Enabling Universal Entity-Centric Cryptographic Information Spaces

The Mesh is a global information space, like the Web, but with automated cryptographic security and universal zero trust built in. The architecture of the Web (and of all conventional IT) is domain-centric and administered by privileged insiders, i.e. arbitrary entities who must be trusted. In contrast, the Mesh is entity-centric and entirely automated, with no privileged insider at all. The Mesh is universal and unified across all types of entities: people, organizations, physical things, or digital things. Any entity in the universe, with a distinct and independent existence, can have its own cryptographically isolated information space within the global information space of the Mesh. This enables each entity to establish and maintain pairwise relationships with any other entity without any arbitrary third-party privileged authority. All information in the Mesh is encrypted with unique entity-centric keys to that no human has access to. The resulting encrypted objects, called “Cells”, can be moved from anywhere to anywhere. Only the legitimate entities, within software-defined cryptographic chains of custody, can access the information secured within specific Cells. This cryptographic need-to-know access control mechanism is universal across the entire Mesh, and independent from controls by networks, applications, platforms, or database technologies. This breakthrough approach is enabled by the Universal Name System (UNS) which automates the generation of cryptographic identifiers for all entities in the universe, and the Universal Certificate Authority (UCA) which automates decentralized key management and pairwise cryptographic security between any two entities. These foundational cryptographic capabilities are anchored in hardware across a physically decentralized, recursively attested, and globally verified network of Confidential Computing servers, called “TrusTEEs”. In today’s version of the Mesh, the UNS/UCA capabilities are implemented at the top of the hierarchical TrusTEE network, in what we call the “Global TrusTEE”. This is a first step to quickly prove the approach to early partners and customers. Given the Mesh’s inherently hierarchical and recursive structure, it was our intention all along to “push down” and distribute all UNS/UCA functions to enable a “Mesh of (sub)Meshes” topology. This, along with distributed caching, will enable (sub)Meshes to function in disrupted, disconnected, intermittent and low-bandwidth (DDIL) situations, and to recover gracefully once connectivity is restored. Our proposal for this SBIR Open Topic is to implement this “Mesh of (sub)Meshes” topology with DoN’s specific requirements built in. The Phase 1 Base will start prototyping and documenting the overall approach to UNS/UCA distribution, and will result in a technical specification of the work to be done in Phase 2. The Phase 1 Option will continue prototyping and development work to accelerate Phase 2 as much as possible.