Dmitri Alperovitch
@dmitri.silverado.org
Geopolitics, Russia, China, Cyber
Chairman @silverado.org
Author of WorldOnTheBrink.com
Host GeopoliticsDecanted.com podcast
Founder Alperovitch Institute for Cybersecurity Studies at Johns Hopkins SAIS
Co-Founder CrowdStrike
@DAlperovitch elsewhere
Chairman @silverado.org
Author of WorldOnTheBrink.com
Host GeopoliticsDecanted.com podcast
Founder Alperovitch Institute for Cybersecurity Studies at Johns Hopkins SAIS
Co-Founder CrowdStrike
@DAlperovitch elsewhere
Reposted by Dmitri Alperovitch
I found the latest episode of Geopolitics Decanted with @dmitri.silverado.org very informative on the state of the Russian economy. I don’t know whether these new sanctions are enough to be the potential game changers identified by Chris Weafer.
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/g...
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/g...
Keeping Russian Economy Afloat: Kremlin's Economic High Wire Act
Podcast Episode · Geopolitics Decanted with Dmitri Alperovitch · 22/10/2025 · 44m
podcasts.apple.com
October 23, 2025 at 12:29 AM
I found the latest episode of Geopolitics Decanted with @dmitri.silverado.org very informative on the state of the Russian economy. I don’t know whether these new sanctions are enough to be the potential game changers identified by Chris Weafer.
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/g...
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/g...
I haven’t. What do you think has changed primarily?
August 26, 2025 at 8:38 PM
I haven’t. What do you think has changed primarily?
Hopefully we made it clear on the podcast!
August 5, 2025 at 10:51 PM
Hopefully we made it clear on the podcast!
The key is to keep the implementation as simple as possible (attestation via Intel Trust Authority or mTLS) and not include poison pills like kill switches and geofencing that would make this unworkable and too onerous for end-users and chip designers alike
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July 16, 2025 at 1:02 PM
The key is to keep the implementation as simple as possible (attestation via Intel Trust Authority or mTLS) and not include poison pills like kill switches and geofencing that would make this unworkable and too onerous for end-users and chip designers alike
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Through this lens, the Chip Security Act or similar solutions would help accomplish the goal of identifying export control violators with minimal overhead to AI chip companies and exporters
July 16, 2025 at 1:02 PM
Through this lens, the Chip Security Act or similar solutions would help accomplish the goal of identifying export control violators with minimal overhead to AI chip companies and exporters
The goal here would not be to identify and stop every AI chip export violation but to collect additional data that might help identify export control violators
July 16, 2025 at 1:02 PM
The goal here would not be to identify and stop every AI chip export violation but to collect additional data that might help identify export control violators
In another scenario, if you have a customer that has purchased tens of thousands of AI chips which are not reporting in every month (accounting for typical chip failure rates, etc), it is also grounds for a BIS investigation of an importer
July 16, 2025 at 1:02 PM
In another scenario, if you have a customer that has purchased tens of thousands of AI chips which are not reporting in every month (accounting for typical chip failure rates, etc), it is also grounds for a BIS investigation of an importer
A typical hop between eg Shanghai and Singapore will add 40-300ms of consistent latency which can be easily detected. This would then be a clue for BIS to investigate further
July 16, 2025 at 1:02 PM
A typical hop between eg Shanghai and Singapore will add 40-300ms of consistent latency which can be easily detected. This would then be a clue for BIS to investigate further
To mitigate against this, the exporter's webserver can measure round trip time (RTT) for packets inside the mTLS connection and then compare it to pings to the IP from which the connection is originating
July 16, 2025 at 1:02 PM
To mitigate against this, the exporter's webserver can measure round trip time (RTT) for packets inside the mTLS connection and then compare it to pings to the IP from which the connection is originating
Of course, this is not full-proof. Chinese companies can purchase AI chips through shell companies elsewhere, reship the chips to China and then proxy their mTLS connections through VPNs and proxies in countries where the shell companies are based
July 16, 2025 at 1:02 PM
Of course, this is not full-proof. Chinese companies can purchase AI chips through shell companies elsewhere, reship the chips to China and then proxy their mTLS connections through VPNs and proxies in countries where the shell companies are based
Another way to accomplish this might to be use existing Intel Trust Authority for GPU remote attestation architecture that Intel and Nvidia have partnered on but that creates a requirement to use Intel CPUs, which may not be ideal in every case docs.trustauthority.intel.com/main/article...
