The Centre for Science and Security Studies at the King’s College in London issued a new research paper the other day with the title “The Trust Machine: Blockchain in Nuclear Disarmament and Arms Control Verification”. The research, whose author is Dr Lyndon Burford, proposes that blockchain technology is used to create real cooperation on nuclear disarmament and arms control, essentially strengthening the Non-Proliferation Treaty by establishing trust between its members.
“Countries around the globe face the critical mission to reduce nuclear risk factors. Disarmament based on cooperation and trust and innovative arms control methods can ease the accomplishment of this task. However, governments often lack the necessary trust in each other to work together on these measures, mainly due to strategic and legal concerns, being careful to reveal sensitive information,” Dr Burford highlighted.
This research paper is aimed at policymakers and analysts with a presumably low understanding of blockchain technology. It explains its key attributes plainly and relates each of them to the necessary measures related to nuclear disarmament.
In his paper, Dr Burford explains how consensus mechanisms could take the place of physical keys in the vital dual-key missile launch system, enabling the use of many more keys and alerting the whole system if someone tries to activate their non-physical key.
He also details how public-key cryptography could be utilized to encrypt data, for example, a stockpile declaration. It is enabling the declaring party to decide who can review the data and when, while also enabling recipients to authenticate its source and make sure that it wasn’t altered.
Dr Burford further asserts that distributed storage, combined with an extra layer of security, is making it virtually impossible for ill-minded actors to alter the data on the blockchain.
