It's cool that Galois got this contract. They're a very nice Haskell shop out of Seattle responsible for projects like Copilot and Cryptol.
Out of Portland, actually.
Darpa Contract Awarded to Verify Blockchain-Based Integrity Monitoring System
31–40 of 58 posts
Re: Darpa Contract Awarded to Verify Blockchain-Based Integrity Monitoring System
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> "Assuming the appliance remains secure" Makes me wonder what mathematics would prove this, or if it's assumed to be out of scope, and if so, what else is out of scope too.
I'm from Guardtime - this is our secure appliance that we built with a team of engineers coming out of the US Military Ant-Tamper community: http://bit.ly/2cgXiDu
Redirected link from bitly link above:
https://media.voog.com/0000/0036/0235/files/Black_Lantern_da...
Re: Darpa Contract Awarded to Verify Blockchain-Based Integrity Monitoring System
#33Quote: "Galois is a leader in formal verification, a technique that goes beyond testing and evaluation to provide mathematical assurances that a system works only as intended in all cases." Wait -- mathematical assurances that a system works only as intended in all cases ? That's not possible. It pretends that the Turing Halting problem[1] is soluble. Not that this claim is at all uncommon. I regularly see similar cl…
Real computers are finite state machines, not Turing machines.
Correct but not relevant. No formal verification technique takes advantage of the fact that the computer has "only" 8 GB or RAM and 1 TB of disk space as its tape (~ 2^2^43 states).
Re: Darpa Contract Awarded to Verify Blockchain-Based Integrity Monitoring System
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is blockchain 'important' to Darpa? Because you are rooting for bitcoin or for some other non-specific to you reason? edit: Updated question to be more clear of intention
They want to make a decentralized chat app based on blockchain tech among other things. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-25/u-s-wants...
Yes, that was an odd DARPA RFP though, since amoung other paradoxical that RFP wanted to be able to delete parts of the blockchain after the fact.
NATO is also looking into blockchain uses: https://www.ncia.nato.int/NewsRoom/Pages/160425_Innovation.a...
Re: Darpa Contract Awarded to Verify Blockchain-Based Integrity Monitoring System
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is blockchain 'important' to Darpa? Because you are rooting for bitcoin or for some other non-specific to you reason? edit: Updated question to be more clear of intention
There are reasons that this an interesting technology other than simply rooting bitcoin. For example, consider the challenge of monitoring strategic weapon treaties or nuclear proliferation agreements. Agencies can leave monitoring video cameras at locations and would like to insure that there is no way for one party to modify the captured data.
It doesn't work that way. The hashes can simply indicate proof of tampering, so instead you get (some) assurance that there was no tampering in the evidence.
Attackers can still modify the data. For example, if they modify the feed before the hash of the feed is introduced into the blockchain.
Edit; Security at that level is extremely difficult as their adversaries are much more powerful and well funded. I can understand in that respect why DARPA would want to invest a large amount into that area.
Re: Darpa Contract Awarded to Verify Blockchain-Based Integrity Monitoring System
#36Guardtime is set of tooling around a FIPS 140 timestamping appliance. Systems on the network submit hashes of their logs to the time stamping. Assuming the appliance remains secure, you can go back in the event of compromise and prove that your logs are unaltered up to a certain point. It's amazing that they seem to have built a $50 -$100 million dollar business here.
Well, when your adversaries are the likes of China, Russia, multibillion dollar corporations, powerful domestic adversaries, etc... you'd want to be absolutely certain your safeguards are as strong as possible.
Re: Darpa Contract Awarded to Verify Blockchain-Based Integrity Monitoring System
#37Guardtime is set of tooling around a FIPS 140 timestamping appliance. Systems on the network submit hashes of their logs to the time stamping. Assuming the appliance remains secure, you can go back in the event of compromise and prove that your logs are unaltered up to a certain point. It's amazing that they seem to have built a $50 -$100 million dollar business here.
RSA key fobs were an extremely simple invention, yet they are ubiquitous in enterprise. Often the value of a product lies not in its technical sophistication, but in whether that product solves an unmet business need. Spotting these opportunities is the difficult part. That is where these entrepreneurs add value.
Re: Darpa Contract Awarded to Verify Blockchain-Based Integrity Monitoring System
#38They keep using the word 'block chain'. Is that the same idea as the bitcoin blockchain?
No. The point of the Bitcoin blockchain is to provide ordering of transactions without a centralized timestamping service. This is a centralized timestamping service.
Re: Darpa Contract Awarded to Verify Blockchain-Based Integrity Monitoring System
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are reasons that this an interesting technology other than simply rooting bitcoin. For example, consider the challenge of monitoring strategic weapon treaties or nuclear proliferation agreements. Agencies can leave monitoring video cameras at locations and would like to insure that there is no way for one party to modify the captured data.
It doesn't work that way. The hashes can simply indicate proof of tampering, so instead you get (some) assurance that there was no tampering in the evidence. Attackers can still modify the data. For example, if they modify the feed before the hash of the feed is introduced into the blockchain. Edit; Security at that level is extremely difficult as their adversaries are much more powerful and well funded. I can unders…
Because time is baked into the process, and there are alternate means of establishing the time of events that relate to treaty verification, actually it would work this way, at least with respect to a hypothetical video feed. I have intimate knowledge of treaty verification procedures and methods, and worked in collections relating to these activities for the intelligence community. The fact is that there is no video feed, and it's utility is of dubious value anyway, but in principle, a video feed could be secured this way.
Re: Darpa Contract Awarded to Verify Blockchain-Based Integrity Monitoring System
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> "Assuming the appliance remains secure" Makes me wonder what mathematics would prove this, or if it's assumed to be out of scope, and if so, what else is out of scope too.
I'm pretty sure the Guardtime product is a Merkle tree of timestamps. I'm also pretty sure whatever protocol they use to maintain it would _not_ be immediately recognized as a "blockchain" protocol. Of course the protocol can be modeled and checked. The question is why does anyone think that this activity can apply to "blockchains" in general. But, welcome to the world of industrial research funding.
(I work for Guardtime; I’m happy to answer any questions.) Some online resources might not make it very clear, but the KSI blockchain is indeed a blockchain; for example, new blocks are released periodically (1 block per second on average), and the new blocks contain hashes of the previous blocks, among other things. Then, blocks get distributed around so that users can verify their data against these blocks, etc.