AUTHENTICATION TASK FORCE - HARDWARE TASK GROUP

New nonproliferation agreements, unilateral initiatives, and confidence building measures may require measurements that use sensitive or classified data to reach unclassified conclusions concerning compliance with declarations. Providing assurance of compliance necessarily requires that the item’s owner (Host Party) protect its sensitive data while releasing enough information that other parties (Monitor Party) can be assured of agreement. One method to achieve these conflicting goals is to use an analysis system with an Information Barrier (IB), such that the IB protects sensitive data and analysis from disclosure. In practical terms, the IB is a method to display only simple Yes/No results produced in an analysis module that has access to sensitive data. Because the details of the measurement are protected from disclosure to the Monitor, it is necessary for the Monitor to have sufficient system access to verify proper operation behind the IB. The term Authentication refers to the process by which the Monitor Party gains appropriate confidence that the information reported by a monitoring system accurately reflects the true state of the monitored item. Authentication gives an inspecting or monitoring party confidence that their equipment used in the Host country is performing as desired. The Authentication Task Force was formed to develop recommendations for how to approach the Authentication problem for monitoring systems. The hardware working group was specifically tasked with developing the criteria for all hardware associated with a final system and any overlap with the other groups. A graded approach to Authentication may be necessary because not all inspecting/monitoring regimes have the same Authentication requirements. This paper summarizes the results of the Authentication Task Force discussions as they pertain to hardware in the Authentication process.