NTT Technical Review

March 2019 Vol. 17 No. 3
View from the Top

Masaaki Moribayashi, Senior Executive Vice President, NTT Communications

Feature Articles: Front-line Cybersecurity Technology to Enable a Digital Society

Security R&D for a Safe and Secure Digital Society

Discovery of Silhouette—a New Threat to Privacy—and Our Efforts to Counter It

Trial Service of Secure Computation System San-shi™

Research Trends in Post-quantum Cryptography

Feature Articles: NTT R&D Forum 2018 Autumn Special Sessions


Co-innovating to Accelerate Transformation and Create New Value

Leading in the Age of Digital Disruption

Regular Articles
Intent-based Service Management to Improve Resource Design Efficiency for Cloud Services

Global Standardization ActivitiesInternational

Standards

Adopted

by

ITU-T

to

AddressSoft

ErrorsAffectingTelecommunication Equipment

External Awards/Papers Published in Technical Journals and Conference Proceedings

View from the Top

Building a Global Standard System to
Win in Global Markets
Masaaki Moribayashi
Senior Executive Vice President,
NTT Communications
Overview

As the fourth industrial revolution takes hold around the world, Japan has
much to achieve if it is going to maintain its international competitivenessin innovation. To this end, the Annual Report on the Japanese Economy andPublic Finance 2018 issued by the Cabinet Office, Government of Japan,
stated that Japan must establish a competitive edge in four areas of innovation: products, processes, marketing, and organization. We asked Masaaki
Moribayashi, Senior Executive Vice President of NTT Communications,what will be necessary for NTT Communications to firmly establish itself
as an international enterprise.
Keywords: global, reorganization, cloud solution

Changing the way we provide services bygrasping the culture and lifestyle of local people—It is said that your mission is to make NTT
Communications into a company that can win inglobal markets.
I had always thought that I would like to make NTT
Communications into a competitive company thatcan win in global markets, and I believe I have had theopportunity to do so. We are now in a period of reorganization with global business in mind, and I truly
feel that we are taking concrete steps in this direction.
I want to demonstrate our strengths to the fullest
while pondering how best to complete this process ofreorganization, and I want to focus on building thecompany into a robust enterprise in truly global markets. These are the dominant themes that occupy mymind at present.
Our business in global markets is growing year by
year, but domestic sales still dominate. Outside
Japan, people in our industry know about NTT
NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019

Communications, but among the general public, few
do, so our brand image has yet to penetrate society.
There is therefore much room left for improvement interms of increasing our name value and expanding
our business in countries around the world.
In the 15 years I spent working in the United States,
Hong Kong, and Europe, I was able to develop a goodunderstanding of business characteristics in various
regions of the world and to observe Japan from theoutside. It is probably thought that keeping up withconditions in Japan can be difficult when you areoverseas, but surprisingly, you can see Japan with aneven sharper perspective when you are outside thecountry. In those 15 years, I came to understand well
the strengths and weaknesses of both Japan and NTT.
Japan is unique in both a good sense and bad sense.
In business, for example, the seniority system, lifetime employment, and hiring system of Japanese
corporations are unique. While it is common in Japanto think that you cannot become a section chief until
you reach a certain age, this is completely incomprehensible to people in other countries. In addition, no1

View from the Top

one is dismissed from a company in Japan other thanfor some extraordinary reason, and people for themost part do not negotiate their pay increases. In
other countries, however, the norm is individual
negotiation for pay and raises, so negotiations
between an individual and the company that hires theindividual are common, which is similar to the caseof professional athletes negotiating for annual compensation.
However, if we are speaking about common practices, Japan is overwhelmingly better in the quality ofservice. For example, meals are delicious wherever
you go, and parcels are delivered on time as promised. There is no other country with such attentive andefficient service. In England, I was generally unable
to specify a time for delivery, and even if I could, it
was not unusual for my parcel to arrive at a different
time. In addition, it often took a long time to complete
some kind of repair that I had requested. All in all, I
could not receive the same kind of polite and reliable
service that is taken for granted in Japan. We must beable to make this quality of service that is commonplace in Japan into one of our strengths in global
markets. However, I think that it can be said thatJapanese companies on the whole are not very proficient at making the best use of that strength.
—It seems that the way we apply the high quality ofJapanese technology and service has to change.
Let me take railway operations in Japan andEngland as an example. Japan’s railway network is sostrictly controlled that even a train running one minute late prompts an apology. In England, there is no
detailed timetable for subways (the Underground) orbuses, just a notice on the station’s electronic message board stating “The train will arrive X minutes
later on platform X” just before that train arrives.
You might think it would be much appreciated if
Japan’s manner of accurate timetables and reliable
operation were introduced in England, but it is notthat simple. The fact is, there is no system that can
implement Japan’s railway mechanism, and there isno demand to run trains on such a strict schedule byspending money to construct such a system. In short,
it seems to me that the approach to service in Englandis different. I believe that the principle “You will notsell anything unless you market things that fit thecircumstances of that country” applies to all countries. And the same goes for the services provided by
NTT Communications. Given Japan’s reputation forsuperb quality, it would be easy to think that there are
NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019

people who would be glad if Japanese services were
to be sold in global markets. However, if the price is
too high, the reply you get might be “We have noneed for this” despite the attractive quality and functions.
Another good example from not so long ago concerns microwave ovens in the United States. First ofall, Americans already had large, built-in ovens thatwere used for baking and roasting, and they had beenaround for decades. When microwave ovens wereintroduced in the U.S. to the general public in the 70s,
they were simple devices with only a heating function, resulting in a fairly low-priced product. This iswhat appealed to them—fast heating of food. In contrast, the microwave ovens manufactured in Japan
were high-function appliances that could change themanner of warming depending on the type of foodthat needed to be heated. This was useful and wellreceived because built-in ovens in Japan were notvery common.
These differences were not a matter of a differencein technology but simply what the consumers looked
for in a microwave oven. Americans, namely, wanted
something they could pop food into and heat up
quickly. For those consumers who had no need forfunctions other than pop-in and heat, such highfunction microwave ovens could be thought of as
expensive, over-engineered appliances that were
essentially useless. Without a clear understanding ofsuch a difference in social norms and required specifications, you cannot succeed in business.
Consequently, after obtaining a clear understandingof such cultural differences, our approach is to firstmarket services of a global standard. Then, for customers who need more than standard services, weoffer optional services that provide good value for the2View from the Top

money. That is, I believe that our best course of action
is to offer quality services appropriate to a global
standard while also preparing an attractive lineup of
options for customers wanting advanced services andproducts. In this way, all customers can choose what
is best for them.
Making a big turn toward “solution provision”—trial and error through on-the-job training is
the best shortcut—So your strategy for winning in global markets is tobegin by understanding other cultures and grasping
the needs of customers.
That’s right. The key point here is to achieve a thorough understanding of our customers’ needs based on
the concept of “design thinking” and to then determine how we can provide services that meet thoseneeds as much as possible in an efficient manner.
Another point discussed within the company is whichof our strengths to bring to the forefront to compete
effectively. For example, the cloud services provided
by Amazon are of a magnitude greater in scale thanours due to bold upfront investment, so if we were tocompare our services with theirs simply on the basisof a single function, we would be at a disadvantage.
We are therefore steering the company in a directionin which we compete by providing solutions that customers need. To give a simple example, I am sure you
would not go to a restaurant to eat ready-to-eat instantramen (noodles). What does a customer desire in a
restaurant? Well, in addition to the food itself, thecustomer wants to enjoy a meal and a dining experience that fits one’s needs such as good service fromthe staff and maybe a nice interior and comfortableenvironment. Additionally, if one just wants to eat
instant ramen, one can do so at home without having
to take the trouble of going to a restaurant.
In terms of cloud services, we must change the way
we work in providing such services. That is, insteadof simply providing instant ramen (a single resource),
we must adopt a method that determines what kind ofmeal (cloud solution) the customer would like to eat
in what way and in what kind of environment and that
identifies what is really needed by the customer. For
this reason, we need many qualified people who canunderstand the customer’s business and who possess
extensive technical knowledge to make optimal proposals based on design thinking. Unfortunately, we
still lack sufficient human resources in this regard.
However, we have many people with great potential,
and I would like these people to become experienced
in the real business world as much as possible.
Although knowledge can be obtained to someextent through training and classes, you cannot learn
everything in this way. It might be an old approach,but following a highly proficient senior around andobserving that person’s work in detail, and then making proposals on your own and failing any number oftimes, is the best shortcut to learning. When I took up
my post in Europe, I witnessed the local practice inwhich new employees would shadow, or follow
around, a talented senior employee to learn about
work. These new employees might stumble in theirjob at first, but they learned and grew, and some evenrecorded top sales just two years later. On seeing
results like these, I realized that this was the quickest
way to get new people to learn.
—Have you previously been faced with a serious situation, such as pushing through reform or supervisinga huge project?
I have had a variety of valuable experiences, but theone that stands out the most is my involvement in the
datacenter business during my time in Hong Kong.
Our company had a case in the past involving thepurchase of datacenters. With the bursting of the
bubble economy, however, those datacenters had
become useless assets. Nevertheless, in the midst of
opposing opinions, we acquired a company that
owned datacenter buildings that were hardly being
used and launched a genuine datacenter business. At
that time, as head of NTT Com Asia in Hong Kong, I
listened to what the people under me were saying andbecame convinced that we could succeed. With apositive frame of mind and believing in our ability to

NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 20193

View from the Top

succeed, I made the decision without hesitation. On
explaining my course of action to my seniors, I told
them that my approach to work is to believe in myown eyes and ears and to make firm decisions without
being swayed by dissenting voices around me, andthey came to understand my position.
Additionally, after arriving in Europe in 2009, theexperiences I had in integrating NTT Europe and
NTT Europe Online were also very valuable, andthey have become, in a sense, a dress rehearsal for theupcoming reorganization of the NTT Group’s global
business. Because of these experiences, I feel very
positive and not overly worried about this reorganization. When I come across employees who are somewhat anxious about the whole thing, I tell them tohave a positive attitude and not to worry.
When two separate companies are instructed tocooperate with each other, it is often the case that
employees tend to focus on the company that they
belong to. Even when the employees from each company come together to meet and brainstorm aboutsome project, they tend to return with the proposal totheir own workplace and discuss it again among
themselves. However, if these two companies cometo be integrated into one company, these employees
return to one place instead of two and naturally cometogether. I had this experience when integrating those
two companies in Europe. As long as you can control
the flow, interactions will flow naturally. It can bedifficult to direct that flow, so it is vitally importantthat top management repeatedly convey clear messages about strategy and direction to employees. The
direction that everything must point to must be established. My mission in this reorganization of ourglobal business, while a major challenge, makes forvery enjoyable and worthwhile work. My basic philosophy is to think positive—don’t worry too muchand things will just keep moving in the right direction.
—It appears to be a time for creating new traditionsin addition to the corporate DNA that the company
has so far inherited.
Yes, it is essential that we add partnering to ourDNA. NTT has historically been a company where
many people have the mind frame of “I want to do allkinds of things on my own” and “I want to market
what we create.” Of course, it is vitally important that
we differentiate ourselves through services incorporating our technologies and strengths. But at the sametime, we will be left behind in the business markets if
NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019

we do not adopt a style that builds firm partnerships
with other companies or people having excellent systems and services, creates ecosystems, and provides
solutions instead of doing everything on our own.
Even in the case of a company that we consider to be
a competitor, the field in which we compete may
actually be just a partial field, so there are times when
it is better to join hands with that company. As reflected by the saying “The enemy of your enemy is yourfriend,” it is important that we adopt a flexible
approach so as to grow the business by tying up witha competing company when necessary.
When something good makes its appearance in theworld, working on something similar in a copycat
manner means you are already too late. Our resources
and the money that we can invest are limited, so wecannot adopt a position of self-sufficiency in all
things. At the risk of repeating myself, we will notsurvive in our business markets unless we decide on
what direction to take and on what we have to dowhile offering services that utilize superb technologies and systems in the outside world.
This way of thinking has penetrated the company
for the most part, but I would like to accelerate its
application. However, I could steer the company inthe wrong direction if I do not select what is good for
us with a clear vision. These types of decisions constitute the mission of top management. I have said
that partnering is important for us, but the flip side ofthis is thinking how to make positive use of our own
technologies. It is not our purpose as a company tosell the technology of another company. If we ourselves do not have robust and impressive technologies, our strengths will not be apparent and partnering
will be infeasible. Fortunately, we have technologies
4View from the Top

developed by the NTT laboratories. Going forward,
we must provide solutions that include these technologies more than ever.
Keywords for growth: speed, agility, and apositive outlook—Please tell us what you think the role of the NTT
laboratories is and what types of technologies you
look forward to.
In my previous work, I was also involved in cloudservices, and in this regard, I have high expectations
for security-related technologies under development
at the NTT laboratories such as data concealment andsecure computation. Our customers who use cloudservices are very concerned about data security, so I
would like to make these technologies into services
as one of our strengths. The technologies of NTT arehighly competitive in the world, and the laboratories
are developing pioneering, breakthrough technologies. I would like to ask our researchers to create newtechnologies in rapid succession for use in society.
These technologies do not have to be perfect—theycan be in a form that can quickly make new ideas
practical for commercial use. Seeking perfection
takes time and can result in lost opportunities. Putting
workable technology out into the world and receiving
feedback provides a basis for the next step in researchand development (R&D). In short, I would be mostappreciative if our researchers could pursue R&D insuch an agile manner.

NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019

—Mr. Moribayashi, could you leave a message for all
NTT Communications employees?
I would be happy to. The NTT Group, including
NTT Communications, has an exceptionally large
number of highly professional employees. But at thecompany level, I think that these very capable people
have yet to realize their full potential. I would like toestablish a system and environment in which every
employee can take on more challenging work withmore responsibility, and I would like to ask everyone
to take more initiative in their work. Some people
may still have the seniority system or hierarchy inmind, but I would like to give anyone with ability anddrive a chance, and I want to provide an environment
in which everyone can demonstrate their abilities
fully. If every employee can broaden his or her current range of activities and can take on work withmore responsibility, I think an amazing amount of
power will be generated within the company.
Finally, considering the many excellent employeesof diverse nationalities that we have in our global
operations, I would like to create a more stimulating
environment in which they can flourish in their work.

Interviewee profile
Career highlights
Masaaki Moribayashi joined Nippon Telegraphand Telephone Public Corporation (now NTT) in
1984. He became President and Managing
Director of NTT Europe Ltd. in 2009 and SeniorVice President and Head of Cloud Services of
NTT Communications Corporation in 2016. He
took up his present position in June 2018.

5

Feature Articles: Front-line Cybersecurity Technology
to Enable a Digital Society

Security R&D for a Safe and Secure
Digital Society
Kazuhiko Okubo
Abstract

Major environmental changes and market transitions are occurring as our digital society is realized,
and in line with this trend, NTT Secure Platform Laboratories is conducting research and development
on security technologies to build resistance to emerging new security threats and to resolve issues involving the utilization of data. This article introduces some security issues that can arise in a digital society
and security measures to deal with them, both defensive and offensive.
Keywords: cyberattack, encryption, privacy

1. Transformation to a digital society andsecurity issues
Society is going through major changes with therecent emergence of information and communication
technology (ICT) and other innovative technologies.
In what is being called digital transformation,
advances in digital technology and data utilization arebringing high-level integration of cyberspace andphysical space. Realization of a digital society isquickly approaching, transforming our living environments and the structure of industry and society.
This promises to bring great convenience and utility
to society, but there is increasing concern about thepotential losses and damage that might occur in society due to previously impossible cyberattacks.
Methods of cyberattack have been advancing andbecoming more sophisticated such as the recent
appearance of malware with the ability to operateautonomously in cyberspace. Security threats arecontinuously escalating, as with WannaCry, which
exploited vulnerabilities of personal computers to
infect systems around the world and inflicted enormous damage. Because of this, in the information
technology (IT) domain, cyberattack counter-technologies must continually advance as in an eternal
game of cat-and-mouse.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is an important factor
in the integration of cyberspace and physical space.
NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019

From a security perspective, though, there are many
IoT devices connected to the Internet that have
unpatched vulnerabilities, and these are being used asa platform for distributed denial of service (DDoS)
and other large-scale cyberattacks. IoT devices generally do not have the computing resources of otherIT devices (CPU (central processing unit) power,
memory/disk space, power capacity, etc.), so security
functions conventionally used in IT devices cannot be
used. As such, establishing new security technologies
for IoT devices is an urgent task.
With the accelerating digitization in the fields ofoperational technology (OT) and critical infrastructure, which provide essential services for everyday
life and social activity, control systems of factories
and plants are being connected directly to the Internet
for the first time. This is leading to growing concern
about security threats such as previously unheard ofcyberattacks on these facilities, and about the inadequate preparations to prevent such incidents and todeal with them if they occur. Consequently, technicaldevelopment to improve the security of OT and critical infrastructure, strengthen risk management for
both the cyber and the physical worlds, and to optimize operations using technologies such as artificial
intelligence are becoming increasingly urgent.
Another issue in realizing a digital society, besides
opposing cyberattacks, is to stimulate the use of data.
Using digital technologies to obtain and use various
6

Feature Articles

External trends

Security R&D requirements

Increasing scale and diversity of cyberattacks
Emergence of
Global-scale
infection and damage, attacks on IoT devices,connected cars, etc.
as with WannaCry

Emergence of
supply-chain risk

Resistance to attack

More advanced and efficient attack response

Promotion of data protection and utilization
Increasing
momentum in privacy
protection (GDPR enactment,
Facebook incident, etc.)

Relaxed regulations ondata use, legislation fortax breaks, etc.

