Repost from Security Ledger:
In-brief: In this Security Ledger podcast, we speak with the guys from Chain of Things, a new consortium that is investigating applications of Block Chain and related technologies to solving identity and security problems for IoT deployments.
One of the biggest challenges if we want to secure the Internet of Things centers on identity. Specifically: how will we go about getting billions or hundreds of billions of intelligent devices to connect and communicate with each other securely? It’s not just about Tesla knowing that the device on the other end of a firmware update is a Model S versus a Model X. It’s about the thousands of sensors within that Tesla communicating with the road and other infrastructure, or knowing that a command to brake or swerve is a legitimate command that comes from the driver or another trusted subsystem.
Right now, public key infrastructure (PKI) is the preferred method for securely identifying digital assets, but recent incidents have shown that PKI and especially its reliance on various private and public certificate authorities is vulnerable to manipulation and tampering. One promising alternative is the technology known as Block Chain. It’s best known as the secure transaction system that undergirds the Bitcoin cryptocurrency, but Block Chain has applications far beyond digital cash.
So can Block Chain and related technologies like Tangle “ save” the Internet of Things? To help us answer that, we’re talking to three people who are trying to answer that very question. Adam Vaziri, Conor Colwell & Doug Irwin are three of the founding members of Chain of Things, an open research consortium that is working on applications of Block Chain to address security issues that affect the Internet of Things and make IoT deployments more robust.
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