Blockchain technology is a game-changing, enhancing security for the supply chain of smart additive manufacturing. Blockchain enables the tracking and recording of the history of each transaction in a ledger stored in the cloud that cannot be altered, and when blockchain is combined with digital signatures, it verifies the identity of the participants with its non-repudiation capabilities. One of the weaknesses of blockchain is the difficulty of preventing malicious participants from gaining access to public–private key pairs. Groups of opponents often interact freely with the network, and this is a security concern when cloud-based methods manage the key pairs. Therefore, we are proposing end-to-end security schemes by both inserting tamper-resistant devices in the hardware of the peripheral devices and using ternary cryptography. The tamper-resistant devices, which are designed with nanomaterials, act as Physical Unclonable Functions to generate secret cryptographic keys. One-time use public–private key pairs are generated for each transaction. In addition, the cryptographic scheme incorporates a third logic state to mitigate man-in-the-middle attacks. The generation of these public–private key pairs is compatible with post quantum cryptography. The third scheme we are proposing is the use of noise injection techniques used with high-performance computing to increase the security of the system. We present prototypes to demonstrate the feasibility of these schemes and to quantify the relevant parameters. We conclude by presenting the value of blockchains to secure the logistics of additive manufacturing operations.
This work details the theory and implementation of a multi-wavelength quantum key distribution (QKD) emulation system with a physical unclonable function (PUF). Multi-wavelength QKD can eliminate the need to share a subsection of the final key for eavesdropper detection and allow for ternary and quaternary data transmission. The inclusion of the PUF adds an additional layer of security. We provide preliminary error analysis of our emulation system. To support this work, we introduce a bitwise transform operator that enables binary output of the PUF to satisfy the ternary and quaternary input requirements of the QKD system.
This work proposes a lightweight biometric key-binding scheme that adapts a PUF-style challenge–response mechanism to face geometry: a two-factor password and session nonce generate random challenge points, Gray-coded Euclidean distances to facial landmarks form responses, and a random key is bound by discarding selected positions so only a reduced subset, the nonce, and a key hash are stored. At authentication, a fresh response set is compared to the subset with a Hamming-distance tolerance, and bounded local search corrects residual errors; each successful session rotates the nonce and refreshes the ephemeral key. We frame this as a conceptual exploration of an interpretable, on-device, controlled-capture design niche—a per-session nonce-driven cancelable biometric key-binding mechanism—and we quantify the resulting security–usability trade-offs. Empirically, the scheme works under stable capture conditions with carefully tuned thresholds, and it is naturally suited to tightly controlled deployments (e.g., access kiosks) where it can also incorporate user-driven micro-gestures as an extra behavioral factor. While the construction is fragile under broader variability and leans on the second factor for security, it offers an alternative to existing mechanisms and a clear niche, and we present it as a conceptual exploration showing how CRP mechanisms can inform cancelable biometrics with per-session revocability.