Re: [Sci.nanotech] Encrypting Nanotechnology



Rory McLean <rory@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
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,

Chemical, electrical and mechanical communication are all products of
quantum mechanics already. Quantum mechanics isn't some sort of
mysterious spooky force outside of the rest of physics -- pretty much
all of physics (outside of gravitation) is covered by QM.

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),

If you're desire is to have your encryption system broken immediately,
choosing the state of the art from 1935 is perhaps a reasonable
choice. If what you're trying to do is actually protect communications
links, the issue is well understood already. Cryptography is a big
area of study, and there are lots of good modern books that can
provide you with an introduction to the field, not to mention a lot of
research and discovery that has happened in the last 60 years or so.

When I taught a university class in the topic, I used to use
Schneier's "Applied Cryptography" and "Handbook of Applied
Cryptography" by Menezes, Oorschot, and Vanstone as the primary
texts. Those books are now somewhat obsolete -- they don't cover
topics like AES and they were all written long before MD5 got broken
and such. None the less, you could start learning there.

Perry

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