically in responses.

Consortium finding

Secures a compromised inference stack with an honest twin, a perfect diary, trusted randomness, and a strict rule that stolen weights may leave only through the chat window.

Adversary realism3/5
Trusted dependencies5/5
Policy reach2/5
LV-01Location

Maturity: Research agenda · Reviewed 2026-08-22

Geography by ping time

Estimate where an accelerator lives by timing cryptographic challenges between the chip and trusted landmark servers.

Consortium finding

The smuggled object is invited to participate in the investigation of where the smuggled object is.

Adversary realism4/5
Trusted dependencies5/5
Policy reach4/5
OL-02Control

Maturity: Proposed · Reviewed 2026-08-22

Rent-to-run silicon

Require a periodically renewed operating license before a data-centre AI chip is allowed to function.

Consortium finding

Turns the accelerator into enterprise software, then gives the license server a foreign-policy portfolio.

Adversary realism5/5
Trusted dependencies5/5
Policy reach5/5
FS-03Control

Maturity: Proposed · Reviewed 2026-08-22

The approved friend group

Hard-code a fixed set of chips that may communicate with one another at high bandwidth.

Consortium finding

A cluster topology, a supply chain, and international order are all frozen into one tasteful whitelist.

Adversary realism5/5
Trusted dependencies5/5
Policy reach4/5
FM-04Control

Maturity: Proposed · Reviewed 2026-08-22

Mandatory firmware enlightenment

A hardened module checks that firmware and policy are current, blocking operation when they are not.

Consortium finding

A security update mechanism is promoted to constitutional law, with uptime determined by successful compliance.

Adversary realism4/5
Trusted dependencies5/5
Policy reach5/5
CM-05Attestation

Maturity: Speculative · Reviewed 2026-08-22

FLOPs with a notary stamp

Meter computation on-chip so regulated training runs can be identified and reported against thresholds.

Consortium finding

Counts the arithmetic with great ceremony while capability, efficiency, fine-tuning, and distributed work move around it.

Adversary realism5/5
Trusted dependencies5/5
Policy reach5/5
WV-06Workload

Maturity: Research agenda · Reviewed 2026-08-22

Inspect everything, reveal nothing

Verify properties of training or inference workloads from inside trusted hardware while preserving data and model secrecy.

Consortium finding

The verifier learns just enough to be confident, while trusting a stack large enough to contain several conferences.

Adversary realism4/5
Trusted dependencies5/5
Policy reach5/5
PT-07Attestation

Maturity: Speculative · Reviewed 2026-08-22

Proof that training happened properly

Use cryptographic proof-of-training so a verifier can establish that a declared training computation occurred.

Consortium finding

A proof of execution begins a rewarding second career as a proof of intent, provenance, and safety.

Adversary realism3/5
Trusted dependencies5/5
Policy reach4/5
HG-08Control

Maturity: Research agenda · Reviewed 2026-08-22

Policy, but make it a peripheral

Add flexible hardware guarantees that can meter compute, enforce limits, gate deployment, and automate safety protocols.

Consortium finding

The chip becomes auditor, regulator, border officer, safety case, and—if there is room left—matrix multiplier.

Adversary realism4/5
Trusted dependencies5/5
Policy reach5/5
RT-09Attestation

Maturity: Deployed-ish · Reviewed 2026-08-22

Tamperproof certificates, continuously

Use CPU and GPU trusted environments to issue hardware-rooted certificates for AI processes throughout runtime.

Consortium finding

The certificate is tamperproof. The platform, verifier, policy, firmware, operator, and meaning of ‘compliant’ remain available separately.

Adversary realism4/5
Trusted dependencies5/5
Policy reach4/5