GPU Remote Attestation With Intel® Trust Authority | Intel® Tiber™ Trust Authority
Learn about the Intel® Trust Authority Python Client, CLI for Intel TDX and NVIDIA GPU, and Intel Trust Authority REST API that support GPU attestation.
docs.trustauthority.intel.com
July 16, 2025 at 1:02 PM
Another way to accomplish this might to be use existing Intel Trust Authority for GPU remote attestation architecture that Intel and Nvidia have partnered on but that creates a requirement to use Intel CPUs, which may not be ideal in every case docs.trustauthority.intel.com/main/article...
GPU drivers can already do mTLS handshake operations like ECDSA signing, so this doesn’t even require any new code from the chip designers
July 16, 2025 at 1:02 PM
GPU drivers can already do mTLS handshake operations like ECDSA signing, so this doesn’t even require any new code from the chip designers
The connection can be trivially initiated via a simple script from other parts of the environment where the AI chip is deployed, but just talk to the GPU driver for handshake initiation/client key exchange with the EXPORT_CERT. This minimizes the technical reqs for AI chips
July 16, 2025 at 1:02 PM
The connection can be trivially initiated via a simple script from other parts of the environment where the AI chip is deployed, but just talk to the GPU driver for handshake initiation/client key exchange with the EXPORT_CERT. This minimizes the technical reqs for AI chips
The mTLS connection would not originate from the chip itself. In fact, it doesn’t even have to originate from the server that the chip is in
July 16, 2025 at 1:02 PM
The mTLS connection would not originate from the chip itself. In fact, it doesn’t even have to originate from the server that the chip is in
So if a chip is being sold to a data center in Singapore but the connection originates from an IP address in China (or anywhere else), well, that means you might have a potential transshipment on your hands that warrants BIS investigation
July 16, 2025 at 1:02 PM
So if a chip is being sold to a data center in Singapore but the connection originates from an IP address in China (or anywhere else), well, that means you might have a potential transshipment on your hands that warrants BIS investigation
The US exporter would then have the country from where the secure mTLS conn is originating from and match it against the customer KYC and export info data that they had been collected during the export process to determine whether country of shipment matches country of use
July 16, 2025 at 1:02 PM
The US exporter would then have the country from where the secure mTLS conn is originating from and match it against the customer KYC and export info data that they had been collected during the export process to determine whether country of shipment matches country of use
US exporters would run mTLS webservers with public key versions of the EXPORT_CERTs loaded on them (they would get them from the chip designers) to record the IP addresses and their geolocation from where the connections are originating
July 16, 2025 at 1:02 PM
US exporters would run mTLS webservers with public key versions of the EXPORT_CERTs loaded on them (they would get them from the chip designers) to record the IP addresses and their geolocation from where the connections are originating
Foreign end-users (wouldn’t apply to US customers or perhaps to trusted foreign govs) would then be obligated by BIS to use this cert for mTLS (mutual-auth) Client Key Exchange connection generation to the US exporter of the chip on a periodic basis (ex. once a week/month)
July 16, 2025 at 1:02 PM
Foreign end-users (wouldn’t apply to US customers or perhaps to trusted foreign govs) would then be obligated by BIS to use this cert for mTLS (mutual-auth) Client Key Exchange connection generation to the US exporter of the chip on a periodic basis (ex. once a week/month)
New AI chips going forward can incorporate a new certificate with a private key (EXPORT_CERT) in their Secure Enclave (they already have other certs for secure boot/attestation). So this is a very simple task
July 16, 2025 at 1:02 PM
New AI chips going forward can incorporate a new certificate with a private key (EXPORT_CERT) in their Secure Enclave (they already have other certs for secure boot/attestation). So this is a very simple task