Friday, December 6, 2013

Trusted Execution Environment (TEE)

As always the payload of the blog entry packet comes at the end of the entry after all the header info has been applied.  I should just put it up front but then the reader would not have to do proof of work as in the Bitcoin model to deserve the reward.  However, everyone knows where the end is?

This link explains TEE:

The TEE is a secure area that resides in the main processor of a smart phone (or any mobile device) and ensures that sensitive data is stored, processed and protected in a trusted environment. The TEE's ability to offer safe execution of authorized security software, known as 'trusted applications', enables it to provide end-to-end security by enforcing protection, confidentiality, integrity and data access rights.

More explanation at this link.

One of the fundamental principals of Information Engineering is that every thing must have a unique identity.  Simple.  In our Natural Language (English) the singular of a noun expresses a unit of the collective:  Person is a singular unit of all people.  That person must have a unique name to identify it from all other people.  Well, we tried but then along came Jones.  What we failed to do in identifying one person from all other persons our information systems must do.

Currently we are identified by unique numbers.  Maybe not so unique.  The address I live at might have other people living there too.  My car has a license plate but my son might drive it..  His name is on the title.  My cell phone number connects to me but someone else might have my phone in their possession.  My name applies to me but googling it gets the most hits on a football player.  Add a few other pieces of information like birthday, facial recognition, credit card number, place of employment, mother's maiden name and you can be sure that I am the guy you are shaking hands with.

It is so much easier to identify a person with a unique number.  A unique number that is either tattooed on us or tagged to us in some other fashion.  A number that is really the single unique identifier of a record to which other numbers, features and pieces of information are assigned.  We do not know it, but simple logic and reasoning tell me that we all have been assigned a number by an agency that wants to know about and keep track of every individual on earth.

The electronic device we use increasingly to interface with our world identifies us.  First it identifies itself.  Then by our use it identifies us.  We use secret crypto codes in the device to securely identify our communications with others.  That is the foundation of security and trust that Bitcoin is built on.  Anonymous identification?  Ya think?

Triangulation is a way of defining an identity attribute of an object.  A three dimensional way look at it that be extended to additional dimensions of view. Conceptual dimension analogous to the structure of physical dimensions.  Space Time Dimensions are known to all school children.  They are identified as X, Y, and Z.  Time is the 4th dimension. Now the Space Time Dimensions are viewed as a continuum and there appear to be 10 according to Wikipedia but theoretical scientists propose numbers beyond that depending on their favorite theory.  It is like the Periodic Table.  There used to be fewer elements in it when it was first conceived.

Our conceptual structures founded on the existence of structures in the real world, mathematics for example, are advancing on a continuum of discovery and what they tell us that enables advancement next step in mapping out the structure in terms of range and depth of knowledge.  Range increases when new conceptual objects are discovered, although we can theorize they must be there before they are in fact "discovered" to be true by scientific method.  Depth when after discovery they are explored.  Columbus proved a non-truth that validated a truth.

Columbus proved a theory the world was not flat.  The world is round.  That increased the range of validated world concepts.  Depth of exploration exploration followed revealing all the 4 corners of the world.  We went to all corners of the compass.  Always moving on a moving planet.  Now a satellite lets us sit in one place and let the world revolve beneath it.  Or sit in geo synchronous orbit and look (or communicate) from one spot.  Travel once was something where we had to move to get from point A to point B.  They were fixed, our position was variable.  Now our conceptual travel makes us the fixed point outside the surface of the world and the world surface relationship is variable.  We look down from a satellite.  That is what we can do when our intelligence enables us to separate logical from physical structures through the application of our capacity to do conceptual abstract thinking.

Looking at the earth from this viewpoint in space.  It is a whole new view and a paradigm shift in conceptual thinking where we become fixed and the earth travels.  The old paradigm:  We are the variable that roam the surface of a fixed earth.  Doesn't that turn the world upside down?

That separation of our physical existence from our logical existence is the key to distinguishing our unique individual physical identity, from out logical identity but retaining an absolute direct connection between the two.  Like never being separate from out "name".  Our connection to our physical information age communication devices is what joins us with an absolutely unique identity to our virtual conceptual world.

That connection association between our real selves and our virtual selves is a conceptual, (maybe a real) continuum.  TEE on an electronic device associated to us is an incremental step along the continuum.  I believe that to be a truth.

Perhaps the only question is:  What advancements along our parallel conceptual "space time" continuum are Range additions to the continuum analogous to the "real world" space time dimensional continuum and what are our Depth explorations of our parallel conceptual dimensions that we have already proved to be truths.

Maybe it does not matter in the progress of mankind.  However, like my Moral Compass it is always good to know where we are.  Discovering new truths and adding them to the range of known conceptually fundamental dimensional truths or just exploring the range of established truths.  Some of the new truths discovered disprove old truths and are paradigm shifts.

Is it a truth that we as individuals in our real world of physical things can be anonymized from our conceptual logical existence in a virtual world.

What is the thinking of cryptologists on this matter>

What is the thinking of the NSA.

It appears to me that unless the NSA can insert entry keys by design into the conceptual structures intended to anonymize real physical identity of a person from their conceptual identity then true and absolute cannot be accomplished.

If that is a fact then absolute identification of a unique individual can only be accomplished by physical, not conceptual virtual properties belonging to or unconditionally associated with a unique individual.  Enter the NRO and physical world connects to NSA virtual world and makes physical execution of physical intent possible in the real world.  Dominoes Delivers.  Drones Deliver.  Fullfillment Centers are where our virtual world meets reality and delivers the real goods.  Where the rubber meets the road.

Perhaps it is a new view to look at the military, or any other institution, business, government, etc. in terms of its real and virtual identities and identify their fulfillment center and means of physical fulfillment connected to its virtual identity.  Discover what its real virtual identity is.  That used to be easier before we became so adept at separating the physical from the logical conceptual nature of things and structuring them and managing them independently.  So independent that by our intended or unintended design the 'truth' of the virtual thing is difficult to connect to its physical existence.

However, increasing degrees of difficulty of virtual "proofs" of transactions and associated virtual identities like the Bitcoin model make "truth" validation increasingly certain. 

In other social conceptual systems proof of truth is not so easy.  Those other systems and especially systems not structured on faith, not fact, are increasingly subject to Information Age proof of virtual conceptual structures to the extent they become proven models of relationships between the real world and the conceptual worlds we create in and from our minds.

"Trusted Execution Environment" is a fascinating phrase to study and parse for meanings in several dimensions.


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