MIT Space Force major proposes Bitcoin mining as cybersecurity tool


An astronautical engineer from the United States Space Force on active duty proposes to the Pentagon a cybersecurity tool capable of transforming the country's national security and even the Internet's base layer architecture: Bitcoin (BTC).

In an academic thesis, Maj. Jason Lowery, who is also a National Defense Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), presented a new theory to the US Department of Defense that Bitcoin is more than a security system. peer pay. but it is a new form of "digital age warfare", arguing that proof-of-work technologies will change the way humans compete globally, according to Ben Schreckinger's book review in Politico.

Published in February, Lowery's master's thesis called "Softwar" he sits in the third position on Amazon's list of best-seller technology books at the time of writing. According to his Amazon bio, Lowery has a decade of experience "serving as a weapons systems developer and technical adviser to senior US officials," including Bitcoin-related policy for the White House.

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Lowery's research argues that the US military could use Bitcoin to stop certain types of attacks, such as denial-of-service attacks, which overload servers with too many requests. The concept involves creating software programs that only respond to signals from large transactions on the Bitcoin network. This would make it more difficult for attackers to flood servers with false signals and cause damage.

Lowery also suggests that the Bitcoin network is like maritime trade lanes, meaning it is suitable for economic exchange. Consequently, it is crucial to protect the freedom of surfing the net, just as we protect trade routes.

By designing software programs that only respond to external signals if they come with a large enough Bitcoin transaction recorded on the network, Lowery argues that they would prevent adversaries from gaining control over them.

According to the author, the US should also hoard Bitcoin, build a national Bitcoin mining industry, and extend legal protections to the technology. In his opinion, Bitcoin is a self-defense weapon and the country should protect it as it does other rights.

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