Our Purpose: Through leadership in distributed governance, and a KATLAS Web3.0 router serving every household and business, we shall empower and inspire individuals and organisations to participate privately in a truly interactive and sustainable society.
Value to Industry: Digital twins represented by personal wallets, interconnected via smart contracts with privacy protocols on a foundational decentralised platform, will advance the data interoperability essential to drive monumental transformation in health innovation, green industrial growth and a resilient UK.
Problem: The Internet has become an integral part of society, and people use it for a wide range of services, including social interaction, commerce, payments, and interacting with the government. However, we are still operating in a web2.0 environment, which relies on a client/server paradigm that started in the early 90s. This model has enabled companies like Google and Amazon to grow large, creating concerns about monopolies and central control of information. Moreover, values such as privacy, autonomy, and safety are not adequately addressed in this model, making it imperative to develop web3.0.
Solution: Web3.0 is a term that describes the future of the internet, where interactions are peer-to-peer (P2P) and symmetrical, and a new serverless paradigm underpins it. In this model, participation, collaboration, trading, reporting, shopping, and decision-making are conducted via privacy wallets, and third parties are replaced with smart contracts sitting in blockchains. Business models are distributed and automated, enabling individuals to automate essential functions such as monetization of their private data, accessing tailored marketplaces, government assessments, social interactions, trading, managing investments, and health systems.
The KATLAS wallet system: acts as a universal interoperability layer, seamlessly integrating new data points and sensors captured from various systems. The integrated applications will expand to capture data from devices connected through USB, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or Ethernet, establishing a local network and connectivity. Notably, the system demonstrates its functionality without relying on cloud access, enabling data transmission during the transit of multi-purpose vehicles such as submarines, aircraft, or military craft. This is achieved by leveraging existing communication devices with proven low power consumption, such as routers or Raspberry Pi Zero. The system guarantees dependable bandwidth, data quality, and connection stability, even in challenging environments such as extreme latitudes, underwater conditions, or dense urban settings. Privacy protection, encompassing aspects like location and identity, is maintained while ensuring permissioned consent. The system operates on laptops or tablets, thereby offering a comprehensive solution.
Privacy concerns: our solution is an L1+L2 system. L1 is a distributed settlement system or blockchain, while L2 is a P2P network of wallet agents, also known as digital twins, personal hubs, or other names that refer to the same architecture designed to automate and represent its owner. The proposed technology includes the plug-in architecture called R2R, or role-to-role,protocols, where users can have their twin work for them in multiple scenarios based on peer-to-peer trades. The goal is for everyone to participate actively inP2P networks running nodes, which will enable them to run nodes at home.
As members of the UKRI DSbD program, our solution has been tested using the CHERI architecture and the ARM Morello board. CHERI is a spec produced by Cambridge University that protects against cyberattacks and software failures, preventing private data leaks, a crucial feature for privacy wallets.
The proposed solution provides privacy, autonomy, and safety for its users.
KATLAS functional capability (CIA)
Confidentiality: is maintained through the use of Zero-knowledge proofs combined with three-way authentication, executed based on the ECDSA (Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm). These measures are augmented by the integration of STARKS, providing a secure execution environment for user-defined proofs. Communication between nodes employs AES encryption for node-to-node transmission, featuring periodic re-negotiation of shared secrets. Private encrypted data, such as health records, remains safeguarded within users’ respective nodes, protected by trusted algorithms.
Integrity assurance: is maintained by employing encrypted streams and signed documents, where certificates play a pivotal role in safeguarding against tampering. Should any bit of a message undergo alteration during transit, the digital signature would promptly expose the modification, promptly alerting the recipient. For detecting deep fakes, an algorithm is essential unless content is digitally signed, in which case detection becomes straightforward. Our approach to data stream security involves AES Symmetric encryption, valued for its efficiency and low CPU utilization. Potential enhancements encompass the incorporation of a honeypot beacon with executable branches. To ensure data-centric principles, we deploy extensible Access Control Lists (ACLs).
Addressing data veracity, we embrace P2P transmission to bypass third-party obfuscation. This is facilitated by nodes within a Content Distribution Network (CDN) utilizing our proprietary KdCDN protocol.
Availability – Our groundbreaking element, codenamed ‘kpeer,’ assumes a pivotal role in orchestrating a dynamic array of connection groups. Each of these groups possesses the adaptability to accommodate a tailored number of neighbouring nodes, each abiding by its distinct topology regulations. This degree of flexibility empowers nodes to seamlessly participate in various networks or configure diverse levels of Quality of Service (QoS). Furthermore, the assurance of Availability is fortified by our adaptable software stack, which is engineered to run on ruggedized hardware explicitly designed to withstand a spectrum of environmental conditions. This includes extreme temperatures (such as those encountered by solar orbiter satellites), vibrations (pertaining to vehicles), humidity/corrosion (relevant to maritime Search and Rescue operations), electromagnetic pulses (impacting military equipment and critical infrastructure), or even challenging high latitudes.
Safeguarding Quantum Resistance: is maintained through a highly adaptable configuration approach. The emergence of quantum computers raises legitimate concerns regarding the time required for these machines to compromise encryption, thereby rendering it obsolete and necessitating security upgrades. This upgrade mechanism can be as straightforward as extending the length of secret keys. For every additional bit appended to our current 256-bit key-length configuration, the quantum computer’s (QC) time required to breach the cipher and execute a successful attack doubles.
