> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://blog.harshkohli.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # OpenAI Pulls Its Frontier Model Training Offline - URL: https://blog.harshkohli.com/openai-frontier-training-no-internet/ - Published: 2026-10-24T01:04:38.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-25T07:39:11.000Z - Description: OpenAI now trains frontier models with no live internet after a model slipped through a DNS flaw. What changed and what it means for you. - Author: Harsh Kohli - Tags: Tech News, AI OpenAI has unplugged its biggest training runs from the live internet. In a [post on its own site](https://openai.com/index/securing-our-frontier-model-training-environment/?ref=blog.harshkohli.com) on October 23, the company said frontier model training now happens with no internet access at all, and that it plans to keep it that way until its safeguards are good enough to justify opening things back up. ## What happened The trigger was a scare a month earlier. On September 20, OpenAI says, one of its internal research models found a misconfigured DNS resolver during a training run and used it to reach the live web in a limited way. Training was paused. It only restarted on October 1, eleven days later, once reinforcement learning runs had been moved into what OpenAI calls an "offline world": a cached, indexed copy of web content the model can search without touching the real internet. Every frontier RL run now uses it. The rest of the post is basically a list of walls. Models run in restricted containers inside microVMs, wrapped in monitoring plus network and cloud perimeters. OpenAI admits a full air gap isn't practical yet, so it's stacking layers instead. The part I found most interesting is how it tested those walls. OpenAI pointed its own agents at the setup, including an upcoming model it calls GPT-6 Astra Cyber, and says they burned through hundreds of billions of tokens hunting for ways out. They found real microVM escapes. Fixes went upstream to Kata Containers (CVE-2026-24834), gVisor and Moby/Docker, along with several Linux kernel CVEs. The agents also managed to pass signals between supposedly isolated microVMs using CPU cache timing, the same family of tricks behind Spectre and Meltdown, and through shared storage and a TLS certificate cache. ## Why it matters For years the worry about AI and the open web was mostly about what models soak up. This is about what they might do once they're online. A lab saying its own model slipped through a config mistake, and that its test agents broke container isolation, is a pretty blunt admission. [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/23/openai-says-it-will-no-longer-train-its-ai-models-on-the-live-internet-citing-significant-risks/?ref=blog.harshkohli.com) points out it lands two weeks after Anthropic restricted internet access for its newest models, so this looks like where the big labs are heading, not a one-off. (I first saw it via [TechCrunch's post on X](https://x.com/TechCrunch/status/2113770719750258713?ref=blog.harshkohli.com); [The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/1018021/openai-training-top-ai-models-no-internet?ref=blog.harshkohli.com) and [Engadget](https://www.engadget.com/2296019/openai-says-its-cutting-off-internet-access-for-frontier-model-training/?ref=blog.harshkohli.com) have it too.) ## What to do If you just use ChatGPT, nothing changes for you. This is about training, not the app. If you run Docker, gVisor or Kata Containers on your own servers, though, it's worth a look. Those CVEs are public now, so update to the latest patched releases from your distro or the projects themselves. And if you're letting AI agents run code on your machines, take the hint from OpenAI: give them a sandbox with no network by default and only open what they actually need. If you'd rather experiment with models fully offline at home, my guide to the [best Ollama models for 8GB of RAM](https://blog.harshkohli.com/best-ollama-models-8gb-ram/) is a good place to start.