of Concepts, which one of the authors (Bertrand) has published with Yi Mao at the Third Conference on Experience and Truth in 2006. While the paper is less accessible than the presentation herein (imagine that!), it follows the canons of publication in the field of logic (using Richard Montague’s Formal Philosophy) for the phenomena that we just described.

Thanks to cognitive languages, computers have now means to venture into areas previously reserved to humans. We are getting ready to come back to the processes of religion and sciences that we discussed earlier. However, we will first look at the beginning of it all, the provisioning of the capabilities that we now recognize in both human and computers.

Evolution of Secure Core Software

With the emergence of secure core components in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, a common software paradigm was followed for the development of secure systems. Within this paradigm, the secure core was envisioned as a component of a larger system, a component that could be used to establish the presence of a person at a point of interaction with some degree of assurance as to the integrity of this presence. In other words, the secure core was a mechanism to enhance the level of trust in the ensuing interaction.

The secure core could be made part of a token, for example a card that was carried on the person. The software found on the token was designed in specific relation to the larger system. The information stored on the token and the operations performed on the token were part of the context of the larger system. The token was typically given a physical interface through which it could then be accessed at a specific interaction point. The details of this physical interface might well vary from system to system. This approach tended to minimize, if not completely eliminate the possibility of using a specific token in multiple systems. The earliest incarnations of such a mechanism were obviously similar in characteristics to a door key, given that this is the model on which the token is based. One can have a system of arbitrary size and complexity locked away in a room behind a door. If the key to the door is presented, then the door can be opened and the full system exposed. Without the key, the system remains inaccessible.

In the course of deploying a number of systems in this manner, many similar problems were identified as characteristic of the use of tokens, independent of the larger scale system that they were used in. Rather obviously, one of the first recognized areas of commonality was the need for consistent physical interfaces between system interaction points and tokens. This led to the development of standards for interface that were used to connect tokens to general-purpose systems that provided the services enabled by the tokens. Many purely software level commonality issues were identified as well. For example, the need to establish some sort of authentication linkage between the token and token bearer was necessary in order to prevent a token that was lost from being easily used by a different person. A major goal of the use of a token was enhanced security of interactions, so such a linkage was important no matter the details of the specific system in question. The mechanism that evolved to meet this need was that of bearer verification. When the token was connected to some interface device at an interaction point, the token bearer was asked to enter a personal identification number. This number was then conveyed to the token and compared with a stored value that was, in fact, a secret number that had been placed there by the token bearer when the token was first issued. The number was ostensibly known only by the token bearer and the software on the token, so it could be used to authenticate the identity of the token bearer to the token. While the general theme of this operation might be similar from one system to the next, the details of the operation were quite system specific.

Book available at Midori Press (regular)
Book available at Midori Press (signed)
Book available at Amazon (regular)