UNCONVENTIONAL APPROACHES TO CHAIN OF CUSTODY AND VERIFICATION

The Vulnerability Assessment Team, first at Los Alamos (1992-2007) and now at Argonne has devised a number of unconventional approaches and technologies for nuclear safeguards, chain-of- custody, and verification. These include: Anti-Evidence Seals—a fundamentally better approach to tamper detection based on our understanding of the weaknesses of conventional seals arising from vulnerability assessments on hundreds of different designs. Town Crier Monitoring—a simpler, transparent, negotiable, and secure method for real-time monitoring of stationary or moving assets. Colorimetry—a useful technique both for tamper-indicating seals and for real-time monitoring. It offers much of the sensitivity of video monitoring with much greater simplicity and without the concern for loss of sensitive information. Live and Local Verify for Video Monitoring—simple, transparent, negotiable methods for guaranteeing that a video signal is local and live, i.e., not prerecorded. Pointer, OPODS, and Key Keepaway Methods—simple techniques that are more secure than conventional approaches for data logging or authentication, and for protecting secret keys and passwords.