The US Department of Defense (DoD) has released a new document stating that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), one of its agencies, is experimenting with blockchain.

According to the document, entitled the “DoD Digital Modernization Strategy”, DARPA is exploring how blockchain can help facilitate the transmission of secure messages.

“The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is starting to experiment with blockchain to create a more efficient, robust, and secure platform using a blockchain protocol that will allow personnel from anywhere to transmit secure messages or process transactions that can be traced through numerous channels of a decentralized ledger.

The application will be used in different ways, including facilitating communication between units and headquarters, and transmitting information between intelligence officers and the Pentagon. DARPA also has been trying to develop an unhackable code—which blockchain could facilitate—because the technology offers intelligence on hackers who try to break into secure databases.”

The publication highlights the strength of blockchain technology and what makes its use cases so secure.

Blockchains are a new information technology that inverts the cybersecurity paradigm. First, blockchain networks are trustless: they assume compromise of the network by both insiders and outsiders. Second, blockchains are transparently secure: they do not rely on failure-prone secrets, but rather on a cryptographic data structure that makes tampering both exceptionally difficult and immediately obvious.

Finally, blockchain networks are fault tolerant: they align the efforts of honest nodes to reject those that are dishonest. As a result, blockchain networks not only reduce the probability of compromise, but also impose significantly greater costs on an adversary to achieve it.

DARPA is responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the US military.

The 72-page document serves as the DoD’s roadmap to support cloud, artificial intelligence, command, control and communications and cybersecurity.