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Increasing Inspectability of Hardware and Software for Arms Control
and Nonproliferation Regimes
Gregory K. White
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Livermore, California, 94550, USA (925) 423-6732
ABSTRACT
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,' 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.
INTRODUCTION
As we progress toward the actual deployment of monitoring systems for nuclear material, two important
goals must be observed: protection of the host country's sensitive information and the assurance to the
monitoring party that the nuclear material is what the host country has declared it to be. These goals are
met by certification in the host country and authentication in the monitoring party.
During both certification and authentication, each party will need to understand all of the operating
parameters of all hardware and software in the deployed system. The goal of both the Trilateral
Initiative and the FMTTD System was to measure U.S. nuclear material in the presence of Russian
Scientists while protecting information about the material being measured. Demonstrated systems at the
Trilateral Initiative and FMTTD went a long way toward providing the openness necessary for a
deployed system. The TRADS system uses two Pentium-class computers separated by a controlled
interface to manage sensitive information. It has been tested extensively during a rigorous campaign of
measurements in a realistic laboratory setting.
A "perfect" system has the following attributes:
1. The software and hardware are only as complex as they need to be to complete the task.
2. The hardware and software deployed on the system are available in source forms to both
countries. The author believes that source form is well-understood for software, but it is less
clear for hardware. The source form includes both a high-level definition of the hardware and a
gate-level definition of the hardware. This source form should include:
o All software components deployed on the system
Basic Input Output System (BIOS)
- Operating system or runtime environment
Data acquisition and analysis code
* This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by University of California Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory under Contract W-7405-Eng-48.
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White, G. Increasing Inspectability of Hardware and Software for Arms Control and Nonproliferation Regimes, article, July 18, 2001; California. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1409475/m1/3/: accessed June 5, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.