q: time & crypto

brian carroll electromagnetize@gmail.com
Wed Feb 4 10:37:06 PST 2015


observation, i have been intrigued by the idea of future mechanical
watches built using nanoelectronics and micromechanical timing
mechanisms that could be scaled to very tiny watch movements that
perhaps could be hybrid analog (mechanical) computer-on-a-chip
devices, so that a watch would have an electronics interface (LCD
screen, other indicators) along with mechanical hands and timing,
potentially. that said, today the Swiss technology seems thoroughly
operating at the old scale (at least to outside views) in their
watching, yet this scaling-down of watch movements seems a natural
next step in the technological progression, perhaps a mechanical
moore's law of some sort relating to physics tools enabling clockwork
modeling at ever smaller scales, & also circuitry.

so what if what today exists as a half-dollar (USD) medallion sized
watch 'movement' tomorrow could be equivalent to the realm occupied by
fabled smart dust, where the mechanism itself nearly disappears by
comparison, say down to a centimeter if not a few millimeters for a
mechanical movement that could rotate minutes and seconds hands on a
watch display, that through magnification via lens could then appear
at a normal watch scale for readability, etc. such that additional
power would not be needed to gear a motor to drive larger scaled watch
hands, or perhaps that would even be possible, given future energy
options. the point here being the idea of mechanical timing operating
at a lower scale, though also with increased timing precision. one way
to consider it would be to have such a system synced with GPS for
accuracy, and then adjust the mechanical watch hands to a synchronized
time regimen.

another way to consider it would be that something new is possible in
this realm, including both mechanically, where a mechanical cantilever
can be set to vibrate at a natural harmonic frequency (much like a
quartz crystal used in timing circuits) if not mistaken, (these things
used as frequency-combs for spectroscopy) [0], thus if consistent
timing were achievable, perhaps this vibrational energy could be the
basis for moving a clockwork mechanism, ratcheted gear by
interconnected gear, to produce 'time' as it were.

at the nanoelectronic side of things, [1] it would seem that at
whatever the smallest scale of charged particle flow could be
harnessed into circuits, that this then would build-up the electronics
side of the watch, to interact with a mechanical circuit via
additional info or data (communications, software, etc) though
potentially also timing regulation, or smoothing out input or whatever
may be possible. so perhaps the 'electronics' could be part of the
timing circuit or exist beside it, functioning independently in
parallel. or that the accuracy of the timing could be generated via
electronics (say a more accurate crystal frequency or resolution for
the timing circuit, that either adjusts or corrects it or drives it).

so thinking about extremes and what-ifs, the idea here is to consider
what may be possible if reaching such a capacity for a watchmaking and
what might change as a result of this kind of technological
advancement, especially in terms of time.

needless to say, today mechanical hybrid watches and "smartwatches"
have comparably low resolution timing accuracy when compared to the
most accurate atomic clocks in use for standardized time keeping. so
too, the idea of network 'timestamps' appears to propagate as a way of
maintaining time on network-reachable watches, such that an Internet
Time Server relays a time signal to a device which then sets its clock
to that remote standard, perhaps not unlike issues of web serves and
routers and how time is maintained and used to coordinate and route
event data. and it is to question this existing scenario (in
particular electronic and computer-based watches and devices) as this
relates to issues like encryption and random-numbers and hashing
functions, if the "time" of a device is managed remotely and in some
major sense, inaccurate at a local level, or not unique to a
particular space-time and instead managed by a centralized though
inaccurate timekeeping system which is never actually synchronized. in
that there are huge gaps and losses of resolution (which may be a
matter of perspective, in that 'time' may be viewed a construct) and
yet, what if this has fundamental relation to how crypto functions,
could function, or cannot function as a result.

this consideration led to my observation of how having an atomic clock
as a wristwatch movement would likely be possible in the above MEMs
and nanoelectronics scenario. and what would that mean, if
super-resolution timekeeping were available at a local level of
interaction, where gravity or nano-fractional differences in time may
be leveraged for unique non-reproducible running number sequencing
that could generate hashes or be used for randomization or encryption
of unique point-to-point timing where the keys are correlated to the
unique timing of independent atomic watches. In that, consider GPS
satellites that send out a time signal to a device and in their
miniscule differences in arrival, location can be determined. what if
the same is true of wristwatches, where each watch is like that, with
relativism or the gap, instead of being a dead-area or deficit,
becomes a basis for knowledge and a barrier or wall to outside peering
into the connection, if a secure channel between watches could be
established, and thus not 'tapped' into without a certain running
timing sequence to discombobulate the merged streams as harmonized.

It is just wondered if such atomic wristwatches could feasibly change
the game for point to point or one-to-many communications in a secure
communications protocol. or perhaps such timing mechanisms per device,
as applicable, in terms of security (phone, bankcard, etc). it just
seems that timing and encryption could go hand-in-hand in that their
dynamics are potentially highly complimentary though also, the lack of
such timing coherence then could allow negative relativistic dynamics
in their place, where exploits could be based on inaccurate homogenous
timing regimens that remove timing as part of a security measure or
defense.


0. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_spectroscopy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_force_microscopy

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanoelectronics



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