Category: cryptography

Artificial Intelligence, Blockchains, cryptography, Patents

WHAT IS THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY?

Yogi Nelson

Namaste Yogis.   Welcome to the Blockchain & AI Forum, where your technology questions are answered!   As a bonus, a proverb is also included.  Today’s question, was submitted by Jose in Miami and he asks what is the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)?

Jose, you came to the right place.  NIST is not a well-known federal agency, nevertheless it has an important function.  Let’s quickly review its history, mission, organization, followed by an overview of its six laboratories. 

NIST BACKGROUND

I was surprised to learn NIST was established in 1901.  Holy foresight, Batman!  NIST is an independent agency, meaning it has its own Administrator, but falls within the U.S. Department of Commerce.  NIST says its mission is to “… promote U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing measurement science, standards, and technology in ways that enhance economic security and improve our quality of life.”  

We should not be surprised to learn NIST is among the nation’s oldest physical science laboratories. Furthermore, it’s no surprise that Congress established NIST in 1901.  Why? At the time the USA was a rising industrial star with an eye on catching and surpassing the UK and Germany. For our factories and industries to effectively compete, the USA required standardized measurements and technology.  Understanding the moment, USA leaders used public policy to push industrialization, akin to what China does today and we continue to do with the CHIPS Act as the most recent example.  Nothing new, Batman!

Of course, the agency has evolved and today NIST functions with a core competency of measurement science, rigorous traceability, and development and use of standards. NIST received an enormous vote of confidence from President Biden when he issued Executive Order (EO) 14110:

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/11/01/2023-24283/safe-secure-and-trustworthy-development-and-use-of-artificial-intelligence

The EO assigned NIST a prominent role in artificial intelligence policies and programs, specifically related to research, development, and implementation. 

NIST Six Laboratories:

Communications Technology Laboratory (CTL).  According to NIST, the Communications Technology Lab was established in 2014 to unite their many wireless communications efforts. CTL focuses on developing precision instrumentation and creating test protocols, models, and simulation tools to enable a range of emerging wireless technologies. Is that your Bat-Phone ringing?!

Engineering Laboratory.  The Engineering Laboratory has a broad mandate of promoting U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing measurement science, standards, and technology.  Using its discretion, EL built the following portfolio:  1) advanced manufacturing; 2) disaster resistant buildings, infrastructure, and communities; and 3) sustainable and energy efficient manufacturing, materials, and infrastructure.  Holy resistant to hurricanes, Batman!

Information Technology Laboratory.  ITL claims its mission is to cultivate trust in information technology and metrology.  ITL uses, its non-regulatory influence, and world-class measurement and testing facilities, computer science, mathematics, statistics, and systems engineering to achieve the mission.

Material Measurement Laboratory (MML) conducts measurement science research.  MML is focused on research related to industries in the chemical, biological and material sciences fields. MML researchers perform fundamental and applied research, evaluate data, and create other programs and tools to assure the quality of measurement results.

Physical Measurement Laboratory (PML).  PML is dedicated to measuring.  PML’s activities range from fundamental measurement research through provision of measurement services, standards, and data across the following areas:

  • length, mass, force and shock, acceleration
  • time and frequency
  • electricity, temperature, humidity
  • pressure and vacuum
  • liquid and gas flow
  • electromagnetic, optical, microwave, acoustic, ultrasonic, and ionizing radiation

I wrap it up with a proverb from Finland:  There are always people to grab the branches when there are people to carry the spruce.

Until next time,

Yogi Nelson

Blockchains, China, cryptography, Patents, Yogi Nelson

WHY ALL THE FUSS ABOUT 3924 3924, 3924, 3924, 3924, 3924, 3924

Yogi Nelson

Namaste Yogis.   Welcome to the Blockchain & AI Forum, where your technology questions are answered, mostly correct!   Here no question is too mundane.  As a bonus, a proverb is also included.  Today’s question, submitted by Albert from Iowa and his question is, why the number 3924?

Albert, you came to the right place.  Let’s talk about this number, 3,924.  According to the Blockchain Global Patent Authorization, as of December 2020, there were 3,924 patents granted for blockchain technology worldwide.  For a new technology, 3,924 is a staggering number and as I said previously the number reflects 2020 statistics.  Holy worldwide adoption, Batman!

This naturally leads to the next question.  What countries lead in blockchain patents?  According to Lexology, U.S. companies accounted for 39% of all patents granted, South Korea comes in second with 21%, and China was a close third at 19%.  In other words, the US, South Korea, and China accounted for 79% of all blockchain patents globally up to year 2020.  But that is backward looking data.  If we want to understand the next wave, we must examine pending patent applications as that tells a forward-looking story. Okay, let’s do it.