Expanded scope of protection

Create new value.
Internal trends (regarding NTT Group)Strengthening response measures for major events
Increasing
operating costs
for cyberattack response (SOC,
CSIRT, etc.) and personnel
shortages

Need to enhance risk
management forreal and cyber worlds

Acceleration of B2B2X, further globalization
Accelerationof collaboration
with partners in otherbusiness areas

Increaseinternational sales.
Strengthenbusiness.

Safe and secure data distribution and use

Strengthen Group capabilities.
Enhanced risk management

Added-value networks through security

B2B2X: business-to-business-to-X

Fig. 1. Environmental changes and security R&D requirements.

types of detailed data promises to yield new business
opportunities such as accurately predicting events
that could not previously be predicted, or refining
targeting for marketing. Laws are also being revised
to accommodate safe and secure businesses utilizing
data, while closely examining developments in thedigital transformation. Examples of this include revisions to the Act on the Protection of Personal Information introduced in Japan in May 2017, and theenactment of the European Union’s General Data
Protection Regulations (GDPR). However, there arestill obstacles to using data, such as inadequate or
incomplete technologies and environments for safe
and secure circulation of personal and private information, confidential corporate information, and othersensitive data. Psychological and social acceptance of
these technologies is also still quite low. For thesereasons, data security technologies such as encryption with advanced features to mitigate risks are in
great demand for the creation of new value and economic stimulation.
As an enterprise providing communication infrastructure and supporting ICT businesses, the NTT
NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019

Group faces conditions with high expectations placedon us as well as requests to us to strengthen efforts toensure the success of international events. In terms of
security in particular, we have to deal with theincreasing operational costs of organizations such as
security operations centers (SOC) and computer
security incident response teams (CSIRT), as they
respond to increasingly advanced and sophisticatedcyberattacks. There is also a shortage of security personnel to support these organizations and a need to
improve the management of risks that accompany
such major events.
2. Initiatives at NTT Secure
Platform Laboratories
The large environmental changes and market transitions happening in the process of realizing a digitalsociety led to three major research and development(R&D) requirements in order to find solutions to thesecurity issues discussed above (Fig. 1).
(1)	Promote the advancement, increased efficiency, and automation of responses to cyberattacks
7

Feature Articles

Creating security technologies to counter escalating cyberattacks
and contribute to new businesses using diverse data

Communication
services

Corporate
systems

Corporate
solutions

Defensive security

New security technologies
for OT/IoT

New
business

Offensive security

Resisting increasingly
clever and large-scale
cyberattacks

Blacklist for malware
countermeasures
Platform forcollaborative cyberdefense (LRR)

Effective technologies
supporting total
security operation

Secure system platform
Connected car
security

Security Center of Excellence
Security personnel development

Realizing safe and securecommunication and data use

Cryptography technologies
Fine-grained encryption applied systems
Secure computation

Integrated risk management
NTT-CERT

NTT-CERT: NTT Computer Security Incident Response and Readiness Coordination Team

Fig. 2. Security R&D initiatives.

as these attacks increase in sophistication andscale, and expand the scope of protective measures to new domains requiring security, suchas IoT and OT.
(2)	Realize a safe and secure flow and use of
information so that new value can be created.
(3)	Advance risk management and create highadded-value networks through security inorder to enhance the capabilities of the NTT
Group.
NTT Secure Platform Laboratories conducts R&D
covering these requirements, with the objective ofachieving a safe and secure digital society. Specifically, we promote R&D on various security technologies that can be categorized as defensive security,
which is focused on opposing the intensifying cyberattacks, offensive security, which uses diverse information to help create new business, and basic
research, which is the source of new technologies forthe other categories. Our research is organized arounda Security Center of Excellence (CoE) and security
personnel development (Fig. 2).

NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019

2.1 Defensive security
In defensive security, we take into account recentchanges in environments and market requirements
related to cyberspace and conduct world-class R&D
on security technologies to eliminate threats andsecurity problems that are materializing in several
domains, including conventional IT as well as IoT,
OT, and critical infrastructures. The latter require
protection from cyberattacks because unlike earlier
systems, they connect directly to the Internet.
(1) IT
In the IT domain, to oppose the increasingly largescale and sophisticated cyberattacks, we continue
monitoring corporate, home, and ISP (Internet service provider) networks for attacks as before, andalso work to improve countermeasure technologies
such as detection of malicious websites [1] and malware infection, bot profiling, and domain reputation.
The scope of monitoring must also be expanded, fromboth micro and macro perspectives, to include bothend points and backbone networks. For end points,
we are working on malware analysis using technologies such as memory forensics and taint analysis, and8

Feature Articles

using it to generate advanced IOCs (indicators ofcompromise). These are then used in effective MDR(managed detection and response) products. For
backbone networks, high volume data flow analysis
can highlight the overall structure of a botnet and be
used for high-performance DDoS detection, and suchmeasures are being used where appropriate.
(2) IoT and OT
In the areas of IoT and OT, a set of security technologies including authentication and authorization,
configuration management, detection, and incident
handling must be established. For authentication andauthorization, we are working on a next-generation
authentication technology that does not require password management on the server. With this method,
devices submit secret information when first registered as clients, and authentication is performed using
encryption with this information and a unique device
ID (identification). This technology has the benefits
of not requiring individual passwords for each IoT
device, or the additional costs of issuing and handlingauthentication certificates.
In the areas of configuration management, detection, and incident handling, we are developing a technology able to identify or infer devices and ascertain
the configuration accurately, in conditions wheremultiple and diverse IoT devices are connected undera gateway, even in LAN (local area network) environments with severe operational conditions. This isdone by analyzing the output characteristics and canceling noise in Address Resolution Protocol frames,
which are commonly used. Other technology is able
to detect anomalous traffic conditions using methods
such as graph theory to identify communication withunusual (not white-listed) counterparts due to cyberattacks or other anomalous causes, and to apply
appropriate controls to communication using means
such as alerts or blocking.
(3) Critical infrastructure
In the area of critical infrastructure, it is important
to consider the increasing risks due to changes inenvironments, such as the tendency for systems to
expand in scale and become more complex and interlinked, and to use new, open, and generic technologies. Regarding the former, it is not unusual for infrastructure facilities to have thousands of server devices
and tens or hundreds of thousands of control devices,
so the effects of a successful cyberattack on even oneof these devices could be widespread. As such,
authenticity and integrity monitoring technology that
continually checks for compromised or altered devices and prevents anomalous behavior is needed to
NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019ensure that components are operating properly.
Regarding the latter, open source software such as
Internet technologies and Linux are being widelyadopted, and it is getting easier to obtain information
regarding vulnerabilities, so it is a basic assumptionthat cyberattacks will emerge. For anomaly detection,
a bolt-on behavior-monitoring and analysis technology is needed that can monitor systems for anomalies, including networks and devices such as IoT,
where it cannot be built-in. We have been conducting
R&D on some of these technologies from fiscal years
2015 to 2019 as part of the Cross-ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Program (SIP), “Cybersecurity for Critical Infrastructure” (funding agency:
the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO)). This work is supportedby the Council for Science, Technology and Innovation (CSTI).
2.2 Offensive security
In offensive security, we conduct R&D on technologies that contribute to the safe and secure utilization of data. The enactment of the revised Act on theProtection of Personal Information has drawn attention to advanced anonymization methods such as
k-anonymization. This method processes data using
operations such as rounding to coarse-grain the information, based on an index of security called k-anonymity (no fewer than k number of persons with thesame information can be distinguished from thedata). However, it is difficult to preserve both safety
and usability at the same time, so there is concern thatdata processed in this way will not be usable.
We are developing a technology called Pk-anonymization, which rewrites data introducing randomization. This technology can ensure security equivalent to k-anonymization while maintaining the utilityof the data. There is a need in society to handle
detailed data that cannot be released outside an organization, even in an anonymized state, such as
genome data. In such cases, secure computation canbe used to process data directly in its encrypted form.
There are many methods that can be consideredsecure computation, but the technology from NTT
Secure Platform Laboratories is based on secret sharing [2], which is a standard from the International
Organization for Standardization (ISO). It is a verypractical system from the perspectives of a safety
definition, general purpose computations, reasonable
performance, and international standards, and we willcontinue R&D and deployment efforts to spread thistechnology in the future [3].
9Feature Articles

2.3 S
 ecurity CoE, security personnel development
The Security CoE provides personnel with thehigh-level-specialist skills of our laboratories, bothwithin and outside the NTT Group, in wide-ranging
fields such as the scientific and high-level specialist
communities. In the field of cybersecurity, in addition
to operating a well-known contest, we are involved in
activities to nurture security personnel, such as writing educational and introductory books [4] that areaccessible to non-specialists and giving lectures atuniversities. In the field of data security, we are conducting world-leading research in fields such as
encryption theory and working to create differentiating technologies that will be a source of competitiveness ten or twenty years in the future. Concrete
examples include research on fully homomorphic
encryption, which could be the next generation of
secure computation, and quantum-resistant encryption [5], which will remain safe, even after quantum
computers are achieved.
3. Future prospects

needed. For offensive security, technologies and environments for using data safely and securely need to
be expanded, and initiatives to increase social acceptance, from the perspective of the legal system will be
important. NTT Secure Platform Laboratories is
working to improve security for the companies in the
NTT Group as a whole, to collaborate with external
stakeholders, and to realize a safe and secure digitalsociety.
References
[1]

[2]
[3]

[4]
[5]

For defensive security, technologies for analyzingsites that are under cyberattack, and effective countermeasures that connect directly with business are

T. Watanabe, “Discovery of Silhouette—a New Threat to Privacy—
and Our Efforts to Counter It,” NTT Technical Review, Vol. 17, No. 3,
pp. 11–15, 2019.
https://www.ntt-review.jp/archive/ntttechnical.php?contents=
ntr201903fa2.html
ISO/IEC 19592-2: Information technology – Security techniques –Secret sharing – Part 2: Fundamental mechanisms
H. Kitajo, T. Yamaguchi, S. Nishiyama, G. Takahashi, A. Miyajima,
K. Hirota, S. Nishida, and J. Hashimoto, “Trial Service of Secure
Computation System San-shiTM,” NTT Technical Review, Vol. 17,
No. 3, pp. 16–21, 2019.
https://www.ntt-review.jp/archive/ntttechnical.php?contents=
ntr201903fa3.html
A. Nakajima, “Cyberattack! Happening behind the Scenes in theWorld of the Net,” Kodansha Blue Backs, 2018 (in Japanese).
K. Xagawa, “Research Trends in Post-quantum Cryptography,” NTT
Technical Review, Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 22–26, 2019.
https://www.ntt-review.jp/archive/ntttechnical.php?contents=
ntr201903fa4.html

Kazuhiko Okubo

Vice President and Head of NTT Secure Platform Laboratories.
He received a Master of Science in Management of Technology from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management, MA, USA, in 2000. He joined NTT in
1989. At NTT Secure Platform Laboratories, hedivides his efforts between protecting the online
activity of customers with security technologythat can withstand even state-of-the-art cyberattacks, and conducting R&D of technology thatcan strengthen our competitive edge by ensuring
information can be used securely in businesses
facing new threats.

NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 201910

Feature Articles: Front-line Cybersecurity Technology
to Enable a Digital Society

Discovery of Silhouette—a New
Threat to Privacy—and Our Efforts
to Counter It
Takuya Watanabe
Abstract

To prevent damage due to threats that are unknown to users and businesses, it is important to understand potential security issues in systems before the attackers do and to take preventive measures before
an attack occurs. This article describes the mechanism of a new privacy threat called Silhouette, discovered in the course of this sort of empirical research on threats, together with a method for handling thethreat, and initiatives to reinforce services and browser security functions around the world.
Keywords: web security, social web services, privacy threats

1. About Silhouette
Social networking services, video sharing, andother social web services (SWSs), which create content through communication between people, havecontinued to evolve since they were first introduced
and have now become an essential part of our lives. A
survey [1] of Internet users revealed that the average
person maintains five or more different SWS
accounts. On the SWS sites, users’ profiles and postings can be seen based on the account name, so personal information such as the name, photographs, andthe activities of the person are linked to each account.
The Silhouette privacy vulnerability discovered by
NTT Secure Platform Laboratories (NTT SC Labs)
makes it possible for a third party to identify the SWS
accounts held by a user when the user accesses a website of the third party. For example, when a malicious
website unrelated to any SWS is accessed by means
such as through a search engine, advertising on a
public site, or a link in an email message, the malicious website can communicate with an SWS that theuser may have an account with and collect information to identify the account name. This can be done in
the background without the user’s knowledge.
For this to work, the user needs to have left the webbrowser of their personal computer or mobile termiNTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019nal logged-in to an SWS that is vulnerable to thethreat and must visit the malicious website. Generallywith SWSs, users automatically remain logged in
until they logout explicitly and the cookies * aredeleted. For this reason, users that have used a vulnerable SWS even once in the past may be identifiableby the malicious party.
2. Mechanism(s) resulting in the threat
This threat is carried out by maliciously exploiting
the user-blocking function widely available on SWSs
(Fig. 1). The user-blocking function is intended toenable ordinary users to control whether other users,
who may be undesirable, can view their page, thus
protecting themselves from behaviors such as harassment or spam. NTT SC Labs has identified a latentsecurity issue in the user-blocking feature, which cancontrol whether a page can be viewed by both malicious and legitimate users alike.
The malicious third party must first create multiple
accounts on the SWS. These are known as signaling
accounts. Then they systematically block certain*

Cookie: A feature enabling web services to store information in
the browser of a visiting user so that it can manage sessions, user
settings, login state, and other information.

11

Feature Articles

Visit
https://sws.example/user_A(URL of profile page, etc.)
Not blocked

BlockedUser AYou are blocked
by User A

Profile/PostingNot visible

URL: uniform resource locator

Fig. 1. User-blocking function.

Signaling accounts(prepared by a malicious
third party)

Account name candidates(accounts that exist in the service)

S1

S2

S3

…

Sn

User A
User B
User C…
User X…
User ZNot blocked/

BlockedFig. 2. Examples of patterns of blocked and non-blocked accounts.

users on the service to create combinations of blocked
and non-blocked users. These patterns can then be
used to uniquely identify user accounts (Fig. 2).
When a user visits the malicious website, the website contains a script for identifying the user accountname, and the script makes requests for the pages ofeach of the signaling accounts. Browsers use thesame-origin policy to protect sites, preventing datafrom leaking to other sites, so the third party is notable to obtain the content of the responses to thiscommunication directly (Fig. 3). However, there is astatistical difference in response times for blocked
NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019and non-blocked requests. The malicious third party
can use these differences to infer whether the visitinguser is blocked from each of the signaling accounts.
These results can then be used to identify the user’s
account name on the SWS by referring to the accountblocking patterns prepared earlier.
Silhouette would be classified as a cross-site
request forgery (CSRF) and side-channel attack. A
CSRF is a type of web attack in which requests aresent to sites not intended by the user, to steal data or
execute some malicious code. A side-channel attack
is a generic name for attacks that use information
12

Feature Articles

evil.example
Website of malicious
third party

SWS

Visiting user
HTTP request(from user visit)<script>...</script>

HTTP request(by JavaScript)

Response time
can be measured.
Content of response
cannot be obtained(same-origin policy)<Response content>

HTTP: Hypertext Transfer Protocol

Fig. 3. Protecting response content using the same-origin policy.

from physical space, such as the response time or the
power consumed, to infer sensitive information. This
research has identified a security issue in how these
services are designed, which enables threats to theprivacy of legitimate users. This is done by making
malicious use of the user-blocking function widelyused by SWSs in an attack that combines a CSRF anda side-channel attack.
3. Countermeasures
In this section, countermeasures to this threat aredescribed, which can be taken by both SWS operatorsand by users. Since the threat is a combination of
CSRF and side-channel attacks, countermeasures canbe implemented by preventing either of these attacks.
Countermeasures for side-channel attacks require a
specialized perspective on the characteristics of
response timing, but there are well-known countermeasures for CSRF that only involve changes to theprogramming of the web service [2]. Below, countermeasures that focus on the CSRF component of theattack are introduced.
3.1 Assumptions
SWSs that are susceptible to this threat must havean account registration function and a user-blocking
or similar function that enables a user to change
whether another user is able to view the user’s content
pages (their profile etc.). Services without these funcNTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019

tions are not vulnerable to this threat.
3.2 Countermeasures for the SWS
The first measure that an SWS can take is to use thecookie option called the SameSite attribute. A cookie
with the SameSite attribute prevents requests frombeing sent to other sites by JavaScript or other means.
As such, if this attribute is specified in the cookie
used to manage the login state, a CSRF can be broadly prevented, including this threat. However, to use
this feature, the user’s browser must support Same­
Site, and the SWS must declare that it is using Same­
Site in the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
header. As described below, the major browsers usedaround the world now support SameSite and canhandle Silhouette thanks to the efforts of NTT SCLabs.
The second measure that can be taken is called
request verification. In a CSRF, HTTP requests notintended by either the user or the service are generated. When this occurs, a well-known countermeasure [3] is to have the SWS or other service determine
whether the request is legitimate by checking thereferrer, which identifies the URL (uniform resource
locator) of the website sending the request, or bychecking a request parameter included as a CSRF
countermeasure that contains a special code. Request
verification is usually used for pages received using
the POST method, such as posting to a web service,
but it can also be used for pages received using the13

