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Dmitri Alperovitch

@dmitri.silverado.org

29K followers 870 following 530 posts

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

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Dmitri Alperovitch @dmitri.silverado.org · Nov 23

Very proud to have my #WorldOnTheBrink with @vermontgmg.bsky.social named as one of the best books of 2024 by the @economist.com!
www.economist.com/culture/2024...

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Dmitri Alperovitch @dmitri.silverado.org · Aug 26

I haven’t. What do you think has changed primarily?

Reposted by Dmitri Alperovitch

Hidde van der Bijl @hvanderaxe.bsky.social · Aug 15

Very interesting podcast by @dmitri.silverado.org why drones are a useful addition to the European military but shouldn't be the main focus for investment in building our military capabilities.

Why Drones Can’t Replace Traditional Firepower

Geopolitics Decanted by Silverado · Episode

open.spotify.com

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Reposted by Dmitri Alperovitch

Andreas Hopf 🇩🇪 🇨🇭 🇬🇧 🇸🇪 @andreashopf.bsky.social · Aug 11

Great discussion with @justin-br0nk.bsky.social and @dmitri.silverado.org about the "drone panacea myth".

See also the RUSI article www.rusi.org/explore-our-...

Why Drones Can’t Replace Traditional Firepower

Podcast-Folge · Geopolitics Decanted by Silverado · 05.08.2025 · 49 Min.

podcasts.apple.com

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Reposted by Dmitri Alperovitch

Jason Davidson @profjwdavidson.bsky.social · Aug 6

I found this discussion between @dmitri.silverado.org and @justin-br0nk.bsky.social on the limitations of drones to be very useful. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/g...

Geopolitics Decanted by Silverado

News Commentary Podcast · Geopolitics Decanted is a podcast featuring geopolitical analysis and in-depth expert interviews on topics ranging from War in Ukraine, Great Power Competition with China, ch...

podcasts.apple.com

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Reposted by Dmitri Alperovitch

Joseph Britt @zathras5.bsky.social · Aug 6

Justin Bronk — @justin-br0nk.bsky.social — is a keen observer of military affairs. Talking with @dmitri.silverado.org, he challenges the view that Ukraine’s success with UAVs against Russia is a model for what the US and other western nations should focus on. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/g...

Why Drones Can’t Replace Traditional Firepower

Podcast Episode · Geopolitics Decanted by Silverado · 08/05/2025 · 49m

podcasts.apple.com

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Dmitri Alperovitch @dmitri.silverado.org · Aug 5

Hopefully we made it clear on the podcast!

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Dmitri Alperovitch @dmitri.silverado.org · Aug 5

Link to @justin-br0nk.bsky.social article 👇
www.rusi.org/explore-our-...

NATO Should Not Replace Traditional Firepower with ‘Drones’

Over-reliance on uncrewed aerial systems or ‘drones’ is leading to significant problems for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and is not something Western militaries should attempt to replicate

www.rusi.org

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Dmitri Alperovitch @dmitri.silverado.org · Aug 5

Why Drones Can’t Replace Traditional Firepower

My @GeopolDecanted discussion with @justin-br0nk.bsky.social about his recent provocative @rusi.bsky.social piece on this topic.

We also discuss efficacy of Ukrainian F-16s, Operation SpiderWeb and much more. Watch 👇

youtu.be/ykLIH2kY1U8

Why Drones Can’t Replace Traditional Firepower

YouTube video by Dmitri Alperovitch

youtu.be

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Dmitri Alperovitch @dmitri.silverado.org · Jul 16

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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Dmitri Alperovitch @dmitri.silverado.org · Jul 16

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

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Dmitri Alperovitch @dmitri.silverado.org · Jul 16

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

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Dmitri Alperovitch @dmitri.silverado.org · Jul 16

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

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Dmitri Alperovitch @dmitri.silverado.org · Jul 16

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

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Dmitri Alperovitch @dmitri.silverado.org · Jul 16

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

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Dmitri Alperovitch @dmitri.silverado.org · Jul 16

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

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Dmitri Alperovitch @dmitri.silverado.org · Jul 16

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

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Dmitri Alperovitch @dmitri.silverado.org · Jul 16

GPU drivers can already do mTLS handshake operations like ECDSA signing, so this doesn’t even require any new code from the chip designers

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Dmitri Alperovitch @dmitri.silverado.org · Jul 16

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

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Dmitri Alperovitch @dmitri.silverado.org · Jul 16

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

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Dmitri Alperovitch @dmitri.silverado.org · Jul 16

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

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Dmitri Alperovitch @dmitri.silverado.org · Jul 16

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

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Dmitri Alperovitch @dmitri.silverado.org · Jul 16

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

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Dmitri Alperovitch @dmitri.silverado.org · Jul 16

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)

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Dmitri Alperovitch @dmitri.silverado.org · Jul 16

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

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Dmitri Alperovitch @dmitri.silverado.org · Jul 16

Here is one technical solution for chip location verification that can be easily implemented by AI chip designers, which is not onerous and won’t require GPS receivers or comms functionality inside the chip or significantly restrict its use in air gap environments👇

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