On behalf of Arcanum Technology, I would like to use this conduit to express my observations and opinion regarding the products that Arcanum Technology has developed. Before I express my opinion, let me first give you some background of my professional career.
My name is Bob Bigman. I retired in 2012 after 30 years with the CIA as the CISO (Chief Information Security Officer). Here is the summary of my career:
Accomplishments
- The intelligence community's most senior information security officer. Served as the agency's chief of information assurance for fifteen years.
- Managed the agency cyber security and cryptographic program of record and all related technology initiatives. Directed a large organization of staff and contract employees.
- Senior cyber security consultant to agency, intelligence community, national security council, presidential commissions and congressional oversight committees.
- Contributed to the development of all national (e.g., ICD 503), federal (e.g., FISMA), industrial (e.g., NISPOM) and legislative cyber security initiatives.
- Served as the agency's technical security certification authority for all computer systems and networks.
- Influenced the development of commercial operating systems (e.g., Microsoft Windows), applications (e.g., Oracle data base), networking (e.g., Citrix Zen) and numerous cyber security products.
- Developed requirements and served as the technical contract officer for first-of-a-kind security tools including insider misuse detection/audit, privacy encryption, biometric authentication and data sanitization.
- Technical lead for the development of the agency's first counterterrorism database and counterintelligence network
I was introduced to Arcanum Technology through a mutual friend and former co-worker at the CIA Mike Callinan, who now teaches at Athens Academy. Mike was impressed enough with their work that he asked if I would take the time to review for myself and provide feedback.
Arcanum Technology has created two products. N-Kod, which is their authentication application and DARC, which is their cryptographic cipher that they have engineered. Each of these is unique and have tremendous value and multiple verticals to which they can be leveraged.
N-Kod has the potential to replace password authentication as we know it. Once deployed, this technology has the capability to become an industry standard. Simple in concept and design, this product offers an innovative and highly secure interface that allows users/consumers to authenticate into different applications, websites, and other verticals with extreme confidence that their credentials cannot be compromised by way of shoulder surfing or any malicious software residing on the device itself.
This brings us to the DARC(Distributed Asymmetric Recondite Circuit) cipher. This is a byproduct of Arcanum's original application, N-Kod. Brian and his team decided that after creating N-Kod and the front-end security it has built into the interface itself that they needed to protect the data behind the scenes. To them this was more important than the user interface. They recognized that the true threats resided more in the cyber community than that of the device itself. After reviewing the readily available cryptographic algorithms that could be used, they decided to pursue the novel idea of creating their own cipher.
As you can see based on my experience, I have reviewed many other cryptographic algorithms. After reviewing what Arcanum has developed, I can say without any hesitancy, that up to this point, I have not seen anything like what Arcanum has created. Based on the presentation and discussion afterwards, this is a highly innovative and potentially market disrupting technology. Based on my opinion, Arcanum may have developed a non-deterministic cryptographic cipher with a very unique use of current ephemeral and non-ephemeral key exchanges. This of course could be of incredible value to many verticals but even more so to highly sensitive governmental information.
I am anxious to see how Arcanum can move forward. With the right backing and direction, this could potentially be a highly sought investment.
Respectfully submitted,
Bob Bigman