Feature Articles

GET method, such as a user profile. However, in thiscase, the verification fails when it is linked directlyfrom a search engine or blog article, and such cases
could be rejected as illegitimate requests.
To deal with this, the service can add a procedure inwhich it returns an intermediate page when the verification fails, and JavaScript on the intermediate page
retrieves the content. This increases the number ofrequests needed to display the page, but it enables
implementation of the countermeasure without
obstructing access through direct links.
3.3 Countermeasures for users
One measure that can be taken by users is to use theprivate browsing mode in their browser. This mode
has different names in different browsers, for example, Secret Mode, Private Window, or InPrivate, andwhen it is enabled, the browser does not use any priorcookie information and will delete any new cookie
data stored when the session is ended. The threat of
having the user’s account name identified by visitinga third-party site can thus be prevented by enabling
private browsing.
Another measure that users can take is to log out of
the SWS. The threat can identify account names only
if the user is logged in to the SWS. As such, the threat
can be avoided by logging in to the service every timethey use it and logging out as soon as they have finished using it.
4. Threat prevention efforts
NTT SC Labs has established a procedure to evaluate whether an SWS is vulnerable to Silhouette andhas conducted a survey of all NTT Group SWSs andexternal SWSs that are well known around the world.
As a result, we identified some well-known and influential international services that could result inaccount names being identified through this vulnerability. We have shared details of the vulnerability andcountermeasures with these operators and collaborated in tests to verify the effectiveness of the countermeasures.
Through this effort, Twitter and other SWSs
changed their specifications to improve security
mechanisms and prevent the threat that makes it possible to identify account names. Major browsers
including Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer, andMozilla Firefox also now support the SameSite
cookie attribute using the method from this research

NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019or a similar method to prevent this vulnerability frombeing exploited.
Due to this contribution, the safety of most SWSs,
used by more than 600 million users around theworld, has greatly increased, and operators, including
NTT, are able to use advanced functionality indesigning secure web services. The results of thisresearch have therefore led to a safer environment for
using the Internet for users from short, medium, andlong-term perspectives.
The paper [2] summarizing the discovery of thisthreat, its verification, and countermeasures, has also
made an extremely great impact on improving web
security. It was the first from Japan selected for theIEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy,
which is a prestigious academic conference, and was
also selected for Black Hat Europe [4], a very influential international conference in the cybersecurity
industry.
5. Future prospects
As part of research and development on cybersecurity at NTT SC Labs, we are developing methods forevaluating new threats, including the recently discovered Silhouette threat, and when an issue is discovered, we will work to implement countermeasures incollaboration with relevant organizations. By continuing to discover latent threats and develop countermeasures in the future, we will strive to be able toprovide robust services, promote more secure webservices and browsers, and facilitate safe and secureuse of the Internet.
References
[1]
[2]
[3]

[4]

Brandwatch, “121 Amazing Social Media Statistics and Facts.”
https://www.brandwatch.com/blog/amazing-social-media-statisticsand-facts/
Information-technology Promotion Agency, Japan, “How to SecureYour Website,” 5th Edition, 2011.
https://www.ipa.go.jp/files/000017318.pdf
T. Watanabe, E. Shioji, M. Akiyama, K. Sasaoka, T. Yagi, and T. Mori,“User Blocking Considered Harmful? An Attacker-controllable Side
Channel to Identify Social Accounts,” Proc. of 2018 IEEE European
Symposium on Security and Privacy (EuroS&P), pp. 323–337, London, UK, Apr. 2018.
T. Watanabe, “I Block You Because I Love You: Social Account Identification Attack Against a Website Visitor,” Black Hat Europe 2018,
London, UK, Dec. 2018.
https://www.blackhat.com/eu-18/briefings/schedule/index.html#iblock-you-because-i-love-you-social-account-identification-attackagainst-a-website-visitor-12912

14

Feature Articles

Trademark notes

All brand names, product names, and company/organization names thatappear in this article are trademarks or registered trademarks of theirrespective owners.

Takuya Watanabe

Researcher, NTT Secure Platform Laboratories.
He received an M.E. in computer science andengineering from Waseda University, Tokyo, in
2016. He joined NTT in 2016 and has been
engaged in research and development of thecybersecurity project.

NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 201915

Feature Articles: Front-line Cybersecurity Technology
to Enable a Digital Society

Trial Service of Secure Computation
System San-shiTM
Hiroyuki Kitajo, Takuya Yamaguchi, Sanami Nishiyama,
Gen Takahashi, Asami Miyajima, Keiichi Hirota,
Shoko Nishida, and Junko Hashimoto
Abstract

To enable the safe and secure use of corporate secrets, personal data, and other types of data that must
be kept confidential, NTT has developed Secure Computation System San-shiTM that can perform tabulation and statistical processing securely and with practical performance without decrypting the data. As
an initiative to stimulate the use of data, NTT is providing San-shi as a free trial service for a limited
period so that many users can experience this secure computation technology. The advantage is that it
enables integrated analysis without mutual disclosure of data among organizations while keeping thedata encrypted. This article describes this initiative and introduces secure computation technology.
Keywords: secure computation technology, San-shi, cybersecurity

1. Background
Digital transformation is currently underway in avariety of fields, and this transformation is driving
change toward a service economy, open systems,social networking, and smart systems. At the sametime, the accumulation of cross-sector data and theskillful use of that data are expected to foster innovation and promote development and economic growth
in a wide range of fields. However, the risk of incidents and the high social responsibility associatedwith data management and the need for data security
measures to protect corporate strategy are factors thathave hindered the expanded use of data.
To help eliminate these obstacles to data usage,
NTT has taken a global lead in the research anddevelopment of secure computation technology thatenables data processing while keeping the dataencrypted. The advantage of secure computation
technology is that data operations are invisible toeveryone, except for the results of computation(Fig. 1), thereby enabling a new form of integrated
analysis using data that up to now has been difficultfor organizations to mutually disclose. Application
NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019

examples of this technology have already been tested
in several fields including multi-facility clinicalresearch data analysis [1] and genome data analysis[2]. NTT has expanded the operations and functionsof this technology, as well as enhanced the performance and made other improvements in developing
Secure Computation System San-shiTM (referred to
below as San-shi) [3].
2. Overview of San-shi trial service
NTT’s San-shi has been developed as a system having the advantage of secure computation technologythat enables integrated analysis of data without mutual disclosure of data among organizations providing
and/or using such data, while keeping the dataencrypted. NTT has begun a free trial service of Sanshi to enable many users in a variety of fields to experience this value. The trial period began on August 20,
2018, and runs through March 2019. At present, trial
users can experiment with San-shi in various fields
including healthcare, manufacturing, and system
integration.
Using San-shi implemented on the cloud, users can
16Feature Articles

No data disclosure among
companies A, B, and C

No leakage of data
to the system

Only computation
results can be seen.

Computation
while keeping
data encrypted

Computation
results

Company A
data
Company B
data
Company C
data

Secure computation system

Personal data, trade secrets, …

Fig. 1. Advantages of secure computation technology.

Table 1. Typical analysis scenarios provided in the trial service for customer use.
FeatureScenario

Strengthen ties withother companies inthe same industry.

Integrate and analyze the sales data of multiple
companies in a region to enhance product assortment
and avoid the loss of sales opportunities, thereby
invigorating an entire regional trading zone.

Link data between
different industries.

Combine and analyze purchase data of online sales
companies and vital-signs data (BMI, pedometer data,etc.) held by companies providing health-support apps,
and apply results to the marketing of health-related
products and offering of product recommendations(expand advertising revenues).

Experience San-shi’s
operations andfunctions.

Discover what operations are possible against various
types of data groups such as household attributes,
household expenses, and food expenses.

BMI: body mass index

experience actual functions for tabulating and statistically processing data while keeping the data encrypted. Three types of scenarios and trial data that highlight the use of San-shi have been prepared to make itparticularly easy for users to try out the system(Table 1).
The first scenario—strengthen ties with other companies in the same industry—increases the quantityof data (row data). The idea here is to invigorate anindustry or solve problems in that industry without
having to disclose information to a competitor. Witha regional trading zone as an example, San-shi
enables the user to securely register the sales data ofmultiple companies and store the data in a state thatjoins all of the data together. In this way, the user
(data analyst) can check total sales figures for an
entire trading zone, what merchandise had strong
sales in different sales periods, and other details.
NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019

The second scenario—link data between different
industries—increases the number of data items (column data). The ability to combine data belonging todifferent industries is expected to reveal new trends
and generate new business value. To give an example,
San-shi could be used to combine and securely register the purchase data of online sales companies andthe vital-signs data of companies providing healthsupport apps, which would enable the user (dataanalyst) to determine the average number of steps
taken by customers purchasing health food productsby age group.
Finally, the third scenario—experience San-shi’s
operations and functions—gives users a free hand intrying out the operations and functions supported bySan-shi. With San-shi, the user (data analyst) cansecurely register publically available statistical information (general-purpose micro data) and perform17

Feature Articles

operations on that data associated with consumer
expenditures, food expenses, insurance and medical
expenses, and other details.
Additionally, for users who wish to experience Sanshi beyond these typical scenarios, NTT supports thetrial use of individual analysis scenarios based ondata that users themselves possess.

keeping the data encrypted. A multi-party computation system consists of multiple servers and a set
procedure for exchanging data between those servers
and performing operations on the data. Each server
registers shares dispersed under the secret sharing
scheme—data are always handled in this state of dispersed shares.

3. Secure computation technology

3.3 Safety of secure computation technology
There is no way that original data or computation
results can be restored from individual shares on aserver. However, given that shares are dispersed toand registered on multiple servers, it would be possible to restore the data if shares were to be obtainedin an unauthorized manner from a certain number ofservers. For this reason, appropriate management ofeach server is a precondition for safety.

Secure computation is the capability to perform
computations on data while keeping the data encrypted. With most cyphers, data must first be decrypted toperform calculations with it, but this runs the risk ofdata leaks to data analysts, system operators, or elsewhere. Secure computation technology, however,enables computations to be performed while keeping
the data encrypted, which prevents data analysts or
system operators from seeing any data, including theresults of computations in progress. This means thateven confidential corporate information and trade
secrets can be safely used for data computation.
The framework of secure computation technology
was first established in the 1980s based on the theoryof secure multi-party computation in the fields ofcomputer science and cryptographic theory. However, the time required for computation was excessive(as the process was slow), presenting an obstacle topractical use. More recently, though, much researchhas been done to find ways to increase the computation speed and achieve practical implementations of
secure multi-party computation. At NTT, we havedeveloped a high-speed secure computation system
based on secret sharing.
3.1 Encryption by secret sharing
NTT adopts secret sharing as the mechanism forencryption in its secure computation technology.
Secret sharing is a scheme that enhances confidentiality by dispersing data into fragments called shares. In
this scheme, information cannot be leaked from individual shares, and data can be recovered even if someshares are lost. This secret sharing scheme makes useof ISO/IEC 19592-2, a standard of the International
Organization for Standardization (ISO). NTT members edited this standard and contributed to its formulation.
3.2 M
 ulti-party computation based on secretsharing
NTT adopts multi-party computation based on
secret sharing as the mechanism for computing while
NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019

3.4 Principle of secure computation technology
In secure computation technology, data are dispersed into multiple shares. Here, we introduce an
example of dispersing “2” into three shares (Fig. 2).
Generating shares in secret sharing is achieved bygenerating random numbers and performing computations based on those numbers. In this example, theshare-generation process begins by generating two
random numbers, each of which can take a value from0 to 9. In the case where 5 and 3 are generated as
random numbers, two of the three generated sharesare taken to be 5 and 3. The process now computes
the third share from these two shares by subtracting
the sum of 5 and 3 (= 8) from original data 2 to obtain–6, which corresponds to 4 on the roulette wheel
shown in the figure. The third share is therefore determined to be 4.
To restore the original data, the process collects thethree shares 5, 3, and 4 and adds them up to get thevalue 12, which corresponds to 2 on the roulette
wheel. The value of the original data is therefore
determined to be 2.
Here, the process computes the shares generated inthis way directly from each server. For example, asum total, if desired, can be computed by simply summing the shares in the state in which they exist on
each server. Finally, the result of the summation canbe obtained by restoring the result of summing thevalues calculated on each server using the method
described above.
4. San-shi features
NTT’s San-shi is a world-class secure computation18

Feature Articles

Create three share-pairs from the 3 shares. *Secret sharing

Restoration
SecretCollect two share-pairs to
obtain 3 numbers.
Roll two dice.

Shift in reverse by the sum of the dice faces.

Shift forward (5+3) times.
* Three share-pairs: Created by combining two instances each of the 3
generated shares consisting of two dice faces and the shift result

Fig. 2. Principle of secure computation technology.

Table 2. Main operations of NTT’s Secure Computation System San-shiTM.
Data operation

Tabulation

Basic statistics

Tests

Table joinFrequency table (cross Total sum
tabulation)

Maximum

Filtering by conditions

Quantity table

Mean

Minimum

Variance

MedianOther

Sum ofproducts

Quantiles

Kaplan-Meier method

system that dramatically improves processing
speed—a technical problem for many years in securecomputation—while being capable of tabulating andstatistically analyzing data on a scale of 100 attributes
× 10,000,000 items within a realistic length of time.
San-shi features an extensive set of tabulation functions and basic statistical operations, each of which
can be executed at high speed.
4.1 Extensive operation variation
San-shi enables the user to execute the operations
listed in Table 2 on a graphical user interface (GUI)on a web browser or via an interface to “R” statistical
NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019t-testanalysis software without viewing the original data.
The user can also create simple programs on “R” toperform regression analysis, principal component
analysis, and other types of analyses according to thetarget application. The San-shi trial service provides
the user with partial access to these interfaces.
In particular, San-shi’s table-join function (a function that enables the data of multiple tables to bejoined without leaking the join key) makes it possible
to integrate the data of different companies and industries and obtain only the results of cross analysis
without having to mutually disclose individually helddata. This capability enables supply chains or customer
19

Feature Articles

Table 3. Execution times of typical functions.
Function
No. of data items

Execution time (milliseconds)
10

104

3

105

106

107

Addition

1

1

1

2

14

Multiplication

1

1

5

39

473

Sort

10

23

133

1274

12,255

Sum total

1

1

1

1

9

Sum of products

1

1

1

2

15

Quantity table creation

22

46

255

2252

22,676

Shuffle

1

1

8

60

731

Table join

19

65

518

4965

53,205

Data filter with prefix match

6

6

14

91

813

Data filter with numerical match

5

5

10

35

413

Measured with three personal computers (central processing unit: Intel Core i7 6900K,
memory: 32 GB, solid state drive: 525 GB, operating system: CentOS 7.2) connected
on a 10-Gbit/s network

data that overlap multiple companies to be analyzed,
which can contribute to the creation of new value inthe use of data that could not be achieved up to now
within a single company or industry.
4.2 H
 igh-speed processing sufficient for practicaluse
In addition to adopting a secret sharing scheme [4],San-shi is able to provide both extensive operation
variations as described above and faster processing
through a proprietary speed-boosting algorithm andfast implementation method.
Secure computation technology based on secretsharing has two key advantages: the size of data basic
to data processing is small, and the frequently used
operations of addition and multiplication can both be
executed at high speed. This means that San-shi canprocess a variety of operations at high speed compared with secure computation based on other typesof encryption schemes such as homomorphic encryption.
In addition to the above, NTT has developed a basic
algorithm for secure computation having extremely
low computational and communication costs and has
applied this algorithm using a fast implementation
method. These measures have dramatically improved
the processing speed, enabling NTT to achieve theworld’s highest speeds in executing operations of thistype.
Execution times of typical functions are listed inTable 3. Sort processing of 10 million records can be
performed in 12.2 seconds. This time can be compared with an execution time of about 1 second when
NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019sorting 10 million unencrypted records by a standard
sorting algorithm. The difference in performance
between secure computation technology and ordinary
computer processing is therefore about one order ofmagnitude.
4.3 San-shi system
Secure computation technology enables multi-party computation over multiple servers operating in an
integrated manner. The San-shi system consists of
secure computation clients and three or four securecomputation servers. The secure computation clientthat performs data registration divides data intoshares under the secret sharing scheme and registers
those shares on different servers. In addition, thesecure computation client that performs data analysis
issues requests to each server for computation (dataanalysis) and obtains only the results of computation.
Here, data are registered in table format such as arelational database. The computation of mean or variance values, for example, can be requested by specifying the name of the table or column where the data
are stored. Each server receiving such a computation
request cooperates with the other servers to perform
multi-party computation and returns computation
results as shares to the secure computation client that
performs the data analysis. This client then restores
those shares to obtain the result.
5. Future development
Going forward, NTT aims to further promote thesafe and secure use of confidential corporate and20

Feature Articles

personal data through the San-shi trial service while
endeavoring to develop and globally propagate data
usage technology including secure computation technology.

References
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]

Hiroyuki Kitajo

Press release issued by NTT on Feb. 14, 2012 (in Japanese).
http://www.ntt.co.jp/news2012/1202/120214a.html
Press release issued by NTT on July 12, 2016 (in Japanese).
http://www.ntt.co.jp/news2016/1607/160712a.html
Website of NTT on secure computation,
http://www.ntt.co.jp/sc/project_e/data-security/secure_computation.
html
Press release issued by NTT on Oct. 23, 2017 (in Japanese).
http://www.ntt.co.jp/news2017/1710/171023a.html

Asami Miyajima

Manager, R&D Produce Group, Research andDevelopment Planning Department, NTT.
He received a Bachelor of Information Engineering from Tohoku University, Miyagi, in
2000. He joined NTT EAST in 2000. He has
been in his current department since 2016, where
he has been promoting information and communication technology (ICT) business and technologies for the medical and healthcare field.

Senior Research Engineer, NTT Secure Platform Laboratories.
She received a Master of Science and Technology from Keio University, Tokyo, in 2000. She
joined NTT in 2000. Her research interests
include information security.

