Adam Back

Last updated

Adam Back
Adam Back 2014.jpg
BornJuly 1970 (age 54)
London, England, UK
Education University of Exeter
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions
Thesis Parallelization of general purpose programs using optimistic techniques from parallel discrete event simulation  (1995)
Doctoral advisor Stephen Turner
Website cypherspace.org/adam

Adam Back (born July 1970) is a British cryptographer and cypherpunk. He is the CEO of Blockstream, which he co-founded in 2014. He invented Hashcash, which is used in the bitcoin mining process.

Contents

Life

Back was born in London, England, in July 1970. [1] His first computer was a Sinclair ZX81. He taught himself Basic, and spent his time reverse engineering video games, finding decryption keys in software packages. He completed his A levels in advanced mathematics, physics, and economics.[ citation needed ]

He has a computer science PhD in distributed systems from the University of Exeter. [2] During his PhD, Back worked with compilers to make use of parallel computers in a semi automated way. He became interested in PGP encryption, electronic cash and remailers. He spent two thirds of his time working with encryption. After graduation, Back spent his career as a consultant in start ups and larger companies in applied cryptography, writing cryptographic libraries, designing, reviewing and breaking other people's cryptographic protocols. [3]

Cryptography software

Back's "Munitions" T-shirt featured computer code that was considered to be a weapon in the United States. Munitions T-shirt (front).jpg
Back's "Munitions" T-shirt featured computer code that was considered to be a weapon in the United States.

Back is a pioneer of early digital asset research similar to Wei Dai, David Chaum, and Hal Finney. [4] [5] In 1997, Back invented Hashcash. [6] A similar system is used in Bitcoin. [7] [8] [9]

He also implemented credlib, [10] [ better source needed ] [11] [ better source needed ] a library that implements the credential systems of Stefan Brands and David Chaum.

He was the first to describe the "non-interactive forward secrecy" [12] [13] [14] security property for email and to observe that any identity-based encryption scheme can be used to provide non-interactive forward secrecy.

He is also known for promoting the use of ultra-compact code with his 2-line [15] and 3-line RSA in Perl [16] [17] [18] signature file and non-exportable T-shirts [19] [20] to protest cryptography export regulations. [21]

Back was one of the first two people to receive an email from Satoshi Nakamoto. [22] [2] In 2016, the Financial Times cited Back as a potential Nakamoto candidate, along with Nick Szabo and Hal Finney. [23] Craig Wright had sued Back for stating that Wright was not Nakamoto, with Wright subsequently dropping the suit. [2] In 2020, the YouTube channel Barely Sociable claimed that Back is Nakamoto. Back subsequently denied this. [24]

Back has promoted the use of satellites and mesh networks to broadcast and receive bitcoin transactions, as a backup for the traditional internet. [25]

Business career

On 3 October 2016, Back was appointed as CEO of Blockstream. [26]

Related Research Articles

A cypherpunk is one who advocates the widespread use of strong cryptography and privacy-enhancing technologies as a means of effecting social and political change. The cypherpunk movement originated in the late 1980s and gained traction with the establishment of the "Cypherpunks" electronic mailing list in 1992, where informal groups of activists, technologists, and cryptographers discussed strategies to enhance individual privacy and resist state or corporate surveillance. Deeply libertarian in philosophy, the movement is rooted in principles of decentralization, individual autonomy, and freedom from centralized authority. Its influence on society extends to the development of technologies that have reshaped global finance, communication, and privacy practices, such as the creation of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which embody cypherpunk ideals of decentralized and censorship-resistant money. The movement has also contributed to the mainstreaming of encryption in everyday technologies, such as secure messaging apps and privacy-focused web browsers. The cypherpunk ethos has had a lasting impact on debates around digital rights, surveillance, and personal freedoms in the 21st century. The movement has been active since at least 1990 and continues to inspire initiatives aimed at fostering a more private and secure digital world.

Financial cryptography is the use of cryptography in applications in which financial loss could result from subversion of the message system. Financial cryptography is distinguished from traditional cryptography in that for most of recorded history, cryptography has been used almost entirely for military and diplomatic purposes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Chaum</span> American computer scientist and cryptographer (born 1955)

David Lee Chaum is an American computer scientist, cryptographer, and inventor. He is known as a pioneer in cryptography and privacy-preserving technologies, and widely recognized as the inventor of digital cash. His 1982 dissertation "Computer Systems Established, Maintained, and Trusted by Mutually Suspicious Groups" is the first known proposal for a blockchain protocol. Complete with the code to implement the protocol, Chaum's dissertation proposed all but one element of the blockchain later detailed in the Bitcoin whitepaper. He has been referred to as "the father of online anonymity", and "the godfather of cryptocurrency".

