Encrypting Nanotechnology


Given the recent posting about nanotech programming languages
(30/Oct/06), I was thinking about some of the infrastructure that
a system of nanotech like an assembler, or even a cloud of
nanobots, might require.

Any product of nanotech which contain active elements, i.e. is
not a completely passive structure, depending on its fixed
material properties for its usefulness; will need to have
intercommunication between its elements. The exact medium that
this communication uses could vary, as it might be chemical,
electrical, mechanical, or maybe some application of quantum
mechanics, but it will be strongly desirable for it to be secure.

If nanotech intercommunication is not secure then this introduces
the possibility of it being 'hacked', either to change the
behaviour of the nanotech, or to extract some information that
the system desires to keep secure. This hacking would almost
certainly be itself done by nanotech.

Unfortunately adding security to nanotech intercommunication is
going to have overheads, and the usual problems of managing keys.
However, if the security mechanism is built into the nanotech,
for example into a set of nanotech manipulators intended to be
used for just one purpose, then a lot of the normal problems
about key distribution might go away.

I was speculating whether the security mechanism could be
something like the Enigma Machine (see Wikipedia; you could
easily have more than three rotors), with the specific
arrangement of the numbers on the rotors (whether mechanical, or
whatever) and the initial setting of the rotors, being the
starting state for encrypting all communications. The layout of
the rotors and their initial setting would need to be generated
from some random number source.

For real security the rotors could be re-positioned in response
to control instructions irregularly embedded in the encrypted
communications. In a situation where there are lots of messages
flying around being able to decode one into something meaningful
might be used to strongly indicate that it was directed to you.


Of course, we have to work out how to make things like assemblers
work in the first place, but when we do have them, ensuring that
they operate in a secure and reliable way is likely going to be
quite important to us.

---

The idea of using a mechanism related to the Enigma Machine comes
from discussions with Dr I.A. Newman, of Loughborough University,
UK.

--
Rory McLean
rory@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


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