Takuya Yamaguchi

Keiichi Hirota

Manager, Produce Section (Security), Researchand Development Planning Department, NTT.
He received a B.E. in physics from Sophia
University, Tokyo, in 2000. He joined NTT
EAST in 2000 and worked in corporate sales
from 2000 to 2005. He was involved in developing security services at NTT EAST from 2006 to2014. He has been in his current department
since 2015, where he has been promoting security related business and technologies.

Senior Research Engineer, Data Security Project, NTT Secure Platform Laboratories.
He received a B.S. and M.S. from Mie University in 1995 and 1997, and a Ph.D. in informatics
from the Graduate University of Advanced Study(SOKENDAI) in 2008. He joined NTT in 1997.
His current research interests are security andprivacy in information processing, information
sharing, and data utilization. He is a member of
the Information Processing Society of Japan.

Sanami Nishiyama

Shoko Nishida

Associate Manager, R&D Produce Group,
Research and Development Planning Department, NTT.
She received a Bachelor of Management Engineering from Nagoya Institute of Technology,
Aichi, in 2000. She joined NTT WEST in 2000.
She has been in her current department since
2018, where she has been promoting ICT business and technologies for the medical and healthcare field.

Research Engineer, NTT Secure Platform
Laboratories.
She received an M.S. from Kyushu University,
Fukuoka, in 2009. She joined NTT in 2009. Her
research interests include information security.

Gen Takahashi

Junko Hashimoto

Senior Research Engineer, NTT Secure Platform Laboratories.
He received a Master of Media and Governance from Keio University, Tokyo, in 2005. He
joined NTT in 2006. His research interests
include information security and cryptographic
engineering. He received the SCIS Paper Award
from the Institute of Electronics, Information andCommunication Engineers (IEICE) in 2008.

NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019

Research Engineer, NTT Secure Platform
Laboratories.
She received an M.S. from Kyushu University,
Fukuoka, in 1999. She joined NTT in 1999. Her
research interests include information security.

21

Feature Articles: Front-line Cybersecurity Technology
to Enable a Digital Society

Research Trends in Post-quantum
Cryptography
Keita Xagawa
Abstract

The growing recognition that quantum computers are soon to be a reality is driving research into postquantum cryptography. This article introduces the Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization projectof the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the United States, which is playing acore role in the research and development of post-quantum cryptography, and introduces NTT initiatives
and independent research related to that project.
Keywords: cryptographic technology, post-quantum security, quantum computer

1. Post-quantum cryptographic technology
Today, a great deal of highly confidential information such as personal data and credit card numbers is
being exchanged on the Internet. For this reason,
cryptographic systems such as symmetric-key cryptography and public-key cryptography are being used
to conceal the contents of such transmissions. In
addition, authentication technologies such as digital
signatures and message authentication codes (MACs)
are being used to authenticate the other party and thecontent of the received message. Certain algorithms
have found widespread use in public-key cryptography and digital signatures, namely cryptographic
algorithms based on the difficulty of the factorization
problem (RSA (Rivest-Shamir-Adleman) encryption,
RSA signatures, etc.) and those based on the difficulty of the discrete logarithm problem (Diffie–Hellman key exchange, elliptic-curve Diffie–Hellman key
exchange, Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA), etc.).
In 1994, Peter Shor, then of Bell Laboratories, proposed efficient algorithms using a quantum computerfor solving these two problems. Consequently, if aquantum computer that can perform large-scale calculations in a stable manner can be built, cryptographic algorithms that are now in widespread use
will no longer be secure. This is why the research,development, and standardization of cryptographic
algorithms that a quantum computer cannot break or
NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019

tamper with have become quite active as efforts continue to successfully develop a quantum computer.
Within public-key cryptographic technology, cryptographic algorithms that have been designed based on
problems for which quantum computers are considered to be weak in solving are referred to as postquantum (public-key) cryptography.
2. Standardization trends inpost-quantum cryptography
On the question of whether it is necessary to start a
migration to post-quantum cryptographic algorithms,
we refer to the formula proposed by Michele Mosca,
co-founder and deputy director of the Institute forQuantum Computing, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, as described below. Let us define x, y, andz as follows:•	x = number of years desired to maintain the security of generated information•	y = number of years needed to migrate to postquantum cryptographic algorithms (research anddevelopment, standardization, and dissemination)•	z = number of years until a large-scale quantum
computer is built
If x + y > z, ciphertext created after y years basedon the thinking that “I want to keep this information
secret for at least x years” may be cracked by a quantum
22Feature Articles

Start announced
Formal Call for Proposals
Deadline for submissions: 82 proposals
Round 1 begins: 69 proposals
1st Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) conference held: 64 proposals
2nd PQC conference scheduled
2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

2024

Round 2 begins
Round 3 begins or
algorithms selected
Draft preparation

Fig. 1. Timeline of NIST project.

computer in less than x years. Accordingly, if it isthought that x + y > z is true at the present time, there
is a need to study closely the standardization of andmigration to post-quantum cryptographic technology.
Under the assumption that z number of years fromtoday’s state of quantum computer development islikely to be within a realistic range, organizations andstandardization bodies in various countries are moving forward with migration studies, as outlined
below.
•	In Japan, the Cryptography Research and Evaluation Committees (CRYPTREC)* issued a reportin 2014 on post-quantum cryptography titled“Survey on the Difficulty of Lattice Problems,etc.”•	In the United States, the National Institute ofStandards and Technology (NIST) began holding
workshops in spring 2015 and announced in2016 that it would commence standardization
activities toward post-quantum public-key cryptographic techniques.
•	Also in the United States, the National Security
Agency (NSA) declared in August 2015 its
intention to migrate its Suite B, the set of cryptographic algorithms for protecting classified
information, to post-quantum cryptographic
algorithms in the not too distant future.
•	The European Telecommunications Standards
Institute (ETSI) has been holding annual workshops on quantum cryptography and post-quantum cryptography since 2013.
•	The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International ElectrotechnicalCommission (IEC) have been holding study periNTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019

ods on post-quantum cryptography since 2015.
•	The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as
well is overseeing a post-quantum signature
project and is beginning to release results asrequest for comments (RFCs) (e.g., RFC 8391:
XMSS: eXtended Merkle Signature Scheme).
Among these activities, we introduce here the NIST
Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization project, which is having a major impact on cryptographic
technology standardization around the world.
3. NIST Post-Quantum CryptographyStandardization Project
The NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization Project began in earnest in 2016 with the aimof selecting and standardizing post-quantum cryptographic algorithms in the three categories of digital
signature, public-key encryption, and key establishment.
The timeline for this project is summarized below(Fig. 1).
•	February 2016: Announcement of the start of the
Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization
Project•	August 2016: Release of NISTIR 8105, Reporton Post-Quantum Cryptography•	August 2016: RFCs on Submission Requirements and Evaluation Criteria•	December 2016: Formal Call for Proposals*

CRYPTREC: A project established to evaluate and monitor the
security of e-Government recommended ciphers and to survey
and study appropriate implementation and operation methods ofcryptographic techniques.

23

Feature Articles•	November 2017: Deadline for submissions•	December 2017: Examination of documents andforms; Round 1 begins•	April 2018: First Post-Quantum Cryptography(PQC) Standardization Conference•	2018/2019: Round 2 begins•	August 2019: Second PQC Standardization Conference (plan)•	2020/2021: Round 3 begins or algorithms to be
selected• 2022/2024: Draft preparation to be completed
A total of 82 proposals were submitted by the deadline in November 2017; of these, 23 concerned digital
signatures and 59 concerned encryption and keyencapsulation mechanisms. After an examination of
documents and forms was conducted, Round 1 began
in December 2017, at which time 69 proposals
remained. However, 5 proposals were later withdrawn, resulting in a total of 64 proposals at present—19 for digital signatures and 45 for encryption
and key-encapsulation mechanisms.
As mentioned above, the results of examining documents and forms left 69 candidate algorithms forRound 1. These candidates are not necessarily securesimply by reaching Round 1.
Immediately after the release of Round 1 candidates, lively discussions took place on the security ofeach method via the NIST pqc mailing list.
Among these candidates, many were shown to be
breakable as summarized below.
• Guess Again (encryption, other)• RaCoSS (signature, code)• RVB (encryption, other) → withdrawn• HK17 (encryption, other) → withdrawn• CFPKM (encryption, multivariate polynomials)•	SRTPI (encryption, multivariate polynomials) →withdrawn• Edon-K (encryption, code) → withdrawn• Compact LWE (encryption, lattice)• WalnutDSA (encryption, other)• RankSign (signature, code) → withdrawn
It should be kept in mind that security evaluation
techniques are expected to be improved going forward to Round 2.
4. NTT initiatives
NTT did not submit an original algorithm to these
NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization
activities. However, NTT is participating by making
proposals for security enhancement techniques andsecurity evaluation from a third-party standpoint and
NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019

is working with other project members to ensure thatsuitable algorithms can be selected.
Furthermore, though the NIST Post-Quantum
Cryptography Standardization Project is focused
only on post-quantum public-key cryptographic algorithms, NTT is independently researching post-quantum symmetric-key cryptography as well.
4.1 Security enhancement technique
For secure communications to be carried out in thereal world, public-key encryption algorithms must
provide a level of security that is strong enough not
only to conceal the message itself but also to prevent
messages from being tampered with. Technicallyspeaking, this is called chosen-ciphertext attack(CCA) security. At present, CCA security is considered to be an essential requirement for the realistic
use of public-key encryption algorithms.
In this regard, techniques for converting a publickey encryption algorithm without CCA security to a
public-key encryption algorithm with CCA security
have been researched for some time, but it was not
until 2010 that research began in order to determine
whether such techniques were secure enough tocounter attacks using a quantum computer. It was
found that these techniques could indeed be effective
against quantum computers but only with a drop in
efficiency. However, no security enhancement technique that was effective against quantum computers
without sacrificing efficiency was known to exist.
With this being the case, NTT developed a newtechnique that improves security by converting a
post-quantum public-key encryption algorithm without CCA security to a post-quantum public-key
encryption algorithm with CCA security [1].
This development makes it possible to configure a
post-quantum public-key encryption algorithm
according to the highest global standards with highefficiency. In addition, the technique has broad utility,
enabling it to be applied to a variety of existing postquantum public-key cryptographic schemes. It was
found that it could be applied to at least seven of thecandidate algorithms in the NIST Post-Quantum
Cryptography Standardization Project.
The use of post-quantum public-key encryption
algorithms based on this technology will enable cryptographic communications at about the same load asexisting methods even in the post-quantum era.
4.2 Security evaluation from the outside
A cryptographic algorithm called Giophantus isone of the 69 candidate algorithms evaluated in the24Feature Articles

NIST standardization project. This algorithm wasoriginally presented in a paper under the name Indeterminate Equation Cryptosystem (IEC). The securityof this scheme, while proven to be secure, is dependent on the difficulty of a certain problem. In thisregard, large size parameters are required to ensurethat the underlying problem is difficult. However,since IEC was designed so that the key size andciphertext length would be short, the underlying
problem with small size parameters was an issue.
Against this background, we proposed a new attack
technique that could degrade security for small size
parameters [2]. The results of an experiment using
this attack technique revealed that practical cryptanalysis could be performed in 30–40 seconds on adesktop personal computer. As a result of this study,
parameters for the Giophantus version of IEC submitted to NIST were significantly revised.
4.3 P ost-quantum symmetric-key cryptographic
technology(1) Security evaluation techniques
A general-purpose quantum algorithm for attacking
symmetric-key cryptography is presently unknown.
Consequently, an attack that applies computer scientist L. K. Grover’s algorithm for searching a databaseis currently known to be the most effective. For thisreason, quantum attack techniques surpassing theGrover algorithm are being devised by analyzing indetail the inner workings of symmetric-key cryptography, and security evaluations using these techniques are being performed. At NTT, we haveobtained results surpassing those of existing researchby combining meet-in-the-middle attacks and quantum algorithms [3, 4].
It is also known that security can break down forsome symmetric-key ciphers and MACs in cases
where the attacker can access a cryptographic algorithm or MAC algorithm in a quantum manner. NTT
has also been researching attacks of this kind and has
shown that some symmetric-key ciphers can be broken by quantum related-key attacks [5].

NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019(2) Security-proving technique
As described above, it is extremely important thatthe security of symmetric-key cryptography beassessed and proven considering the existence of
attackers that instigate quantum-type accesses. NTT
has developed a technique that proves the post-quantum security of hash functions even when attackers
carry out quantum queries [6].
5. Future development
We plan to create a portfolio of security enhancement and security evaluation techniques and to continue studying the development and deployment of
secure cryptographic communication technologies
even after the successful development of quantum
computers.
References
[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

T. Saito, K. Xagawa, and T. Yamakawa, “Tightly-secure Key-encapsulation Mechanism in the Quantum Random Oracle Model,” Proc. ofthe 37th Annual International Conference on the Theory and Applications of Cryptographic Techniques (EUROCRYPT 2018), Part III,
Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS), Vol. 10822, pp. 520–
551, 2018.
K. Xagawa, “Practical Cryptanalysis of a Public-key Encryption
Scheme Based on Non-linear Indeterminate Equations at SAC 2017,”
Proc. of the 9th International Conference on Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQCrypto 2018), LNCS, Vol. 10786, pp. 142–161, 2018.
A. Hosoyamada and Y. Sasaki, “Cryptanalysis against Symmetric-key
Schemes with Online Classical Queries and Offline Quantum Computations,” Proc. of CT-RSA (Cryptographers’ Track at the RSA Conference) 2018, LNCS, Vol. 10808, pp. 198–218, 2018.
A. Hosoyamada and Y. Sasaki, “Quantum Demiric-Selçuk Meet-inthe-middle Attacks: Applications to 6-Round Generic Feistel Constructions,” Proc. of the 11th Conference on Security and Cryptography for Networks (SCN 2018), LNCS, Vol. 11035, pp. 386–403,
2018.
A. Hosoyamada and K. Aoki, “On Quantum Related-key Attacks on
Iterated Even-Mansour Ciphers,” Proc. of the 12th International
Workshop on Security (IWSEC2017), LNCS, Vol. 10418, pp. 3–18,
2017.
A. Hosoyamada and K. Yasuda, “Building Quantum-one-way Functions from Block Ciphers: Davies-Meyer and Merkle-Damgård Constructions,” Proc. of the 24th International Conference on the Theory
and Application of Cryptology and Information Security (ASIACRYPT 2018), Part I, LNCS, Vol. 11272, pp. 275–304, 2018.

25

Feature Articles

Keita Xagawa

Scientist, Data Security Project, NTT Secure
Platform Laboratories.
He received a B.S. from Kyoto University andan M.S. and D.S. from Tokyo Institute of Technology in 2005, 2007, and 2010. He joined NTT
in 2010. His research work focuses on algebraic
algorithms and provable security in cryptography. He is presently researching cryptography
and information security at NTT Secure Platform
Laboratories.

NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 201926

Feature Articles: NTT R&D Forum 2018 Autumn Special
Sessions

Co-innovating to Accelerate
Transformation and Create New
Value
Debra Bordignon
Chief Technology Officer,
Dimension Data Australia
Abstract

Dimension Data, an NTT Group company, recently opened its first Client Innovation Centre (CIC) in Sydney, Australia. This article introduces
the CIC and presents examples of co-innovation generated at CIC between
Dimension Data, their clients and partners, and the NTT research anddevelopment (R&D) laboratories. This article is based on a speech given
by Debra Bordignon, Chief Technology Officer, Dimension Data Australia, at NTT R&D Forum 2018 Autumn on November 29, 2018.
Keywords: co-innovation, digital transformation, security, disruptive innovation, exponential technologies

1. Client Innovation Centre
On August 1, 2018, we opened the first Client Innovation Centre (CIC) in Sydney, Australia [1]. Our
team created this center as a facility and as an engagement model for innovation with our clients, and werun this as One NTT. The purpose of CIC is to engage
with our clients in co-innovation to accelerate theirtransformation in this digital era and to help themachieve new purpose and value. It has come about
through the close relationships and collaborations wehave with the NTT research and development laboratories (NTT R&D).
Our clients are curious and expectant around One
NTT. Our clients are successful organizations, mostly
with a rich analog heritage and assets. All of our clients are transforming their business to flourish in newtimes. Generally speaking, they are dealing with alegacy underbelly of brittle technologies, processes,
and culture.
NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019

They are hoping for a deeper conversation with us
about more strategic levels of innovation. They want
us to step up to help them accelerate their journey
towards digital transformation, as the integrator andmanager of their digital estate. They are looking foropportunities to differentiate themselves in changing
markets, through applied innovation with the ecosystems we can bring together, including the wonderfulassets that we can bring from NTT R&D. In somecases, we are looking to co-create new value andjointly commercialize new solutions that can advancethe digital economy and benefit society (Fig. 1).
It is a completely immersive experience that wehave created with our CIC model, and we are not only
bringing clients into this, but also creating complimentary industry forums to address some grand challenges together at a sector level.

27

Feature Articles

Purposeful co-innovation…
what clients and partners want from One NTT

Accelerate

Differentiate & Lead

New Value

digital transformation

NTT Group,
NTT R&D innovations

jointly commercialize
new solutions

Fig. 1. Purposeful co-innovation through One NTT.

