US Military Is Looking At Blockchain Technology To Secure Nuclear Weapons (qz.com)

Lasrick quotes a report from Quartz: Blockchain technology has been slow to gain adoption in non-financial contexts, but it could turn out to have invaluable military applications. DARPA, the storied research unit of the U.S. Department of Defense, is currently funding efforts to find out if blockchains could help secure highly sensitive data, with potential applications for everything from nuclear weapons to military satellites. The report adds: "The case for using a blockchain boils down to a concept in computer security known as 'information integrity.' That's basically being able to track when a system or piece of data has been viewed or modified. In DARPA's case, blockchain tech could offer crucial intelligence on whether a hacker has modified something in a database, or whether they're surveilling a particular military system. This September, DARPA, which stands for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (the agency helped create the internet, among other things), awarded a $1.8 million contract to a computer security firm called Galois. The firm's assignment is to formally verify -- a sort of computer-code audit, using mathematics -- a particular type of blockchain tech supplied by a company called Guardtime. Formal verification is one way to build nearly unhackable code, and it's a big part of DARPA's approach to security. If the verification goes well, it could inch DARPA closer to using some form of blockchain technology for the military, DARPA's program manger behind the blockchain effort, Timothy Booher, said. 'We're certainly thinking through a lot of applications,' he says. 'As Galois does its verification work and we understand at a deep level the security properties of this [technology] then I would start to set up a series of meetings [with the rest of the agency] to start that dialog.'"

Comments

I'm sorry.

[wbr1]

I am old, and one of the geeks that has been building networks and connecting people to the internet since the 94. Can you tell me again what DARPA stands for? Speak up sonny.

Storage

[Vrallis]

Then they'll store it on a pile of 8" floppies.

Re:Storage

[zlives]

they could store it on their penis as long as that penis is isolated from all internet facing slots.

computer code audit, using mathematics

[Brannon]

> The firm's assignment is to formally verify -- a sort of computer-code audit, using mathematics

That's like saying: "an MRI is a sort of selfie, using magnets".

Where is the common sense?

[freeze128]

If you don't want a jailbreak, don't connect the cell door locks to the internet.

If you don't want a nuclear war, don't connect your launch controls to the internet.

Why do I even have to say this?

Re:Where is the common sense?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google Stuxnet, Snowden. Internet is not the only route to breaching systems. I personally like that insiders or clever zero-days have harder time manipulating stuff, nuclear weapons or otherwise.

Nothing to see here, move along

[RobertNotBob]

The thing about DARPA is... they are looking at EVERYTHING. So yeah, they may have awarded a million dollar contract (which is trivial to them, BTW) to study Technology X; but that doesn't mean that anybody in the military is about to implement it. - Heck, that doesn't even mean that anybody in the military has even asked for a solution to that problem. DARPA researches all sorts of stuff that never see the light of day.