U.S. Department of Defense to Adopt Blockchain Technology
In a bid to establish hack-proof digital communication lines and advance its digital environment to afford it a competitive advantage in the modern battlespace, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has started experimenting with distributed ledger technology (DLT), according to a publication entitled “DoD Digital Modernization Strategy”
DARPA Joins the Blockchain Bandwagon
As stated in a recent publication by the United States Department of Justice (DoD), its research arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has started pointing its searchlight into the revolutionary blockchain technology as part of plans to modernize and advance its digital environment.
Blockchain technology, the solid foundation underpinning bitcoin and other digital assets is fast gaining significant traction in various sectors of the global economy, including fintech, trade finance, supply chain and even healthcare due to its ability to foster transparency and immutability.
The DoD and it’s forward-thinking research arm DARPA are not oblivious to the huge potentials of the DLT and other new technologies.
The team is now weighing the possibilities of leveraging these nascent technologies to develop highly robust, secure and efficient platforms that would enable the transmission of messages in a hack-proof manner.
A Competitive Edge
Per DARPA, since it’s almost impossible for data stored on a distributed ledger to be tampered with by unauthorized persons and bad actors such as enemy agents trying to do so would have to spend huge amounts of money and other resources, this gives it another key reason to explore blockchain technology.
The team says it’s determined to find out multiple fail-proof use cases for blockchain technology, including the creation of a DLT-based communication platform that could facilitate real-time, super-secure communication between the Pentagon and intelligence officers as well as between units in the battlefield and the defense headquarters.
That’s not all, DARPA is also trying to create a blockchain-based unhackable code base that would offer intelligence on rogue actors who try to compromise secure databases.
In addition to blockchain technology, the DoD says it’s digging deep into other innovative technologies like quantum computing, big data analytics, artificial intelligence and the internet of things (IoT).
It’s worth noting that the Department of Defense is not the only U.S. agency that has joined the blockchain technology bandwagon.
Earlier in April 2019, BTCManager informed that the U.S. Department of Energy had commenced the second phase of its blockchain-based electric grid security project which is aimed at using DLT to protect modern power grids from cyber attack.