2. Vision of society
It has been four months since we opened the CIC,
and we are already well engaged in purposeful innovation with numerous clients. The use cases that feature cutting-edge technologies from NTT R&D are
provoking new thinking and intentions. Yet we are notmerely bringing in R&D technologies from Japan;
very importantly, our CIC is modeled on the ethos ofSociety 5.0 [2] and NTT’s expression of that throughthe business-to-business-to-X (B2B2X) model forvalue creation. We feel that it is a really importanttime in the world today to bring a moral and ethicalframework to the way that technology is used toshape future society and humanity, and Society 5.0 issomething the whole world should be considering.
We need a vision for society because that provides
the compass settings for what we are innovating
towards. If we look at what’s happening today, we see
there is an explosion of applications and interfaces,
mixed reality experiences, growing intelligence all
around us, hyper-connected people and things. And
data fuels the expansion of digital frontiers. All thesechanges are built upon the foundations of the Internet,
mobility, social, cloud, and digital platforms.
However, what’s coming in the next 15 years is very
different. In 15 years’ time, we will look back andrecognize that today was really just the toy box ofdigital infancy. What will the world look like in 15
years? It will be a profound convergence between thephysical and the cyber worlds where the interface will
become us. Our gestures and our movements andthoughts are the data and application programming
interfaces (APIs), and all the simplification of ourexperience will entail profound complexity under the
NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019

covers. Dynamically driven from an intelligent edge
and completely trustless, systems of record, systemsof engagement, and systems of intelligence will follow architectural conventions that have not yet comeabout. Powering all of this will be, literally, a quantum change. This is the compass that we use for guiding innovation today, and when we take hops, steps orleaps forward with our clients, it’s referencing scenarios from this future vision.
3. Transformation and innovation themes
At this NTT R&D Forum, we are experiencing a lotof amazing emerging technologies and the use casestories provided by the NTT R&D researchers suggest some practical applications. The Forum themes
are media & user interface, artificial intelligence(AI), Internet of Things (IoT), security, network, andbasic research, and each category provides numerous
use cases to explore what NTT has to offer towards
this future vision. We created a mapping that helps
unpack what types of technologies are coming
together and when and how they are maturing(Fig. 2). On the X-axis of this map is the actual pointof a technology breakthrough where the linear
improvements become exponential, and then it suddenly becomes possible to create commercially viable solutions from those maturing technologies. The
Y-axis is the peak of the innovation adoption curve,
which means the time when the adoption of solutionstransitions from the early to the late majority.
Now, in our CIC, acting as One NTT, we are looking to work with technologies that can deliver value
from now into the next five years. There are two typesof innovation we conduct. One of them is working in
28

Feature Articles

15

Media &
user interface

AI

IoT

Security

Cybersecurity swarm systems
Human signals
processing – implants,
4D printing
wearables
Cybersecurity
Blockchain trust systems
General AI
bots
robotsComputer vision – 3D object
Biometric processing
recognition
Secure data
IoE, autonomous
AR / VR / fully
Reinforcement NLP – semantic
computation
thingstranslation
immersive
Learning

5

3

IoT

Multi-cloud, SIAM, Hybrid IT
Cloud

2000

Servitization,
software defined
everything

Further(super society – 5.0)

Beyond(smart ecosystems)

Machine learning
Big data
analytics

Not only SQL
Data management

Exponential technology breakthrough point

AR: augmented reality
IoE: Internet of Everything
IT: information technology
NLP: natural language processing

Basic researchAutonomous super systems

Super computer –quantum cloudTime in years to peak of adoption

Network

Today(cloud)Now 2025

SIAM: service integration and management
SQL: Structured Query Language
3D/4D: third/fourth dimension
VR: virtual reality

Fig. 2. Translating R&D into purposeful innovation.

this bottom line here of connecting the dots of all thetechnologies that are mature today but have not yet
been joined together to create a simplicity and agility
that help our clients to speed themselves up to be able
to move to the next horizons. That’s not always exciting as innovation, but it is very important.
The other area is to choose emerging technologies
in this new category of beyond and to be able to accelerate the maturation and their early adoption into
markets to create differentiation and a competitive
advantage for our clients. That is our appetite of innovation through CIC.
Regarding digital transformation, every organization is intent on this, but I don’t think it’s universally
agreed what it means. What does it really entail?
Across our group, we have combined our researchand collective experiences working with client organizations globally. We have identified six key business performance areas and within each of these, thecapability investment intentions of businesses toachieve cohesive and sustainable success. All of thistotals to a 3.9 trillion US dollar global investment intechnology enabled transformation across 2020
(Fig. 3).
NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019

It is important to consider your overall business
transformation and innovation goals against these
performance areas and capabilities—do you havegaps, are you underinvested in some areas, where will
you most benefit from acceleration or disruption? On
this basis, what are the innovation priorities and how
will we target and measure value?
Let me briefly explain what we mean by these capability investment vectors. The three in the bottom partof the figure are about establishing the digital foundations for an enterprise, the capabilities needed toparticipate in digital economics. The three in theupper part are about your transformative capabilities—what you do to achieve new purpose and create
new value and prosperity for your organization.
In a little more detail, at the very bottom, we havecyber resilience, the ability to create a new DNA ofcyber resilience, embedded in technologies, processes, practices, and culture. Digital fabric and the Internet of Everything is the shift in information technology (IT) to hybrid infrastructures matched to businessperformance needs, the marriage of IT and OT (operational technology) systems through IoT and thetransformation of the IT organization from a cost29

Feature Articles

Digital world experience

Businesstransformation

Digitalfoundations

Work, knowledge and augmented intelligence
Next-generation enterprise

Data value management
Digital fabric and the Internet of Everything
Cyber resilienceFig. 3. Demand themes for transformation and innovation.

center to business enabling services. Then, there is
the area of data value management, which is essentially the digital heart transplant that most organizations truly need for data to become the lifeblood of
the intelligent, digitally orchestrated enterprise and to
become a valuable asset on the balance sheet.
In terms of business transformative capabilities, thefirst is the next generation enterprise. This entails thetransition from relatively static and linear supply
chain models to dynamic ecosystem business models.
The technology re-platforming entails software
defined and data driven APIs orchestrating these ecosystem flows. Work, knowledge, and augmented
intelligence is about enabling knowledge workers tobe their most effective selves, whether as creators,
communicators, managers or decision makers, in theway they work with each other, visualize and use
data, train their cognitive agents to support what theydo. Finally, digital world experience is about the
stakeholder and the changing nature of their expectations and their experience with your organization.
The shift in focus from omni-channel to channel-lessas digital becomes ambient within the atmosphere.
And we are increasingly interacting with our stakeholders’ AI agents and their personal data APIs.
These six vectors map to the future society view.
Very often we find that our clients do not have sucha cohesive approach to their transformation. Throughthe CIC model, we can help identify gaps, and direct
innovation accordingly.
4. Benefiting from NTT R&D innovations
Now I would like to share with you two examplesof what we have been able to create through our relaNTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019

tionship with NTT R&D and our clients and partners.
They illustrate the coming together of the right partnerships and interesting collective mixes of capabilities under the B2B2X model. We have the B2B of
NTT R&D, ourselves and our university clients andpartners, the NTT operating companies in the region,and of course the X, end user beneficiaries.
It is the one plus one equals many more than threephenomenon that is occurring here. Our collaborations and flows are becoming much more bi-directional with NTT R&D because we are bringing theuse cases from industries and clients in markets that
the NTT researchers find stimulating and that add totheir thinking about their research projects. Indeed,
we are also generating new intellectual property (IP),which we share back with NTT R&D. So it is a growing relationship of value co-creation.
4.1 FLAIM TrainerTM
The first example is FLAIM TrainerTM [3] (Figs. 4
and 5). I would like to share with you the story about
how this has come about because it’s interesting tounderstand. Deakin University is an innovative university in Australia, they have a strong commercialization track record from their R&D. In the middle of2017, they had created a solution called FLAIM
Trainer, which is a virtual reality (VR) and haptics
based firefighting solution with numerous simulator
scenarios such as cars that are on fire, jets on fire, andother situations. Deakin University is also a close client/partner of Dimension Data Australia. In July
2017, we brought some members of Deakin University to the NTT R&D labs in Japan and explored awide range of emerging technologies. Everything
starts by focusing on something specific, and we felt
30

Feature Articles

hitoeTMFLAIM TrainerTM

Flexible
nano-based
conductive
fiberBluetoothtransmission
ECG,
EMG
ECG: electrocardiogram
EMG: electromyography

Fig. 4. Train virtually, experience reality, measure performance.

Ensuring firefighters are ‘fit to fight’
Immersive reality training scenarios, biological response monitoring, data visualization and machine learning

B
Deakin University

B

X

AR / VR / fully
immersive

FLAIM Trainer
Fire agencies

hitoe
Dimension DataNTT

Machine learning

Emergency
services workers
FLAIM Systems

Big data analytics

Heavy industry &transport workers
Athletes

NTT R&D

Experiment:
June 2018

IoT
CIC demonstrationuse case: Aug. 2018

Proofs of concept:
Oct. 2018

Fig. 5. B2B2X co-innovation for FLAIM TrainerTM.

immediately that there was a great opportunity toenhance what they had created with FLAIM Trainer
by adding the ability to biometrically monitor
firefighters during their training.
So the idea of bringing FLAIM Trainer together
with the NTT hitoeTM biosensing technology and ourDimension Data Australia data and analytics expertise was born. We started the prototype process,NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019

which Dimension Data managed, and very quickly
we were able to create a solution which included
electrocardiogram (ECG) sensing married with the
VR experience, providing real-time visualization of
the physiologic response alongside the environmental
data about fog and temperature, and pressure flows
from the hose. We brought this to the NTT R&D
Forum held in February 2018. This created a lot of31

Feature Articles

interest. FLAIM Systems Pty Ltd. (a start-up wholly
owned by Deakin University), meanwhile, raised
funds to commercialize its core offering.
We suggested to NTT R&D that this solution would
indeed be greatly enhanced and would be unique inthe market if we added in the ability to sense electromyography (EMG) muscular activity. NTT R&D
agreed, and joint research has been undertaken by
NTT R&D and Deakin researchers. We are now adding EMG capability into the hitoe sensing and thedata platform solution. This will improve the ‘fit tofight’ insights and training approaches for fire departments and broaden applicability to other industries
such as defense, ambulance, and heavy industries
with safety issues for workers.
This use case has seen a relatively rapid translation
to value, characterized by true collaboration and flowof IP in both directions. Most importantly, we haveretained line of sight of B2B2X and the importance oftaking a market focus.
4.2 Mass Data Observations and San-shiTM
Now I’d like to share with you another example.
This co-innovation has come about between NTT
R&D, Western Sydney University, and Dimension
Data Australia. This use case demonstrates twothings: firstly, ways of bringing many forms andsources of data together to be able to use it for
research purposes; but as well, with the addition of
San-shiTM, NTT’s secure computation system, thepotential to drive new standards in cloud data privacy
and enable safe data sharing, which is demonstrably
lacking at the moment in the world (Figs. 6 and 7).
Firstly, the journey of this co-innovation. Western
Sydney University and Dimension Data have co-created a platform called Mass Data Observations. It is alarge-scale data management platform that can accept
all forms of data for exploration by researchers inprojects that may be open and collaborative or discrete and privately conducted. In addition to this, theMass Data Observations platform enables researchers
to crowdsource research challenges and attract interest from people who may wish to collect data forthem or become subjects in research projects. Boththe researchers and the data contributors on this platform can be rewarded in RiByts, research incentive
bitcoins. The idea is to drive a large-scale collaborative data-driven research ecosystem.
In July 2017 we brought some top researchers from
Western Sydney University to NTT R&D labs inTokyo, and just as with Deakin, we saw many things
we would like to work with, but immediately we were
NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019

struck by what we saw with San-shi, the prototype ofa secure, multi-party data computation platform. In
our view this was cutting-edge and potentially worldleading in the area of encrypted data analysis andsecure multi-party data computation.
Given our enthusiasm and our access to test highvalue use cases with industry partners in Australia,
NTT R&D agreed to accelerate the English version of
San-shi. By January 2018, a cohort including experts
from my team, Western Sydney University, as well as
Deakin University, returned to Tokyo for knowledgetransfer and we brought San-shi back to Australia,
integrating it with Mass Data Observations, runningon our cloud platform in Australia. We immediately
started exploring and testing the capabilities and running use cases through it. The following use case is
one of those examples.
Mass Data Observations is a powerful platform forbringing all sorts of data together to enable exploration of data. However, the challenge still remains, thatwhen it comes to bringing sensitive data sets together
from multiple parties, we have a serious issue withtrust and quite rightly so, and this creates barriers toapproval by ethics and governance committees, asanyone who does research knows. Therefore, thequestion is how to safely, securely, and economicallymake these data sets available for analysis. That’s
where we brought San-shi into the equation.
Data about fires in the state of New South Wales
had never been brought together before to understandwhat the full social, economic, and health impacts offires were, let alone trying to improve the outcomes.
Ten million people live in the state of New South
Wales. Before this research was conducted, data
recorded that there were about five fires a day. In fact,
there were 20. Deaths attributed to fires were about
500 over a 10-year period, but it was found that there
were actually 9000 deaths. The emergency departments reported a couple of dozen injuries from fires aday, but in fact, there were over 213. So clearly, there
were sources of information everywhere, and thisinformation was never brought together to create avery clear picture of the impact of fires.
Researchers at Western Sydney University had
researched this in the traditional way, spending three
years and hundreds of thousands of dollars gaining
ethics clearance and bringing together 11 different
data sets, from the fire department, first responders,
hospitals, register of deaths, primary care providers,insurers, and others.
We set out to show that the use of Mass Data Observations with San-shi created a ‘trustless’ technology
32Feature Articles

San-shiTM
How to ???
Data owners andproviders

Trust

Mass Data
Observations
created a platformand ecosystem for
all forms of data to
be explored,
BUT a hugechallenge
remains.....

VS

New cloud privacy
standards must emerge
Data users andanalysts

Scoping stage
Mass Data
Observations

Safely, securely andeconomically make
(multi-party) source data
available for statisticalanalysis?

Interview
stakeholder
organizations

Ethics, governance and data collection
Write upresearch
protocolIdentify data
sources

Ethics andregulatory
approval

Requestlinkeddata sets

Mass Data Observations Continuum

Complete research
Analyze
data

Present
findings

San-shi services

Fig. 6. Research innovation with San-shiTM.

Advanced data analytics platform, data collector and researcher ecosystem (Mass Data Observations),
with San-shi secure multi-party data computation

B

B

X
powered byWestern Sydney
University

San-shi

Mass Data
Observations

NTT
NTT R&D
Experiment:
July 2018

DD Government
Protected
Cloud Service
San-shi

NSW Emergency
Services

Students
Citizens

NSW HealthDimension Data

Residents

Mass Data
Observations

Patients
Workers

Australian Bureau of
Statistics

ConstituentsCIC Demonstration
Use case: Aug. 2018

Proofs of concept:
Aug. 2018 to Mar. 2019

Consumers

Fig. 7. B2B2X co-innovation for ethically and securely exploring the data multiverse.

environment that could execute this challenge accurately and without the potential of breaches. This isimportant as in the future, this may reassure ethics
and governance committees, expediting approval
processes and affording significant time and costsavings for sensitive multi-party data research use
NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019

cases.
I will briefly explain how San-shi works. Elevendifferent sources of data were available; when they
are ingested into San-shi, each data source is encrypted and split across multiple servers. It never exists
inside the San-shi system in its original form. When a33

Feature Articles

researcher wants to access that data to conduct statistical analysis, the data are brought together but neverdecrypted; they’re analyzed in an encrypted state.
The analyst never receives the source data; they only
ever receive the output. The data sources are neverheld in their original state by San-shi, and the data arenever actually touched by researchers—this is trustless secure multi-party computation [4].
Just think about what new value can be createdfrom such a capability, unlocking research possibilities previously deemed not safe to conduct. In this use
case about the impacts of fires, we can create new
citizen services where people could check the safety
records of buildings and certain appliances, and first
responders would know much more about the spectrum of impacts from a fire and adopt the best choiceof interventions. Indeed, firefighters could improvetheir training regime, and the government could
enforce much better policies and public awarenessaround fire safety. Thus, this use case has been illustrative and powerful for us, and we are now exploring
more use cases around San-shi, notably in healthcare
policy and population-wide interventions.

new value through partnership—we are stepping up
to this expectation, learning, and evolving with ourclients.
If you are curious about these individual experiments but also the CIC model and the potential flows
from research to innovation to commercialization,then please come and talk to us at our booths at thisforum.
I leave you with a question. When you think about
your organization’s transformation and innovationneeds, what would or could you want from a truly
One NTT? Because when we bring this all together,what can be harnessed for you is truly amazing.
References
[1]

[2]
[3]

5. Summation
These examples illustrate why we created the CIC
and what outputs are being generated. We now haveinterest from other parts of the global NTT family, to
use the CIC model as a template for engaging withNTT R&D, using B2B2X to drive strategic engagement in their markets and with their clients.
Returning to my opening remarks about what ourclients and partners want from One NTT and an innovation relationship—to accelerate transformation, todifferentiate and lead in their markets and/or to create[4]

Press release issued by Dimension Data, “Dimension Data Launches
First Client Innovation Centre to Bring Cutting Edge Tech Down
Under,” Aug. 1, 2018.
https://www.dimensiondata.com/en/news/dimension-data-launchesfirst-client-innovation-centre-to-bring-cutting-edge-tech-down-under
Government of Japan, “The 5th Science and Technology Basic Plan,”
Jan. 2016.
http://www8.cao.go.jp/cstp/english/basic/5thbasicplan.pdf
T. Levin, S. Chessum, J. Mullins, N. Yoshihashi, and K. Hayashi,“Ensuring Greater Safety for Our Firefighters and Our Communities:
Integrating FLAIM TrainerTM and hitoeTM,” NTT Technical Review,Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 24–31, 2019.
https://www.ntt-review.jp/archive/ntttechnical.php?contents=
ntr201902fa3.html
H. Kitajo, T. Yamaguchi, S. Nishiyama, G. Takahashi, A. Miyajima,
K. Hirota, S. Nishida, and J. Hashimoto, “Trial Service of Secure
Computation System San-shiTM,” NTT Technical Review, Vol. 17,
No. 3, pp. 16–21, 2019.
https://www.ntt-review.jp/archive/ntttechnical.php?contents=
ntr201903fa3.html

Trademark notes

All brand names, product names, and company/organization names thatappear in this article are trademarks or registered trademarks of theirrespective owners.

Debra Bordignon

Chief Technology Officer, Dimension Data Australia.
Debra sits on both the executive and the strategy and innovation committees at
Dimension Data Australia. As CTO, she leads the portfolio strategy transforming thegroup in Australia to fulfil its vision to become the leading services integrator
enabling digital enterprises and ecosystems.
She facilitates an exchange of global R&D and innovations between NTT, Dimension Data, and their partners and clients. She shapes co-innovation initiatives, strategic partnerships, and ventures, with a focus across the industries on higher education, the public sector, health, and financial services.
Debra holds a Bachelor of Applied Science, is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, and has completed executive leadership education at
Harvard Business School.

NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 201934

Feature Articles: NTT R&D Forum 2018 Autumn Special
Sessions

Leading in the Age of Digital
Disruption
Marc Alba
Chief Disruption Officer, everis, andHead of NTT DATA NextGen
Abstract

At everis, an NTT DATA Group company, a team consisting of 65 members is currently working to create solutions for existing companies byapplying disruptive approaches. Half of the team is expert in technology
such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, crowdsourcing, robotics,
and blockchain, and the other half has expertise in business domains suchas design, marketing, finance, and legal issues. This article describes theimportance of digital disruption and the disruption initiatives by the NTT
Group based on a speech given by Marc Alba, Chief Disruption Officer of
everis, at NTT R&D Forum 2018 Autumn on November 30, 2018.
Keywords: disruption, digital, cloud

1. Evolving and maturing digital transformation
To start with, I will present a general context about
the current momentum of digital transformation,
where we are now, where we are coming from, andwhere we are going.
Around 2012, we had the first wave of digital transformation. It was really about social/mobile, and the“digital” became a part of our lives in glass. When I
say “glass,” I’m talking about screens. With mobile
phones, tablets, and that kind of devices, we had“digital” through our screens. It was really about
channels, connections, and interactions. The four letters S-M-A-C, representing social, mobile, analytics,
and cloud, changed the world completely in less than
10 years, and that was connected to the third-generation of mobile communications (3G) and 4G. This
wave also led to the significant growth of Google,
Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Samsung, referred toas GAFAS.
About one or two years ago, we had the second
wave of digital transformation. Everybody agreed on
NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019

calling that wave the AI (artificial intelligence)-firstworld. After being fundamentally based on the channels and the way we use them, the concept of “digital” suddenly came back to “silico” (to the hardware)such as graphics processing units (GPUs), field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), and applicationspecific integrated circuits. We needed to have hardware that makes AI fast enough for deep learning andmachine learning, and a completely new generationof chips in silico were created. Companies like
NVIDIA and Xilinx are now working a lot with
GPUs and FPGAs. “Digital” moved to a new type of“silico” and microcomputers.
“Digital” is now moving to the relationship between
humans and machines. I live in Boston in the Unites
States. One of the hot topics there is social AI. It is
about the relationship between humans and machines.
Human-robotic iterations, digital empathy, digitaltrust, this is the new big thing. Our work around therelations between humans and machines, both hardware such as robots—social robots, personal robots,
service robots—and purely digital chatbots and35

Feature Articles

robo-advisors, is proving that humans can create very
special relationships with these machines (in the wide
sense of both phygital and digital ones).
We are currently working with young kids. They
create a very special empathy with machines. We arealso working with older people, and it is surprising tosee how they also engage in a special relationshipwith machines. AI is moving from the cold AI, where
it can seem fearsome, for example, humans against
machines, to social AI. That is the second wave, andthe enabling technologies are AI, robotics, machinelearning, Internet of Things (IoT), and edge computing. We are also slightly shifting from 4G to 5G. In
the first wave, four technologies changed the world.
Now those five new technologies are adding to thesefour ones. Thus, nine technologies at the same time
are changing all industries, all geographies, and allsocieties. It is the first time in human history to experience that number of disruptive technologies at thesame time changing potentially any business and any
industry.
Regarding the third wave of digital transformation,
this is the foresight; it could be wrong, or it could be
accurate. Our vision is that the next big shift of “digital” will involve “digital” entering three new domains.
The first domain is digital in physio. It means weare talking about 3D (three-dimensional) printing,additive manufacturing, and digital fabrication. The
first time you create something in “digital.” With“digital” you will be able to create tangible objects.
The second important domain is digital in bio,
meaning living bodies. “Digital” becomes embodied
in life. Part of the work we are doing is connected todigital biology, synthetic biology, and genomics.
Now our human body can have the same rule of software. We can apply it more to the human body thanto animals. That is a completely different shift. Thisis just emerging, but it should ramp up around 2020
or 2022.
The third domain is digital in virtual, which refers
to virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality,
and such. Our limited experience until now indicatesthat somehow there is still some hype around virtual
reality, but by 2020/2022, virtual reality can probably
overcome the complexity we have right now.
This third wave is what we call phygital, which
combines physical and digital. What you have is“digital” penetrating into physical objects, humanbodies, living bodies, and also the rise of synthetic
reality.
The main problem we will have by 2020/2022, andat NTT we are busily working on, is what happens
NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019with more loads of data, because we are getting close
to reaching the limits. So quantum computing andquantum communications will be very important, andwe will need to find sufficient computing power.
Obviously, 5G will be taking off in this third wave,
and we will have amazing new capabilities through
5G.
These three waves are all about the same idea.
“Digital” is like a virus. It’s penetrating more andmore facets of our daily lives. It can be humans, it canbe a car, it can be a home, it can be a city, it can be asport (Fig. 1). If you look at these different items ofevolution in each of the phases of maturity of “digital,” you see the same pattern. First of all, you havethe single entity that becomes somehow connected
and socialized and obtains more capability to embed
analytics. After that, it can plug in intelligence, and it
becomes more smart and autonomous. All of theitems go through the same pattern.
All that vision I just presented about the third digital wave is really our best guess. We really do notknow what will happen. Imagine that quantum computing is delayed for some reasons, and imagine anyof the expected outcomes change. What is clear is thatbeyond the next two to three years we do not have theclarity to see what will happen. That is a big problem.
The fundamental question of this first block is how
can we prepare ourselves for a world we cannot imagine? You in your work, you at home with your family,
you as a human being. Six years ago, my wife and I
had triplets as our first kids. The main question we
had three years ago is which school should we send
them to? Because most of the schools are conceived
for a world that’s no longer there. They are conceived
for a world where you need to memorize things anddevelop calculation skills, which are less and lessrelevant. If we were to think about the skills we need,
it would be the ability to continue to change, the ability to adapt, and the ability to judge what is relevant
and what is not, what is trustworthy and what is not,among an almost infinite source of data and information. Conventional schools do not train for that. So,
there are some fundamental questions behind all of
the massive changes that are transforming our daily
lives.
2. Digital disruption
What is crystal clear to us is that this discipline iscalled disruption. In fact, the idea of disruption goesback a long way. Joseph A. Schumpeter in 1911 wrote abook entitled “The Theory of Economic Development,”36

Feature Articles

Wave 1: Social-/Mobile-first world
2012

Wave 2: AI-first world
2016/7

Human

Connected self

Car

Connected car

Home

Wave 3: Phygital world?

NOW

2020/22?

Quantified self / digital self

Synthetic self

Assisted car

Connected home

Autonomous car

Assisted home

Human workforce

Digitized workforce (crowd)

Augmented workforce (robots)

Product

Augmented product3D printed product

Sport

Social sport

City

Augmented sport
Social city

e-SportIntelligent homeHybrid workforce
Virtual product

Immersive sport

Connected city

Phygital sport
Smart city

Fig. 1. Transforming our lives through “digital”: Internet of Everything.

where he talked about creative destruction. The idea
behind creative destruction is that you have industries
and new technologies that come and change everything. Destroying things to create something new
becomes a dominant way of operating and doing
business. Thus, destruction/disruption have beenaround for a long time. The concept itself goes backto 1995, when it was introduced by Clayton M. Christensen, who wrote “The Innovator’s Dilemma.” However, disruption combined with “digital” takes completely new dimensions. This is what I would like toelaborate on.
Some of these facts I will present now may seemvery threatening, but the message I am trying to convey is completely opposite. The message behindthese big threats is actually very positive. There are
massive opportunities for those who know how toleverage them.
The lifespan of companies is declining. Being a big
company was once a competitive advantage, but it’slosing the resilience it had before. In the five and ahalf years from January 2011 to July 2016, the number of unicorns substantially increased. Unicorns arecompanies that seemingly came from nowhere but
had stock values that were over 1 billion US dollars
individually. So all these companies are new entrants
in the market and are reinventing the industry. In
addition, if you look at three to five years before,
many of the unicorns were concentrated in the UnitedStates. The world is becoming more and more flat.
NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019You can create a new disruptive company anywhere.
With more players comes more democratization.
Another interesting factor to take into account is theconcept of the Tech Oligopoly. It refers to Apple,
Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook. These
players have ecosystems to compete in many markets. In the beginning, they focused on their corecompetencies, but now they are entering the fields ofretail, healthcare, and payments. These players combined with startups are shaking up all the domains
and industries. Beyond the disruption in businessecosystems, what you have is also a general disruption in other domains like politics and social systems.
My statement here is that we should not see allthese complexities only as threats. They are definitely
threats, but behind big threats you also have huge
opportunities. These threats are not like innovation
but are more connected to disruption.
I will try to explain the main difference between
innovation and disruption. I will use the car as an
example. In innovation, basically the rationale is “I
want to improve on the car.” The starting point is acar. Your mindset is hooked to a car and it’s biased, so
you will end up producing a better car. In disruption,
you would not say “I want to improve on the car.” You
would say “People and goods need to move aroundanyplace, anytime.” That would lead you to different
approaches to create a novel Hyperloop, Waymo,
Tesla, Waze, whatever. In innovation, the idea is totake existing solutions and make them better. In
37

Feature Articles

BankingGrandchallenges:- Education- Lifelong
wellness- Digital safety-…

HealthSociety

Artificial intelligence
Machine learning
Robotics
Crowdsourcing
xR
IoT
Blockchain
Cloud acceleration
Edge computing
Quantified self
Experience techs
Creative techs
Digital fabrication
Digital biology…

…

Disruption
Futurism
DesignUI/UXMarketingSocial sciences
Science
EthicsLegal
FinanceStartup science
TalentProduct dev
Sales & GTM…

Developers
On demand
talent(30 million) Creatives&
Designers
GAFAAS /Tech giantsGroupcompanies

NTT
ecosystem

Disruption Hubs

NTT DATA

Automotive

Disruption Factory (Disruption “Ninjas”)
DiaaS (Disruption as a Service)

Demand-side

YOU!

Our
clients

Startups
ecosystem(2 million)

BostonUs

MadridTokyo

NTT

Silicon Valley
LondonGAFAAS: Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Alibaba, and Samsung
GTM: go-to-market
R&D: research and development

Disruption
Media HouseNTT
venturecapitalDesignstudios

Innovation
centers

Supply-side

Disrupt Your Industry

NTT
R&D

Content marketing
Events & experiences
Immersive spaces

Academia

UI: user interface
UX: user experiencexR: extended reality

Fig. 2. Disruption by NTT DATA/NTT.

disruption, the idea is to take problems and find different solutions. The main problem compared to notso many years ago is the speed of change. More andmore technologies are being introduced, and we are
attaining more and more capabilities; if innovation is
combined with a lot of disruption to create new ways
to solve problems, in a few years, you can have adominant position in the market. Playing with two or
three technologies that may look completely different
could lead to major disruption. For example, IoT and
AI and blockchain and the cloud.
3. Disruption by NTT DATA/NTT
This is what we are selling and building as the NTT
Group (Fig. 2). We are creating this platform so as toconnect all the capacity we have as a Group itself—
the NTT research and development laboratories, all
our Group companies, networks, innovation centers,
and design studios with ecosystems, with startups,
crowdsourcing, and academia. What we are building
is a factory to address the problem and apply a disruptive mindset and disruptive approaches to create completely different solutions.
We are now working on 20 disciplines. I have time
NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019

to select a couple of them and show you the type ofcomplex challenge we are trying to solve.
As shown in Fig. 3, all the on-premises services are
moving to the cloud; this can be storage, apps, orcomputing. Now what we are observing is a new massive trend, which is that anything a company mightneed can be moved to an on-demand system. This iswhat is called liquid organization. You can create awhole company without having anything, not even
employees. All these names you have here are products we have built. This solution basically involves
getting all employees without hiring any of themthrough crowdsourcing. This platform can create any
digital content without hiring any creative agencies or
any marketing agencies. It is really moving into theconcept of cloudification. All those assets that a company might need from knowledge, data, AI as a Service, are really pushed to the cloud. This is the concept we are working on.
Another domain we are working on, which isextremely strategic and extremely interesting, isshown in Fig. 4. The left side of the figure is the current model of all our interactions as consumers withtech giants. We are producing a lot of data such as
consumer data, producer data, financial data, social
38

Feature Articles

Today

Tomorrow

Things on demand

Anything on demand: reign of platform / ecosystem economy
Digital supply
chain / DRM

Crowdsourcing
SophisticateddemandStorage

Automation

Workforce
INFINITE

Digitization
G I

Apps

Designdoing
growth.meCollective
intelligence

Liquidorganizations
Liquid networked
platforms enabler

BasicdemandCloud acceleration
Data science

Computing

EdTech

…
Cloud

AI/ML
SKREENSXILINX

SophisticateddemandLearning

Data and
foresight
Sibyl

CLOQQ
DRM: digital rights manaegment
ML: machine learning

Fig. 3. From things on demand to anything on demand.

Today

Tomorrow

Data from me/you

Data for me/you
GoogleGoogleSecured digital
identity/ies

Facebook

Facebook
Apple

Apple
AmazonAmazonConsumer data
Producer data

AlibabaFinancial data
Social data

Microsoft

Digital self

Digital mediator

Producer data
Financial data

Samsung

Alibaba
Microsoft

Social data
Health data

Health data…

Consumer data

Samsung…

Salesforce
Salesforce

Chatbot

Digital/physical embodiments

Fig. 4. From data from me/you to data for me/you.

data, and health data. All of these players are somehow operating through them as they capture data. We
feel we are happy because we have good services, but
NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019the underlying model is completely asymmetric. We
own the data, we produce the data, but we play into
the hands of these service providers or platformers.
39

Feature Articles

Obeys digital rules
Obeys physical / biological natural laws
In glass

In silico

In physio

In bioIn virtual

Hardcoded by nature/God/aliens/…

Coded by us

Live and lead to manage scarcity

Live and lead to manage abundance“The
Singularity
Is
Near”
Ray
Kurzweil

The World of Humans“Homo Deus:
A Brief
HistoryofTomorrow”
Yuval NoahHarari

The World of Post-humans?

Fig. 5. From scarcity to abundance.

What we are trying to build is a completely newmodel, which is “I should own the data,” “I should
govern the data,” “I should monetize the data,” me asa consumer. This is leading us to create all theseseries of new agents (center in the figure). The firstone is creating the concept of secured digital identities where I put my data automatically. We then created the approach of a digital self; it becomes likeyour digital twin. It’s not a chatbot, it’s far beyond
chatbot; it becomes your interactions, your intelligence, to operate the data. The model we are trying toshift is moving from the model in which each userinteracts with each player to the model where wehave a digital mediator that interacts with these players and eventually creates a new business model for
you to realize a return on your investment of yourdata.
4. From scarcity to abundance
So, what’s next? I don’t think anybody has any idea.
This is my best guess: We are moving in the long run
from scarcity to abundance (Fig. 5). Once you plug inall the digital rules, all the physical objects in everything, suddenly you are not limited, you do not have
hardcoded items for the people, you are able to codeanything on the planet earth. I strongly advise you to
NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019

read “The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology” by Ray Kurzweil. That is a very goodreference. In 2045 singularity will start, and manythings will change. That is a must to understand theconcept behind all of that, which is probably about
evolution, from you as a human to a post-human. Thatis the long run.
The good news is for these longer visions, disruption will be more and more important because thefrenzy of changes will be more and more massive andmuch faster.
This idea is very significant and ambidextrous(Fig. 6). Play with these three dimensions in any ofyour companies, or any of your businesses and organizations. Running the business is extremely important; otherwise you die. Evolving the business is also
important because it gives you more defensive strategies. However, to reinvent, kill your business to create
the new business. Hacking the business is about disruption, and disruptive innovation is also extremely
important.
Being in a big company having a lot of success is
no longer a big advantage. You need to un-learn torelearn. Socrates said, “I only know one thing, andthat is I know nothing.” You need to have a lot of
humbleness. Look at the world with the eyes of children. That’s what is behind the quotes.
40

Feature Articles

Run
the BusinessDo business!

Do better!

Operation andexploitation

Evolvethe Business

Incremental innovation andcontinuous improvement

Changethe Business

Radical innovation anddigital disruption
Do different!
Do UNIQUE!

Reinvent/Hackthe BusinessFig. 6. Ambidextrous leadership.

