They use the TEE to check that the model and code is untampered with. That's a good, valid approach and should work (I've done similar things on AWS with their TEE)
The key question here is how they avoid the outside computer being able to view the memory of the internal process:
> An in-process inference design that embeds the in- ference engine directly in a hardened process, elimi- nating all inter-process communication channels that could be observed, with optional hypervisor mem- ory isolation that extends protection from software- enforced to hardware-enforced via ARM Stage 2 page tables at zero performance cost.[1]
I was under the impression this wasn't possible if you are using the GPU. I could be misled on this though.
[1] https://github.com/Layr-Labs/d-inference/blob/master/papers/...
This entire paper smells of LLM, I'm sure even the most distinguished academic would refrain from using notation to prove that the SIP status cannot change during operation.
Apple Silicon systems have unified memory between CPU and GPU. The hypervisor page table trick is thus claimed to protect GPU memory from RDMA.
Macs do not have an accessible hardware TEE.
Macs have secure enclaves.
While they do make this argument, realistically anyone sending their prompt/data to an external server should assume there will be some level of retention.
And more so in particular, anyone using Darkbloom with commercial intents should only really send non-sensitive data (no tokens, customer data, ...) I'd say only classification tasks, imagine generation, etc.