Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

A zero-knowledge protocol for nuclear warhead verification

Nature volume 510, pages 497–502 (2014)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

The verification of nuclear warheads for arms control involves a paradox: international inspectors will have to gain high confidence in the authenticity of submitted items while learning nothing about them. Proposed inspection systems featuring ‘information barriers’, designed to hide measurements stored in electronic systems, are at risk of tampering and snooping. Here we show the viability of a fundamentally new approach to nuclear warhead verification that incorporates a zero-knowledge protocol, which is designed in such a way that sensitive information is never measured and so does not need to be hidden. We interrogate submitted items with energetic neutrons, making, in effect, differential measurements of both neutron transmission and emission. Calculations for scenarios in which material is diverted from a test object show that a high degree of discrimination can be achieved while revealing zero information. Our ideas for a physical zero-knowledge system could have applications beyond the context of nuclear disarmament. The proposed technique suggests a way to perform comparisons or computations on personal or confidential data without measuring the data in the first place.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Get just this article for as long as you need it

$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: A zero-knowledge protocol to prove that two cups contain the same number of marbles.
Figure 2: Experimental set-up with neutron source, neutron collimator, British Test Object in container, and detector array.
Figure 3: Results of MCNP5 simulations for interrogations of the British Test Object in two different orientations.
Figure 4: Results of MCNP5 simulations for two notional diversion scenarios.

References

  1. Comley, C. et al. Confidence, Security & Verification: The Challenge of Global Nuclear Weapons Arms Controlhttp://www.fissilematerials.org/library/awe00.pdf (Atomic Weapons Establishment, Aldermaston, UK, 2000)

  2. Spears D., ed. Technology R&D for Arms Controlhttp://www.fissilematerials.org/library/doe01b.pdf (US Department of Energy, Office of Nonproliferation Research and Engineering, Washington DC, 2001)

  3. Fuller, J. in Cultivating Confidence: Verification, Monitoring, and Enforcement for a World Free of Nuclear Weapons (ed. Hinderstein, C. ) Ch. 4 (Hoover Institution Press, 2010)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Anderson, B. et al. Verification of Nuclear Weapon Dismantlement: Peer Review of the UK MoD Programme (British Pugwash Group, London, 2012)

  5. Goldwasser, S., Micali, S. & Rackoff, C. The knowledge complexity of interactive proof-systems. SIAM J. Comput. 18, 186–208 (1989)

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  6. Chazelle, B. The security of knowing nothing. Nature 446, 992–993 (2007)

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  7. Fuller, J. Verification on the road to zero: issues for nuclear warhead dismantlement. Arms Control Today 40 (10). 19–27 (December 2010)

    Google Scholar 

  8. A general Monte Carlo N-particle (MCNP) transport code. Release MCNP5-1.40 http://mcnp.lanl.gov (Los Alamos National Laboratory, 2005)

  9. Roquemore, A. L., Jassby, D. L., Johnson, L. C., Strachan, J. D. & Barnes, C. W. Performance of a 14-MeV neutron generator as an in situ calibration source for TFTR. In 15th IEEE/NPSS Symposium on Fusion Engineering 114–118 (IEEE, 1993)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Hall, J. Uncovering hidden defects with neutrons. Sci. Technol. Rev. http://www.llnl.gov/str/May01/Hall.html 4–11 (May 2001)

  11. d’Errico, F. Radiation dosimetry and spectrometry with superheated emulsions. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. B 184, 229–254 (2001)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  12. d’Errico, F., Nath, R., Lamba, M. & Holland, S. K. A position sensitive superheated emulsion chamber for three-dimensional photon dosimetry. Phys. Med. Biol. 43, 1147–1158 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. d’Errico, F., Di Fulvio, A., Maryañski, M., Selici, S. & Torrigiani, M. Optical readout of superheated emulsions. Radiat. Meas. 43, 432–436 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Bleuel, D. L. et al. Neutron activation analysis at the National Ignition Facility. Rev. Sci. Instrum. 83, 10D313 (2012)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Thermo Scientific P 385 Neutron Generator. http://www.thermoscientific.com/en/product/p-385-neutron-generator.html

  16. Allen, K. et al. UK-Norway Initiative (UKNI) approach for the development of a gamma ray attribute measurement system with an integrated information barrier. In Proc. ESARDA 35th Annual Meeting (Ispra, Italy, June 2013) (ed. Sevini, F. ) (European Commission, 2013)

  17. Goldreich, O., Micali, S. & Wigderson, A. in Proc. 19th Annual ACM Conference on Theory of Computing (ed. Aho, A. V. ) 218–229 (ACM Press, 1987)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Lindell, Y. & Pinkas, B. Secure multiparty computation for privacy-preserving data mining. J. Privacy Confident. 1, 59–98 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Fisch, B., Freund, D. & Naor, M. Physical zero-knowledge proofs of physical properties. In Proceedings of CRYPTO 2014 (eds Garay, J. & Gennaro, R. ) (in the press); http://www.iacr.org/conferences/crypto2014/acceptedpapers.html

Download references

Acknowledgements

This project was supported by Global Zero and the US Department of State, the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (DOE contract DE-AC02-09CH11466) and in-kind contributions from Microsoft Research New England. We thank D. Dobkin, F. d’Errico, J. Fuller, D. MacArthur, J. Mihalczo, S. Philippe and M. Walker for discussions and feedback. We thank S. Philippe (Princeton University) for graphics in Fig. 2. All simulations were run on Princeton University’s High Performance Cluster.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, E-Quad, Olden Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA,

    Alexander Glaser

  2. Microsoft Research, 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, 02142, Massachusetts, USA

    Boaz Barak

  3. Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton University, PO Box 451, MS 41, Princeton, New Jersey 08540, USA,

    Robert J. Goldston

Authors
  1. Alexander Glaser
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Boaz Barak
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Robert J. Goldston
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

A.G. was project leader and performed all of the MCNP5 calculations. B.B. and R.J.G. contributed, along with A.G., to developing the overall approach and the application of zero-knowledge proofs to warhead verification.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alexander Glaser.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Related audio

PowerPoint slides

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Glaser, A., Barak, B. & Goldston, R. A zero-knowledge protocol for nuclear warhead verification. Nature 510, 497–502 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13457

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13457

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing