Increasing Inspectability of Hardware and Software for Arms Control and Nonproliferation Regimes

As the U.S. and the Russian Federation get closer to deploying systems for monitoring nuclear material within arms control and nonproliferation transparency regimes, the level of inspectability of the system hardware and software must increase beyond the systems demonstrated to date. These systems include the Trilateral Initiative prototype,1 the Fissile Material Transparency Technology Demonstration (FMTTD) system,2 and the Trusted Radiation Attribute Demonstration System (TRADS).3 Toward this goal, several alternative technologies will be discussed along with ways in which they would increase inspectability. Some examples of such technologies include the use of microcontrollers instead of fully capable computers, open source operating systems, runtime environments, and compilers.