Focus July 2020

Director and Founder of Blueskytec Dr Chris Mobley has a background in defence and national security on both sides of the Atlantic. He worked on electronic warfare projects before moving into cryptographic solutions to secure the UK’s battle space with MoD and GCHQ. His work with his colleagues for US and UK intelligence agencies provided a deep understanding of future cyber security threats and led to the development of technology using a quantum derived hi-grade crypto to secure control systems and monitor anomalous behaviour utilising machine learning. Dr Chris Mobley [email protected] www.blueskytec.com “There’s a major focus on the digital economy providing a rich source of data about people, places and things - especially personal data. Both the public and private sectors are looking at how they can exploit these technologies in our cities to improve services, reduce costs and open up new markets with disruptive economic models. “In the digital economy, cities are a key setting for the collection of the data that enables modern technology and service firms to thrive, from sharing economy platforms like Uber or Airbnb, to providers of the technology that power local services. “But as the lines between human agency and smart agent-like devices become increasingly blurred, there’s an emerging challenge in building trust and public acceptance. With these new threats and governance challenges come fundamental questions that we should be exploring in order to understand how to develop systems that people trust and to unlock the immense opportunities that Digital Transformation can bring to citizens and their city spaces.” And it is precisely this challenge - that of developing safe, high-integrity systems - that Dr Chris Mobley, Founder of Blueskytec set out to address when he founded his company in 2013. Having observed that military systems and submarines had implemented strong cyber security and secure data links to protect against online interception and malware propagation, Dr Mobley did not think the same could always be said for the proliferation of connected IoT devices that were being rolled out and that are at the core of future infrastructure. So he found a way to secure the data that feeds into high-value, mission and safety-critical assets such as drones and UAVs, satellites, ships, autonomous cars and the platforms and digital systems that are making our cities smarter, more connected and more ‘bullet-proof’ against potential cyber penetration or electronic attacks from known and unknown sources. “Integrity is the root of all trust - whether this is between people or systems. With our technology, we assume that all communications are compromised and lack integrity unless they share our technology’s backbone. We believe that a physical asset needs to be physically secured with hardware”, says Dr Mobley. His patented hardware and encryption techniques create a physical ‘trust anchor’ among system components. Something that can serve as proof of absolute trust between devices in a system, like a secret handshake among friends or a secret code phrase. Except this handshake or phrase cannot be shared, observed or understood by outsiders and, according to Dr Mobley, guarantees absolute data security when applied. This hardware-based trust anchor works by pre- placing a block of coded key material into any physical asset or system to create an infallible root for trust between those systems. “Digital technology is re-shaping nearly every aspect of daily life, including how we interact with each other and what we expect of people. As a result, our cities are becoming increasingly transformed through digitalisation and data, re-inventing how our urban economies function and how people live and work”, says Freyja Lockwood: Smart City & Innovation Manager, Bristol City Council. Creating Digital Trust in Systems 27 Smart City & Innovation Manager, Bristol City Council Freyja leads Bristol City Council’s City Innovation Team. Along with the city- wide partners, the team is exploring, developing and implementing ‘smart’, citizen- centred solutions to improve their city space. As a chartered Human Factors specialist and systems thinker, Freyja brings a people-centred approach to technology-driven change. In 2017, she co-authored the widely cited Global Marine Technology Trends 2030 Maritime Autonomous Systems that explored the potential impact of emerging technology on the maritime sector. Freyja Lockwood [email protected] 26 Cont’d