Trademark notes

All brand names, product names, and company/organization names thatappear in this article are trademarks or registered trademarks of theirrespective owners.

Marc Alba

Chief Disruption Officer, everis, and Head of NTT DATA NextGen.
Marc Alba is a leading expert in disruptive innovation, entrepreneurship, exponential technologies, digital transformation, regional development, and socioeconomictransformation. Throughout the past 20 years, he has served in diverse positions(researcher, entrepreneur, chief innovation officer, transformation director, founderof non-profit movements, and advisor of a large and varied set of both private andpublic organizations) that in combination provide him with a holistic perspective of
the key socioeconomic challenges that businesses and societies are facing worldwide. He has carried out his activities in multiple sectors, including automotive,
telecom, industry, banking, insurance, government, energy, and non-government/
non-profit organizations.
Marc is the (co-)author of 5 books and has written more than 100 publications andarticles. His latest books are i-Leaders (Innovation Leaders): From the Business ofInnovation to the Innovation of Business and The Key to Spain’s Transformation:
Civil Society Takes the Floor. He is also the co-founder of the civil society initiatives
TransformaEspaña and TransformaTalento (TransformTalent), and the originator of
the innovation management methodology COTIM (Cash-Oriented Total Innovation
Management).
Currently, Marc works as a Managing Partner of the everis Group. He sits on thecompany’s Steering Committee as the Chief Disruption Officer. He is the founderand head of everis NextGen and the NTT DATA Disruption Hub. He is also a Fellowof the everis Foundation and President of the TransformaEspaña Association. He is
actively involved in various boards and think tanks related to innovation, entrepreneurship, regional development, and education.
He was born in Africa (Kinshasa, Congo). His collaborators define him as a citizenof the world, humanist, and work lover. He is 45 years old, married, and the fatherof seven-year-old triplets, Maria, Miguel, and Marc.

NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 201941

Regular Articles

Intent-based Service Management to
Improve Resource Design Efficiency
for Cloud Services
Chao Wu, Shingo Horiuchi, and Kenichi Tayama
Abstract

As cloud services have expanded, an increasing number of service providers are implementing various
kinds of services and functions such as web services and machine learning in the cloud environment. To
provide the cloud service promptly and improve customer satisfaction, a cloud service provider needs toefficiently design the resources in accordance with the service requirements. This article presents anintent-based service management framework that enables the needed cloud resources to be derived inaccordance with the service provider’s service requirements, cloud environmental conditions, andoperation policies.
Keywords: intent-based service management, cloud, virtual machine

1. Current practices of cloud resource design
The cloud has become a popular choice for service
providers (SPs) to allocate new service workloads or
migrate existing ones. The SP, when requesting new
cloud services or asking to scale existing ones, isconcerned about the service requirements such as thefunctionality of the service, the levels of security andavailability, and the ability to handle workloads. In
contrast, the cloud service provider (CSP) needs toknow the composition of resources and the amount of
resources to be allocated to fulfill the service requirements from the SP (Fig. 1). Therefore, the CSP needs
to analyze the service requirements from the SP, andon the basis of the results needs to design cloud
resources. Current practices of designing the cloud
resources include:(1) Cloud-consultant approach
The SP is assisted by cloud consultants from the
CSP who collect the SP’s service requirements anddetermine resource details accordingly. This approach
results in a high operating expenditure for the CSP
and takes them a relatively long time to deliver services.

NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019(2) Self-service approach
The SP is provided with a management interface tomanage cloud resources and service needs in order todetermine their resource requirements. This approachrequires the SP to have IT (information technology)
expertise and may be a barrier to SPs wishing to enter
the market.
In both approaches, the transfer from service
requirements to resource requirements relies heavily
on an individual human’s decision-making process.
In response to these issues, to more efficiently
design and operate cloud resources, we have been
researching an intent-based service management(IBSM) framework that analyzes the service requirements expressed through various channels (e.g., natural language (i.e., a human language such as Japaneseor English, rather than a computer command language), graphical user interface (GUI), etc.) anddetermines the composition and amount of resources
accordingly. Meanwhile, the output of IBSM can beused as the input of a cloud resources orchestrator, forexample, OpenStack Heat, thus enabling the automation of the process from receiving a service request toservice delivery and operation.

42

Regular Articles

Service provider (SP)Cloud service provider(CSP)

Servicerequirements

Resource
requirements

Service requirements in terms of• Operation policies• Environmental
conditions

Resource requirements in terms offunctionality, security, reliability
workload, performancecomposition (types, numbers,
forwarding chains)
amount (number of vCPUs,
memory size, disk size)

vCPU: virtual central processing unit

Fig. 1. Cloud resources are designed in accordance with service requirements.

Service requirements(natural language)

Service requirements(through GUI)

Requirement Analysis
Requirement API
Resource composition
Resource Composer

FW

WS

DB

FW

WS

DB

LB

Resource AmountCalculator

vCPUs: 4vCPUs: 4vCPUs: 4
vCPUs: 4
memory:1G
memory:1G
memory:1G
memory: 1GvCPUs: 4vCPUs: 4vCPUs: 4
disk:7G disk:7G disk:7G
disk: 7G
memory:1G
memory:1G
memory:
1G
...
...
...
...
disk: 7G disk: 7G disk: 7G
...
...
...
Resource amount

API: application programming interface
DB: database
FW: firewall
LB: load balancer
WS: web server

Resource Orchestrator

Fig. 2. IBSM framework.

2. IBSM framework
IBSM [1] consists of three main function blocks:
Requirement Analysis, Resource Composer, andResource Amount Calculator (Fig. 2). Below, we
introduce each function and the approaches [2] toNTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019achieve them.
2.1 Requirement Analysis
SPs describe the service requirements through various channels such as natural language and GUIs. The
Requirement Analysis block is responsible for43Regular Articles

Functionality: web service, security: high level, reliability: multi-loc

Service template
repository

Customization engine

Customization rules
Event:
Security = high level

Condition:
Service types = all
+

WS

DB

Web service
LB

1 Choose service templateon basis of functionality
requirement.

Action: +Event:
Redundancy = multi-loc

CS

2 Choose customization rules

CS

rule 1

Condition:
Service types = all+on basis of security andreliability requirements.

Video streaming

FW

Action: duplicate
resource composition
3 Check conflicts andpriority between rules;
execute rules.

rule 2

Add FW

FW

WS

DB

Add
redundancy

FW

WS

DB

FW

WS

DB

CS: content server

Fig. 3. Resource Composer.

parsing these service requirements and categorizing
the requirements into atom requirements including
the requirements of functionality, security, reliability,
workload, and performance.
2.2 Resource Composer
The Resource Composer block takes the output of
the Requirement Analysis block and enables theresource composition to be automatically determinedin accordance with the service requirements, especially the requirements of functionality, security, andreliability. There is an existing approach to determine
the resource composition in accordance with predefined service templates, but this approach leads tothe problem of a dramatic increase in the number ofservice templates as the service variations increase.
To solve this problem, as shown in Fig. 3, a Resource
Composer is based on a small number of basic service
templates that can be customized on the basis of service requirements.
2.3 Resource Amount Calculator
The resource Amount Calculator’s roles and funcNTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019tionalities include:•	Upon delivery of a cloud service, it determines
the amount of resources needed to satisfy theperformance requirements. Besides the workload and performance requirements, environmental conditions and operation policies need tobe considered to determine the amount of computation resources allocated to virtual machines(VMs).
•	After the delivery of the cloud service, if there
are changes in workload, environmental conditions, and operation policies, it adjusts theamount of computation resources allocated to
VMs to ensure continuous satisfaction of theperformance requirements.
In the following, we explain why the workload,
performance requirements, environmental conditions, and operation policies need to be taken into
consideration to determine the amount of resources.
(1) Workload and performance requirements
The SP processes the service workload in the cloudenvironment, and in most cases, requires the performance requirements to be met. In this article, workload
44

Regular Articles

Table 1. Examples of workload and performance requirements.
Workload

Performance requirements

Type

Features

AmountProcessing time
restriction

Processing percentage
restriction(a)

Web server
requests (get)Web page size:
30 KB, etc.

10,000 requests per
secondKeep average process timeof requests under 1 second

Successfully process over
95% of requests(b)

Neuralnetwork(training)

Layers, nodes ofTraining set:each layer,
32 x 32 pixels
activation
256 color x 10,000
function, etc.

Train 1 epoch in less than
10 min...

VM1(vCPU number = 4)
VM
vCPU = 4
Host 1Low

Host CPU utilization ratio = 10%

VM2 performs worse than VM1 due toresource exhaustion. To perform at thesame level, VM2 needs to be allocatedmore resources or be migrated to theother spare host.

Host crowdedness
VM

VM

VM

VM

VM

VM

High

VM2
(vCPU number = 4)
VM
vCPU = 4

Host 2
Host CPU utilization ratio = 90%

Fig. 4. Example of how environmental conditions affect VM’s performance.

refers to the type, features, and amount of processing.
The performance requirements can be divided into
two main categories: the processing time restriction
and the processing percentage restriction. Two examples of workload and the corresponding performancerequirements are given in Table 1. For a certain workload, the computation resources allocated to the VMs
directly affect the processing time and percentage
achieved. Thus, workload and performance requirements must be considered when deciding the amountof resources allocated to VMs.
(2) Environmental conditions
Environmental conditions in this work are the conditions of the physical host to which the VM is allocated. Static environmental conditions include thecentral processing unit (CPU) clocks and memoryarchitecture of the host; dynamic conditions include
the resource utilization ratio of the host, also referred
to as host crowdedness in this work. Given the consideration that the static environmental conditions areof relatively low variation and are not subject to
NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019change for a relatively long time span for a given
CSP, we focus on dynamic environmental conditionsin this work. An example of changes in environmental
conditions affecting the performance of VMs isshown in Fig. 4. To satisfy the performance requirements, environmental conditions clearly need to beconsidered when determining the resource amount.
(3) Operation policies
Operation policies that need to be followed whileproviding a cloud service can be decided by the SP or
CSP. The policies restrict the resource usage within adesired range. For instance, putting restrictions on the
resource utilization ratio inside the VM, for example,
50–80%, prevents resources from being overused orunderused, thus improving the resource efficiency
and enhancing the satisfaction of service requirements. Furthermore, for a service composed of multiple VMs, setting the utilization ratio restrictions inthe same range prevents bottlenecks in the service
chain from occurring. The amount of resources allocated to VMs is a crucial factor in meeting the45Regular Articles

Model

Inference ofperformance
Inference of
operation state

Compare withperformance requirements (iSP),
operation policies (iSP, iCSP).
Both satisfied

Monitoring anddata collection

Monitoring data

VM

Resource orchestrator

VM

VM

Calculation

Workload (iSP)
Environmental
conditions (iCSP)
Resource amountcombinations (iM)

ModelImplementation andmonitoring

Train model.

Training

Previous monitoring dataiSP: input set by the SP
iCSP: input set by the CSP
iM: input obtained from monitoring data

Fig. 5. Resource Amount Calculator.

restrictions of the utilization ratio inside the VM.
The structure of the Resource Amount Calculator isshown in Fig. 5. The Resource Amount Calculator
uses a model between the workload, environmental
conditions, and resource amount and the performanceand resource utilization ratio inside the VM, as shownin the figure. The model is trained based on the log
data collected during the previous service provisionperiod. In the calculation phase, given the workload
requirement, the current environment conditions, andthe combinations of the number of vCPUs (virtualCPUs) and memory size, the performance and operation state are inferred by using the trained model. The
input parameters can be set by the SP or the CSP or
obtained from the monitoring data as shown in the
figure. Next, if the inferred performance and operation state satisfy the performance requirements andthe operation policies, the corresponding combination of resource amounts is output as the feasible
solution for the Resource Amount Calculator.
3. Application scenarios of IBSMIBSM can be used to assist in the consultation,
design, and operation phases in cloud service delivery. For example, in the consultation phase for an SP
that plans to migrate services implemented in an onpremises environment into a cloud environment,
IBSM is used to show the performance that can be

NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019achieved after the migration and the needed cloud
resources and cost. In the design phase, IBSM
enables the automatic design of resources. Thus, service design time and human labor can be expected tobe reduced. In the operation phase, IBSM is able toadjust the resource composition and amount in accordance with the changes, thus ensuring the continuous
satisfaction of service requirements, which contributes to higher customer satisfaction.
4. Future plans
This article introduced an automatic service design
technology for a cloud service under development at
NTT Access Network Service Systems Laboratories.
Our plans in the near future are to verify the effectiveness of the technology for representative workloads
in the cloud service, identify the specific functions
needed for different phases of cloud service delivery,
and conduct trial experiments to enhance commercial
use of the technology.
References[1][2]

C. Wu and S. Horiuchi, “Intent-Based Service Management -- To
Decrease Complexity of Virtualized Network Management,” IEICE
Tech. Rep., Vol. 117, No. 305, ICM2017-28, pp. 41–46, Nov. 2017.
C. Wu and S. Horiuchi, “Intent-based Service Management,” Proc. ofthe 21st Conference on Innovation in Clouds, Internet and Networks(ICIN 2018), Paris, France, Feb. 2018.

46

Regular Articles

Chao Wu

Research Engineer, Access Network Operation
Project, NTT Access Network Service Systems
Laboratories.
She received a B.E. in engineering from Zhejiang University, People’s Republic of China, in2009 and an M.E. in engineering from Waseda
University, Tokyo, in 2013. In 2014, she joined
NTT Access Network Service Systems Laboratories, where she has been researching and developing management mechanisms for telecommunications. She is also involved in standardization
efforts of the next-generation operations support
system in the European Telecommunications
Standards Institute Experimental Networked
Intelligence (ETSI ENI) and TM Forum.

Kenichi Tayama

Senior Research Engineer, Supervisor, AccessNetwork Operation Project, NTT Access Network Service Systems Laboratories.
He received a B.E. and M.E. in electrical engineering from the University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo, in 1993 and 1995. He joined
NTT Optical Network Systems Laboratories in
1995. He also worked at NTT EAST’s IT Innovation Department and NTT-ME’s Network Operation Center, where he researched and developed
network operations support systems. He is amember of IEICE.

Shingo Horiuchi

Senior Research Engineer, Access Network
Operation Project, NTT Access Network Service
Systems Laboratories.
He received a B.E. and M.E. in engineeringfrom the University of Tokyo in 1999 and 2001.
In 2001, he joined NTT Access Network Service
Systems Laboratories, where he has been
researching and developing access network
operation systems. He has also been involved instandardization efforts for operations support
systems in TM Forum as a member of the Open
Digital Architecture (ODA) Project since 2014.
He is a member of the Institute of Electronics,
Information and Communication Engineers(IEICE).

NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 201947

Global Standardization Activities

International Standards Adopted by
ITU-T to Address Soft Errors
Affecting Telecommunication
Equipment
Hidenori Iwashita
Abstract

ITU-T (International Telecommunication Union - Telecommunication Standardization Sector), a specialized agency of the United Nations, approved standards relating to soft errors that affect telecommunication equipment on November 13, 2018. These standards stipulate design, testing, and quality estimation methods, as well as reliability requirements concerning measures designed to mitigate malfunctions(soft errors) in telecommunication equipment on the ground chiefly caused by cosmic rays. The adopted
standards will help in establishing more reliable networks.
Keywords: soft error, irradiation test, neutron

1. Introduction
In recent years, the number of soft errors*1 causedby cosmic radiation neutrons has been increasing
gradually even in telecommunication equipment
located on the ground (Fig. 1). The soft error disappears as soon as the semiconductor device concernedis restarted or the affected data are overwritten. A soft
error in data can cause a malfunction or system outage, but it is difficult to reproduce such a transient
error and identify its cause. Soft errors can have aserious impact on users, so such errors are a major
problem for system operators. Telecommunicationequipment is designed so that such malfunctions do
not affect network services. However, because soft
errors are difficult to reproduce, they have not been
sufficiently verified at the development stage.
Recently, however, it has become possible to measure the effects of soft errors on telecommunicationequipment by using a compact accelerator-driven
neutron source*2. This makes it possible to determine
the effects of soft errors and take preventive measuresin advance before vendors sell products and telecomNTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019

munication carriers introduce telecommunicationequipment into operating networks [1]. Nevertheless,while it has become possible for carriers to improve
network quality dramatically by mitigating soft errors
at the stages of equipment development and introduction, there is a need for requirements that serve as thebenchmark for countermeasure methods and evaluation.
2. ITU-T Recommendations concerning
soft errors
Against this background, at the October 2015 meeting of the International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T)*1 Soft error: Unlike a hard error, which is a fault that causes permanent malfunctioning of a semiconductor device, a soft error isa temporary error that disappears as soon as the semiconductor
device concerned is restarted or the data concerned are overwritten.
*2 Accelerator-driven neutron source: A facility for producing neutrons through a nuclear reaction caused by irradiating the target
with protons or electrons that are sped up by an accelerator.

48

Global Standardization Activities

Universe(1) Atmospheric reactions

Galactic cosmic rays
Solar cosmic rays

High-energy particle breaks atomic nucleus in the air
High-energy particle
Nucleus (nitrogen or oxygen)

Atmosphere–mesonProtonNeutron
NeutronMuon(2) Reactions in electronic equipment

NeutronTemporary error (recovery by reboot, overwrite, etc.)
NeutronSoft error

Building
NeutronElectrical noise

Neutron

Neutron breaks
silicon nucleus

Silicon nucleus

NeutronSemiconductor devices inelectronic equipment

Equipment

Secondary particle
generation

Fig. 1. Mechanism of soft error occurrence.

