When I usually meet my friends we talk about our familiy, football and sometimes about politics. Blockchain, distributed ledger technology is something we don't talk about. Maybe it is difficult to explain. I admit, blockchain technology is something completely new for me, too. On the one hand I'm always surprised how unknown distributed ledger technology. On the other hand blockchain technology is already used in a lot of industries, business sectors and different use cases. Here I'm trying to give an example with the defense sector.
Other than during the Cold war era - where highly equipped NATO armies were confronted with similar equipped armies of the Warsaw Pact - we face threats which aren't immediately perceptable. Today common security threats are cyber attacks and information warfare. Also armies rely more and more on automated weapon systems and digital battle management and supply systems.
Potential blockchain solutions in government have the ability to, among other things, to enhance secure data exchange and provide reliable access to information, facilitate device tracking, streamline the procurement process and ensure supply chain security. This can lead to greater efficiency as well as significant cost savings. Here are some examples:
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
According to diverse media reports DARPA is looking for an "unhackable" code. This DARPA research wants to find a more secure and robust communiation platform in order to transmit intelligence information securely. The developers expect from a blockchain solution also the ability to track down hackers who try to break into the database.
Thales
French aerospace, military and security company Thales uses blockchain technology to track its supply chain management.
To comply with NATO standards and those of the Ministries of Defense with which the company collaborates, blockchain will be used to ensure the traceability of all parts and products handled in the Production and Maintenance Center.
Lookheed Martin
Aerospace and defense systems company Lookheed Martin secures its supply chain system with a blockchain-based solution. Lookheed Martin and Guardtime Federal are working together to prevent cyber security threats. It states in a press release:
Through the long-term agreement, the team envisions integrating the aerospace community's first mathematically verifiable end-to-end integrity check from the external software supply chain, through the development process and all the way to verification on delivered military systems. This digital transformation initiative will mitigate cyber threats across the software supply chain using KSI® blockchain signatures.
Fluree
A start-up called Fluree enhances the Air Forces' cyber security with blockchain technology. In the military blockchain provides for data security which is very important to be able to assess a situtation on the battlefield. Soldiers and Pilots must trust the data which is presented to them in order to make decisions which can have implications for life and death. With distributed ledger technology data points and information can be verified and identified as trustful. It can help to thwarth cyber attacks which try to spread desinformation or distort communication. A press release from February 2020 states:
Fluree, provider of a blockchain-backed data platform, today announced it has won a contract from the United States Air Force (USAF) to bring commercial best-in-class technologies to the Air Force and U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). As part of the Small Business Innovation Research AFWERX technology innovation program, Fluree’s data management platform was selected to provide the USAF with secure, worldwide command-and-control communications using an encrypted, distributed, blockchain-backed graph database shared between partners.
Secure communications are at the heart of all successful operations, and especially critical for the Air Force and Department of Defense. Fluree ensures complete data integrity by combining transactions into immutable time-stamped “blocks” and locking each block in via advanced cryptography.
