Ernst Weber Lecture: The Evolution of Public Key Cryptography
ECE Seminar Series: Ernst Weber Lecture
The Evolution of Public Key Cryptography
While public key cryptography is seen as revolutionary, after this talk you might wonder why it took Whit Diffie, Ralph Merkle and Hellman so long to discover it. This talk also highlights the contributions of some unsung (or “under-sung”) heroes: Ralph Merkle, John Gill, Stephen Pohlig, Richard Schroeppel, Loren Kohnfelder, and researchers at GCHQ (Ellis, Cocks, and Williamson).
Speaker: Martin E. Hellman
Martin Hellman is best known for inventing public key cryptography, the technology that enables secure Internet transactions. He also has contributed to the computer privacy debate and was a key participant in the “first crypto war” of the late 1970s. He has authored over seventy technical papers, twelve US patents and a number of foreign equivalents. His many honors include election to the National Academy of Engineering and receiving (jointly with his colleague Whit Diffie) the million dollar ACM Turing Award, the top prize in computer science.