In Digital Finance by Baxter Hines, he cites The Block as the source for pending patents.  According to that source, Chinese companies should dominate the next wave of blockchain patents.  In fact, the top five companies with blockchain patents pending are all Chinese.  Tencent, Alibaba, and Ant Financial alone have 1,263 patents pending whereas the top three American companies (Walmart, IBM, and Microsoft) have only 123.  Is there more to the story?  I think so.  Read on. 

Let’s go back to 2019.  In 2019, Chinese President Xi Jinping identified the advancement of blockchain technology as a national priority and declared China will “lead the next wave of digital transformation” and called for greater study, investment, and regulation.  What happened next?

Well, in typical top-down authoritarian fashion, more than 35,000 firms responded to Xi’s appeal by registering their companies as “blockchain related” and expanding the use of blockchain technology into their businesses’ operations.  Holy jumping right on the task, Batman! But hold on there is more to the story.

Of the 35,000 that responded only 730 qualified for the Chinese government’s blockchain certification (2%).  Nevertheless, more than 10,000 blockchain patent applications were filed!  But quantity and quality are not always synonymous, and the Chinese government approved only a small fraction of the applications.  Perhaps, Xi needed to be more explicit in his order.  I suggest he try this next time: “Listen up comrades.  We need lots of high-quality world class blockchain patents.”  Lol!

Research and development into blockchain technology is big business.  There is a battle for blockchain technology supremacy between the US and China, with South Korea in the hunt also.  The winner of this battle will have an advantage across many developing technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI).  Many technology analysts are forecasting a fuse of blockchain, AI, and the internet of things (IOT) converging into a tsunami of tech advancements in the next decade.  Hold on to your safety belts, Batman!

I close today with a proverb from Denmark, where people say:  Never advise anyone to go to war or to marry.  Wise words indeed!

Until next time.

Yogi Nelson

Artificial Intelligence, Blockchains, cryptography, Yogi Nelson

WHAT IS CRYPTOGRAPHY?

Yogi Nelson

Namaste Yogis.   Welcome to the Blockchain & AI Forum, where your technology questions are answered, mostly correct!   Here no question is too mundane.  As a bonus, a proverb is also included.  Today’s question, was submitted by William from La Puente, CA and he wants to know what is cryptography?

William, you came to the right place.  William the only reasonable place to start is with a definition.  Let me answer by referring to an awesome movie called My Big Fat Greek Wedding.  In the movie the father of the bride would constantly say, “… the Greeks invented that, the Greeks did that first, etc.”  Well perhaps the old man had a point because in the case of cryptography the word comes from the Greeks.  Kryptos means hidden and graphein is to write; hence, cryptograph is to write in a hidden manner.  Holy hidden message, Batman!

Okay the word has its origin in Greece, but what does cryptography do?  Essentially, cryptography provides information protection/security.  Using cryptography, data can be transformed by substitution.  For example, an early and primitive form of substitution cryptography was to shift every letter three spots.   A sentence that would normally read like this: “Encrypted using Caesar cipher” becomes Hqfubswhg xvlqj Fdhvdu fiskhu.  The other method, known as transposition, involves moving the order of characters of words by a pre-determined agreement.  No, it’s not pig Latin!  Lol.

Cryptography concepts are likely foreign; hence, we should start slowly. I’ll cover just three topics today and save the rest for later.  Let’s start with the security services of cryptography, there are four. 

First is authentication.  By authentication I mean the assurance the communicating entity is legitimate.  Second, data confidentiality.  In other words, the protection from unauthorized disclosure.  The third is data integrity.  In this context I mean the data has not been altered; it was received exactly as sent.  Last, comes non-reputation.  Non-reputation refers to the notion that the receiver can prove the alleged sender sent the message.  Impressive!

We are off to a fast start.  Let’s try two more topics beginning with cryptographic keys. 

In cryptography there are two types of key systems–symmetric and asymmetric.  Symmetric is where one key is used to encrypt and decrypt messages.  The keys are essentially shared by the two parties and the data is transferred via a secure network.  However, authentication nor non-reputation is provided, and the origin of the message cannot be determined.  Let’s compare that to asymmetric cryptography. 

In asymmetric there are public and private keys.  The public key is derived from the private.  As you can guess, asymmetric was developed due to the problems with symmetric cryptography.  Asymmetric wins the crypto security battle handily.  However, if you lose your private key there is no way to access the data, value, or information that was sent!  You best hold on tight!

Hashing is an ideal spot to end the lesson.  Hashing, (I don’t mean potatoes, although I love hash browns) in cryptography is the process of transforming data or a string of characters into a short and fixed length value.  The value produced is unique; no other record has it.  Hashing algorithms are used to perform the hashing process in three steps:  1) data input; 2) hashing function #; and 3) hash output (of a fixed length). By the way, blockchains make extensive use of hashing.  More on that later.

There is more to say but for now I’ll stop with a proverb from our friends in Tajikistan, where they say:  In every drop of water, there is a grain of gold.

Until next time,

Yogi Nelson