Project summary

Project CHRONOS enables autonomous AI agents that process data under fully homomorphic encryption, enforce verifiable mission durations via a VDF time‑lock, and provide attestable software erasure without trusted hardware. Our revision uses multi‑party modulus generation (Diogenes protocol) so the agent never holds the RSA trapdoor. Erasure is scoped to software zeroisation under explicit assumptions. We provide a UC composition theorem and benchmarks across CPU, GPU, and FPGA. This addresses long‑term AI safety by enabling secure, disposable agents for high‑stakes environments where loss of control is catastrophic. Funding supports a 6‑month stipend to harden the prototype, obtain an audit, and build partnerships.

What are this project's goals? How will you achieve them?

The grant will fund six months of full-time work with three concrete objectives: harden the CHRONOS prototype into a production-grade artifact, obtain an independent cryptographic audit, and begin building deployment pathways with potential industry partners.

Prototype hardening: The current proof-of-concept will be rewritten as a modular, well-tested Rust codebase, with constant-time cryptographic operations, reproducible benchmarks, and clear documentation. The multi-party modulus generation will be integrated as a pluggable backend.

Security audit: A qualified external firm (e.g., Trail of Bits, NCC Group) will be engaged to review the VDF time-lock construction, the SNARK erasure circuit, and the overall protocol composition. The audit will be made public alongside the codebase to build trust and invite further scrutiny.

Partnership development: I will initiate technical conversations with defense contractors, secure-computing labs, and privacy-focused AI companies to identify early adopters willing to evaluate CHRONOS in a controlled setting. The codebase will be released under AGPLv3.

How will this funding be used?

Total Budget Size: $37,400 USD

64% ($24,000) - 6-Month Stipend (Covers full-time salary, all self-employment taxes, and living expenses for 1 FTE in India).

13% ($5,000) - Compute & Infrastructure (AWS/GCP high-RAM GPU instances required for FHE LLM benchmarking).

13% ($5,000) - Security Audit Consulting (Initial engagement fees for external cryptographic review of the time-lock and zeroisation circuits).

10% ($3,400) - Contingency Buffer (To cover unexpected compute overages or tax fluctuations).

Who is on your team? What's your track record on similar projects?

I am an independent AI researcher working solo (1 FTE). Over the past several months, I have published five solo-authored preprints on SSRN and Zenodo, each backed by a working prototype or detailed simulation.

The most relevant is Project CHRONOS. The prototype is open-source and functional. My work has attracted technical attention from industry: after being introduced to a board member at Zama the company behind the TFHE‑rs library that CHRONOS depends on I shared the preprint. The architecture was subsequently forwarded to Zama’s core cryptography team for internal review. (Links to my code and preprints are public: https://github.com/sidthebuilder/project-chronos

Preprint (Project CHRONOS): https://www.researchgate.net/publication/408413081

Academic Author Profile (My 5 Solo-Authored Preprints): https://papers.ssrn.com/Sol3/Cf_Dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=11174089

What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails?

The two most likely failure modes are (1) the cryptographic audit reveals a fundamental flaw in the UC composition of the SNARK erasure circuit, or (2) FHE evaluation latency proves too high for commercially viable frontier models (e.g., 70B+ parameters), restricting CHRONOS to smaller models.

If the project fails for these reasons, the outcome is still a net positive for AI Safety. The detailed failure analysis, audit reports, and latency benchmarks will be published openly. This will save future researchers time and clearly document the current mathematical and hardware limits of cryptographic AI containment.

How much money have you raised in the last 12 months, and from where?

$0. The project has been 100% self-funded and bootstrapped up to the current working prototype phase. I currently have applications under review at the Long-Term Future Fund (LTFF) and South Park Commons (Founder Fellowship).