Study Group 5 (SG5)*3, commencement of a study on
soft errors in telecommunication equipment wasapproved with the intention of defining requirements
on measures to mitigate soft errors, ranging fromdesign techniques to evaluation methods. The Ad Hoc
Committee on Soft Error Testing (SOET Adhoc)
member companies worked together and developed
draft Recommendations [2]. The ITU-T has now
approved these Recommendations.
The Recommendations stipulate the design, testing,and quality estimation methods and reliability
requirements concerning soft errors. They include
benchmarks that vendors and carriers can use to
select measures against soft errors that are appropriate for the required reliability level.
The soft-error-related standards approved by
ITU-T consist of five Recommendations and a supplement. An overview of the Recommendations isshown in Fig. 2, and the list of Recommendations isgiven in Table 1. A timeline of the standardization of
Recommendations and measures to mitigate soft
errors is given in Table 2.
NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019

The Recommendations and supplement define thefollowing items.
2.1 K .124 (Overview): Overview of particle
radiation effects*4 on telecommunication systems [3]This Recommendation describes the mechanism bywhich particle radiation causes soft errors, the impact
of soft errors generated in telecommunication equipment, mitigation methods, and the need for further
Recommendations to address soft errors. Soft errors
are mainly caused by particle radiation of neutrons
and alpha particles. Neutrons are generated by cosmic rays, and alpha particles are generated by minute*3 ITU-T SG5: ITU-T is an ITU organization that issues Recommendations with a view to standardizing telecommunications.
SG5 investigates issues related to the environment and climatechange.
*4 Particle radiation effects: The impact of particle radiation (emitted
energy in the form of neutrons, alpha particles, etc.) on semiconductors. In recent years, the number of soft errors caused by neutrons generated in the atmosphere by cosmic rays has been increasing in semiconductors used in ground-level equipment.

49

Global Standardization Activities

K.124 Overview
K.130

K.131
Design methodologies applying soft
error measures

K.139

Soft error test method

Reliability requirements of soft errors
Alert

Radiation controlled area
Cyclotron/linac chamber

Particle
accelerator

Alert function reliability

Target chamber

Service reliability

Proton/electron
TargetNeutronShield wall

Estimate the occurrence of soft
error faults and add measuresagainst such faults until
requirements are met.

Flight tube

Maintenancereliability

Control terminal
EUT
Control chamber

Neutron irradiation chamber

K.138

K.130(18)_F7-1

K.Sup11
Soft error measures for FPGAs

Soft error test using an acceleratordriven neutron source:
Irradiate the equipment with neutrons
from an accelerator, generate soft
error, and check conformity.

Quality estimation methods:
This Recommendation provides methods to evaluate
whether each type of reliability requirement in K.139
is satisfied based on the results of neutron irradiation
test in K.130.

EUT: equipment under test
FPGA: field-programmable gate array

Fig. 2. Overview of soft error Recommendations.

Table 1. List of soft error Recommendations.
Recommendation

Subject

Title

K.124

Overview

Overview of particle radiation effects on
telecommunication systems [3]

K.130

Test

Neutron irradiation test methods for telecommunicationequipment [4]K.131

DesignDesign methodologies for telecommunication systems
applying soft error measures [5]K.Sup11

Supplement

Supplement to K.131 - Soft error measures for FPGAs [6]K.139

Requirements

Reliability requirements for telecommunication systems
affected by particle radiation [7]K.138

Quality estimation

Quality estimation methods and application guidelines for
mitigation measures based on particle radiation tests [8]Table 2. Timeline of standardization of measures against soft errors.
2015

2016

AugustTTC SOET Adhoc was opened.

2017
December
K.124 (Approval)

October
New work item proposal was approvedin ITU-T SG5 meeting.

2018
January
K.130, K.131 (Approval)
November
K.138,
K.139 (Approval)

TTC: The Telecommunication Technology Committee

NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 201950

Global Standardization Activities

2.2 K .130 (Test): Neutron irradiation test methods for telecommunication equipment [4]This Recommendation describes methods and test
procedures for generating soft errors in telecommunication equipment using accelerator neutron sources.
When proton/electron particles accelerated by anaccelerator are irradiated to a target (lead, tungsten,beryllium, lithium, etc.), a nuclear reaction occurs,and neutrons are generated. When telecommunication equipment is irradiated with these neutrons, it ispossible to irradiate 1 million to several hundred million times more neutrons than in the natural world
and to reproduce soft errors in a short time.
2.3 K .131 (Design): Design methodologies fortelecommunication systems applying soft
error measures [5]This Recommendation describes a method ofdesigning telecommunication devices constituting acarrier communication network to prevent or reduce
soft errors. First, the basic configuration of the telecommunication devices to be covered is described as
it relates to mitigating soft errors. A definition andmethod of regulating reliability of equipment in theevent of soft errors are explained, and a procedure fordeveloping equipment to prevent soft errors in order
to comply with the reliability regulation is described.
Countermeasures to soft errors are particularly
important with field-programmable gate arrays(FPGAs), so details on the soft error occurrence rate
in FPGAs are also described in this article, and K.
NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019

100,000
Failure rate per semiconductor (FIT/chip)quantities of radioisotopes contained in materials
used in semiconductor devices.
The occurrence of soft errors caused by alpha particles can be reduced by using high purity materials
such as low-alpha-particle plastics.
Soft errors caused by cosmic rays are caused by thefollowing factors. In space, high-energy particles,
mainly protons, are dispersed as a result of sun andsupernova explosions. When these high-energy particles enter the Earth’s atmosphere, they collide withnitrogen and oxygen nuclei in the atmosphere, causing a nuclear reaction. At this time, neutrons inside
the nucleus are scattered. Although most of the neutrons generated in the atmosphere normally penetrate
semiconductor devices and have no effect, on rareoccasions they undergo nuclear reactions with thesilicon nuclei that make up semiconductor devices,and these reactions generate various charged particles. This creates electrical noise and causes a temporary soft error.

Soft errors

10,000

1000

100

10
Hard errors
1
300

200

100

0

Design rule (nm)
FIT: failure in time

Fig. 3. F ailure rates of hard errors and soft errors of LSIs
(large-scale integrated circuits).

Sup11, supplementary material to K.131, is introduced as a measure to alleviate the effects of soft
errors in FPGAs [6].
2.4 K
 .139 (Requirements): Reliability requirements for telecommunication systems affected by particle radiation [7]This Recommendation describes the reliability
requirements for equipment needed to ensure reliablenetworks in the event of soft errors.
As semiconductor devices become highly integrated, the number of soft errors compared to hard errors
is increasing rapidly (Fig. 3). However, unlike harderrors, soft errors can be greatly reduced by introducing appropriate countermeasures. Therefore, using
the rate of conventional hard errors as a guide, we set
a range within which the number of failures causedby soft errors and the occurrence rate of the main
signal interruption fell within a statistical error range(Fig. 4). However, in rare cases, a silent failure may
occur due to a soft error. All silent faults must be prevented in the operation of network services. Therefore, we established a reliability standard such that nosilent faults would occur even after approximately
10,000 years of neutron irradiation.
As a result, we defined three reliability standards
designed to reduce the failure exchange rate, reducethe main signal interruption rate, and prevent silent
51

Soft errors

Failure rate per device

Global Standardization Activities

Breakdown
replacement

Main signal loss

Statistical error of ± 21% (around 2000 FIT)
10,000 FIT
Hard errors(actualvalues)Failure rate

Caused by soft errors

Caused by soft errors

Caused byhard errors

Caused byhard errors

Rate ofbreakdown
replacement

Rate of main
signal loss

Fig. 4. Approach to setting reliability requirements.

failures. The reliability of large networks can beensured by meeting these criteria.
2.5 K .138 (Quality estimation): Quality estimation methods and application guidelines for
mitigation measures based on particle radiation tests [8]This Recommendation describes how to evaluate
whether the reliability requirements for soft errors of
telecommunication devices defined in K.138 (quality
estimation) are satisfied based on the results of neutron irradiation tests described in K.130 (test). The
test described in K.130 indicates that soft errors canbe reproduced in a short time by irradiating neutrons
with an intensity of 1 million to several hundred million times that of natural fields. An example of theevaluation is shown in Fig. 5. First, a neutron beam isirradiated to generate a soft error. The main signal
NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019condition is confirmed with the measuring instrument, and the alarm generation condition is confirmed by the alarm monitoring terminal.
The generated event is classified into three reliability criteria. For example, in the first soft error in the
figure, a device alarm occurred, and the main signal
was cut off. In this case, it is counted as an event corresponding to MR (maintenance reliability) because
maintenance is assumed to be necessary. Also, themain signal has been cut off, so it is counted as an
event corresponding to SR (service reliability). The
second soft error was automatically corrected; thus,
there was no device alarm and no effect on the main
signal. In this case, it is not counted in any confidence
level.
The effect of the main signal and the equipment
alarm condition are continuously checked during thetest. For example, with the eighth soft error, the main52

Global Standardization Activities

Neutron irradiation test

State of main signal
AR(Frequency of main signal interruption)

SR(Silent error)
time

Momentaryinterruption

Prolonged
interruption

Momentaryinterruption

Prolonged
interruption

Alarm

No-alarm

Measuring device
State of warning alarm
Optical fiber

MR(Frequency of equipment alarm)
time

Alarm

Warning alarm
monitoring device
Control room
Irradiation Opposite
room
device (option)

Alarm

Internal state of the equipment

1

Neutron beam Device under test

Automaticcorrection

Automaticcorrection

2

3

Automaticcorrection

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

time

Soft errors themselves may occur many times (Not covered by the provisions)

AR: alert function reliability
MR: maintenance reliability
SR: service reliability

Fig. 5. Example of quality estimation methods.

signal is disconnected, but there is no device alarm.
This corresponds to a silent failure and can be counted as one AR (alert function reliability). In this way,
events corresponding to each reliability criterion are
counted. In addition, the natural operating time andfrequency converted from the irradiation time can beused to determine whether the standard value is satisfied.

References
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]

3. Future outlook
It is expected that widespread deployment of telecommunication equipment that satisfies the requirements defined in these Recommendations will
improve the reliability of telecommunication services.

NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019

[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]

Xilinx, “Device Reliability Report,” UG116 (v10.9), Sept. 2018.
https://www.xilinx.com/support/documentation/user_guides/ug116.
pdf
Website of The Telecommunication Technology Committee, SOET
Adhoc (in Japanese),
http://www.ttc.or.jp/j/info/bosyu/20150804/
Recommendation ITU-T K.124,https://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-K.124-201612-I
Recommendation ITU-T K.130,
https://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-K.130-201801-I/en
Recommendation ITU-T K.131,
https://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-K.131-201801-I/en
Supplement 11 to ITU-T K-series Recommendations,
https://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-K.Sup11-201809-I/en
Recommendation ITU-T K.139,https://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-K.139-201811-I/en
Recommendation ITU-T K.138,
https://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-K.138-201811-I/en

53

Global Standardization Activities

Hidenori Iwashita

Research Engineer, Transport Network Innovation Project, NTT Network Service Systems
Laboratories.
He received a B.S. and M.S. in nuclear engineering from Hokkaido University in 2006 and2008. He joined NTT Network Service Systems
Laboratories as a researcher in 2008. He is
involved in researching and developing a packet
transport multiplexer (PTM), PTM cross-connect(PTM-XC), PTM adapter for dedicated services,
and an Ethernet private line system. He is a member of the Institute of Electronics, Information
and Communication Engineers (IEICE).

NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 201954

External Awards
FIT2018 Best Paper Award
Winner: Masamichi Hosoda, NTT Service Evolution Laboratories;
Hiroshi Sakamoto, Tomoki Murakami, NTT Access Network Service
Systems Laboratories; Yasushi Hanakago, NTT Service Evolution
Laboratories; Makoto Umeuchi, NTT Access Network Service Systems Laboratories; Tadashi Mouri, NTT Service Evolution Laboratories; Tomoaki Ogawa, NTT Access Network Service Systems Laboratories; Masaru Miyamoto, NTT Service Evolution Laboratories
Date: December 5, 2018
Organization: The 17th Forum on Information Technology(FIT2018)
For “Wireless LAN Station Position Estimation Method by Access
Point Using Distributed Antenna System.”
Published as: M. Hosoda, H. Sakamoto, T. Murakami, Y. Hanakago,
M. Umeuchi, T. Mouri, T. Ogawa, and M. Miyamoto, “Wireless LAN
Station Position Estimation Method by Access Point Using Distributed Antenna System,” Proc. of FIT2018, CA-007, pp. 59–64,
Fukuoka, Japan, Sept. 2018 (in Japanese).

Papers Published in Technical Journals andConference Proceedings
Self-foldable Graphene Polymer Bilayer Films
T. F. Teshima, C. S. Henderson, M. Takamura, Y. Ogawa, S. Wang,
S. Sasaki, Y. Kashimura, H. Nakashima, and Y. Ueno
Biointerfaces International 2018, p. 93, Zurich, Switzerland,
August 2018.
Microscopic three-dimensional (3D) assembly of graphene is ofinterest in the development of nano-devices, flexible electronics, andbiointerfaces with cells or tissues. Self-foldable or manually buckled
flexible polymer films have been hitherto utilized to load graphene
and induce wrinkling or folding. However, the external force applied
from these templates causes mechanical fracture or electrical disconnection of graphene. Therefore, it is technically difficult to construct
micro-scale 3D graphene without delamination or slipping of pristinegraphene. In this study, we show that the graphene itself transforms
into 3D shapes, by using π-π stacking interaction with parylene thinfilm.

Electrical Spectrum Synthesis Technique Using Digital
Pre-processing and Ultra-broadband Electrical Bandwidth
Doubler for High-speed Optical Transmitter
F. Hamaoka, M. Nakamura, M. Nagatani, H. Wakita, H. Yamazaki,
T. Kobayashi, H. Nosaka, and Y. Miyamoto
Electronics Letters, Vol. 54, No. 24, pp. 1390–1391, November
2018.
Proposed is an electrical spectrum synthesis technique that converts low-speed signals to a high-speed signal using transmitter-side
digital signal processing (DSP) and an ultra-broadband electrical
bandwidth doubler. The transmitter-side DSP converts a high-speed
signal to low-speed upper and lower sideband signals, down- andup-converts the low-speed signals into baseband signals, and adds

NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019and subtracts the in-phase and the quadrature components of thebaseband signals. The digital pre-processed low-speed signals output
from digital-to-analogue converters are multiplexed to the high-speed
signal by the bandwidth doubler, which consists of analogue multiplexers designed and fabricated using in-house indium phosphideheterojunction bipolar transistor technologies. A 120 GBaud quadrature phase shift keying signal has been successfully generated byusing the proposed technique as a demonstration of a high-speed
optical transmitter.

Self-folded Three-dimensional Graphene with Tunable
Shape and Conductivity
T. Teshima, C. S. Henderson, M. Takamura, Y. Ogawa, S. Wang, Y.
Kashimura, S. Sasaki, T. Goto, H. Nakashima, and Y. Ueno
Nano Letters, Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 461–470, January 2019.
In this study, we demonstrate the facile formation of predetermined 3D polymeric microstructures simply by transferring monolayer graphene. The graphene adheres to the surface of polymericfilms via noncovalent π-π stacking bonding and induces a sloped
internal strain, leading to the self-rolling of 3D microscale architectures. Micropatterns and varied thicknesses of the 2D films prior to
the self-rolling allows for control over the resulting 3D geometries.
The strain then present on the hexagonal unit cell of the graphene
produces a nonlinear electrical conductivity across the device. The
driving force behind the self-folding process arises from the reconfiguration of the molecules within the crystalline materials. We
believe that this effective and versatile way of realizing a 3D graphene structure is potentially applicable to alternative 2D layeredmaterials as well as other flexible polymeric templates.

55

Papers Published in Technical Journals and Conference Proceedings

Power of Uninitialized Qubits in Shallow Quantum Circuits
Y. Takahashi and S. Tani
The 22nd Annual Conference on Quantum Information Processing(QIP 2019), Boulder, CO, USA, January 2019.
We study the computational power of shallow quantum circuitswith O(log n) initialized and nO(1) uninitialized ancillary qubits,
where n is the input length, and the initial state of the uninitialized
ancillary qubits is arbitrary. First, we show that such a circuit cancompute any symmetric function on n bits that is computable by auniform family of polynomial-size classical circuits. Then, we regard
such a circuit as an oracle and show that a polynomial-time classicalalgorithm with the oracle can estimate the elements of any unitarymatrix corresponding to a constant-depth quantum circuit on n
qubits. Since it seems unlikely that these tasks can be done with only
O(log n) initialized ancillary qubits, our results give evidence that
adding uninitialized ancillary qubits increases the computational
power of shallow quantum circuits with only O(log n) initialized
ancillary qubits. Lastly, to understand the limitations of uninitialized
ancillary qubits, we focus on sub-logarithmic-depth quantum circuits

NTT Technical Review

Vol. 17 No. 3 Mar. 2019with them and show the impossibility of computing the parity function on n bits.

120-GBaud 32QAM Signal Generation Using Ultra-broadband Electrical Bandwidth Doubler
F. Hamaoka, M. Nakamura, M. Nagatani, T. Kobayashi, A. Matsushita, H. Wakita, H. Yamazaki, H. Nosaka, and Y. Miyamoto
The Optical Networking and Communication Conference & Exhibition, San Diego, CA, USA, March 2019.
We propose an electrical spectrum synthesis technique using digital pre-processing with an interband crosstalk compensation andnewly developed ultra-broadband electrical bandwidth doublers. A
120-GBaud PDM-32QAM (polarization-division-multiplexed
32-level quadrature amplitude modulation) signal (net rate: 954.2
Gb/s) has been successfully generated.

56