The home of in-orbit certification

Stardome is the company, born in Blockchain District, that manages the vertical axis of data certification at origin, with hardware boards of its own production and with a proprietary, patent-pending technology model. The company has already carried out several pilot experiments and is implementing projects in various fields, particularly in logistics and trucking, the space economy and smart cities, as well as solutions for energy networks and infrastructure.

Security

Stardome applies a certification model that guarantees a unique security matrix based on four pillars:

• infrastructure: keys are generated by satellite-based systems, which use a highly secure network.
• origin: data are certified at the source, with a hardware board installed on the sensor or system that produces them.
• architecture: each satellite acts as an autonomous CA (certificate authority), using unique, non-replicable algorithms.
• blockchain: certificates are associated with NFTs registered on a public blockchain to ensure that the transfer of ownership is tracked and irrevocable.

Sustainability

The use of a low-power hardware board embedded in the data source allows a substantial reduction in the computing power required to produce the hashcode. The use of a simple NFT to enable and record transactions limits the number of interactions with the blockchain and, consequently, the power requirements.

In addition, the use of satellites as trusted and unique CAs greatly simplifies the network structure and reduces message traffic.

Cost reduction

The complexity of the data certification process is a direct function of its structure: since each piece of data would have to be certified individually to ensure the integrity of the system, an environment that produces data continuously requires a large number of certificates, the overall cost of which quickly goes from negligible to challenging. Our solution allows a substantial reduction in certification costs in two ways:

• the very linear configuration of the system reduces its complexity and, therefore, the cost of each certificate;
• a fully customizable data model allows maximum efficiency of the data collection system, certifying aggregates of data (e.g. those collected in a specific time interval).

Velocity

Certification is a time-critical process. Timestamps must be provided with the utmost precision and from a trusted and verifiable source. The delay between the origination of data and their certification should be kept as short as possible, to minimize the exposition to tampering. The integration of the certification process in the general business workflow is achieved only if this process is simple, seamless, automated: in other words, it has to be felt as a part of the whole flow.
Stardome’s solution addresses all these needs:

• timestamps are provided by registered satellites, that are an extremely precise and trusted source;
• data are certified directly at the source, via an integrated, autonomous card physically embedded in the sensor/system. This configuration provides a zero-delay solution;

the whole process is completely autonomous and fully automated. Data come into the system already certified, according to the established certification policy: not just fast, Stardome certification solution is simply immediate.

Interoperability

On the one hand, certificates must be provided by a third party, to ensure full trust by all the parties involved in each transaction. On the other hand, certified data must be fully accessible to all authorized receivers, regardless of their specific network, system or format arrangements.
Stardome achieves this double goal via a completely autonomous certification service, so as to satisfy the most stringent requirements of security and trustworthiness. This service is seamlessly integrated into che client’s systems, as a plug-in module that blends into data flows and acts as a standard data source.

Moreover, the certification process is completely agnostic to the content and format of certified data. This means that certificates can be received, transmitted and updated even by nodes who may not have access to the relevant data content, for permissioning or format reasons.

Full automation

Using satellites as autonomous CAs and hardware cards to issue certificates, the Stardome solution achieves the maximum of security with fully automated operations. Ceritficates are issued as defined by the policy defined by the data originator and require no specific operation or intervention, as they are created directly at the point of origin.

Transactions, too, are performed in a similarly seamless way: each time a data package, with the relevant certificate, is transferred to another node, the underlying smart contract adjust the ownership definitions and records them on the blockchain, to provide complete traceability and non-repudiation.

The gist of Stardome approach can be defined as the product of three factors:

• the security and dependability of satellites, used as timestamp reference and CAs;
• the public register of the blockchain, to record data transaction and ownership changes;
• our patented hardware cards, installed at the source and able to issue certificates at the point of origin, without any external operation.

The result is a very compact, reliable and secure certification solution, fully automated and always available.