Proof of work (PoW) is a form of cryptographic proof in which one party proves to others that a certain amount of a specific computational effort has been expended. Verifiers can subsequently confirm this expenditure with minimal effort on their part. The concept was first implemented in Hashcash by Moni Naor and Cynthia Dwork in 1993 as a way to deter denial-of-service attacks and other service abuses such as spam on a network by requiring some work from a service requester, usually meaning processing time by a computer. The term "proof of work" was first coined and formalized in a 1999 paper by Markus Jakobsson and Ari Juels. The concept was adapted to digital tokens by Hal Finney in 2004 through the idea of "reusable proof of work" using the 160-bit secure hash algorithm 1 (SHA-1).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dave Kleiman</span> American computer investigator

Dave Kleiman was an American computer forensics expert, an author or co-author of multiple books and a frequent speaker at security related events.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hal Finney (computer scientist)</span> Cryptograph and cypherpunk

Harold Thomas Finney II was an American software developer. In his early career, he was credited as lead developer on several console games. He later worked for PGP Corporation. He was an early Bitcoin contributor, and received the first Bitcoin transaction from the currency's creator Satoshi Nakamoto.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bitcoin</span> Decentralized digital currency

Bitcoin is the first decentralized cryptocurrency. Based on a free-market ideology, bitcoin was invented in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto, an unknown person. Use of bitcoin as a currency began in 2009, with the release of its open-source implementation. In 2021, El Salvador adopted it as legal tender. It is mostly seen as an investment and has been described by some scholars as an economic bubble. As bitcoin is pseudonymous, its use by criminals has attracted the attention of regulators, leading to its ban by several countries as of 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Satoshi Nakamoto</span> Pseudonym of the designer and developer of Bitcoin

Satoshi Nakamoto is the name used by the presumed pseudonymous person or persons who developed bitcoin, authored the bitcoin white paper, and created and deployed bitcoin's original reference implementation. As part of the implementation, Nakamoto also devised the first blockchain database. Nakamoto was active in the development of bitcoin until December 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cryptocurrency</span> Digital currency not reliant on a central authority

A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of bitcoin</span> Cryptocurrency

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, a digital asset that uses cryptography to control its creation and management rather than relying on central authorities. Originally designed as a medium of exchange, Bitcoin is now primarily regarded as a store of value. The history of bitcoin started with its invention and implementation by Satoshi Nakamoto, who integrated many existing ideas from the cryptography community. Over the course of bitcoin's history, it has undergone rapid growth to become a significant store of value both on- and offline. From the mid-2010s, some businesses began accepting bitcoin in addition to traditional currencies.

Nicholas Szabo is a computer scientist, legal scholar, and cryptographer known for his research in smart contracts and digital currency.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nxt</span> Cryptocurrency

NXT is an open source cryptocurrency and payment network launched in 2013 by anonymous software developer BCNext. It uses proof-of-stake to reach consensus for transactions—as such, there is a static money supply. Unlike Bitcoin, there is no mining. NXT was specifically conceived as a flexible platform around build applications and financial services, and serves as basis for ARDR (Ardor), a blockchain-as-a-service multichain platform developed by Jelurida, and IoTeX (cryptocurrency) the current steward of NXT as of 2021. NXT has been covered extensively in the "Call for Evidence" report by ESMA.

Wei Dai is a computer engineer known for contributions to cryptography and cryptocurrencies. He developed the Crypto++ cryptographic library, created the b-money cryptocurrency system, and co-proposed the VMAC message authentication algorithm.

Craig Steven Wright is an Australian computer scientist and businessman. He has publicly claimed to be the main part of the team that created bitcoin, and the identity behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. These claims are generally regarded as false by the media and the cryptocurrency community. In March 2024, Mr Justice James Mellor in the British High Court ruled that Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto. In July 2024, a British High Court judge referred Craig Wright to UK prosecutors for alleged perjury related to his claims of being Satoshi Nakamoto. As of 2019, Wright lived in the United Kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bitcoin Cash</span> Cryptocurrency that is a fork of bitcoin

Bitcoin Cash is a cryptocurrency that is a fork of bitcoin. Launched in 2017, Bitcoin Cash is considered an altcoin or spin-off of bitcoin. In November 2018, Bitcoin Cash further split into two separate cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV).

A cryptocurrency wallet is a device, physical medium, program or an online service which stores the public and/or private keys for cryptocurrency transactions. In addition to this basic function of storing the keys, a cryptocurrency wallet more often offers the functionality of encrypting and/or signing information. Signing can for example result in executing a smart contract, a cryptocurrency transaction, identification, or legally signing a 'document'.

Stuart Haber is an American cryptographer and computer scientist, known for his contributions in cryptography and privacy-preserving technologies and widely recognized as the co-inventor of the blockchain. His 1991 paper "How to Time-Stamp a Digital Document”, co-authored with W. Scott Stornetta, won the 1992 Discover Award for Computer Software and is considered to be one of the most important papers in the development of cryptocurrencies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bitcoin Satoshi Vision</span> Cryptocurrency

Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV) is a cryptocurrency that is a hard fork of Bitcoin Cash. Bitcoin Satoshi Vision was created in November 2018 by a group of individuals led by Craig Steven Wright, who has claimed since 2015 to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of the original bitcoin.

Peter Todd is a Canadian cryptographer and software developer who was an early contributor to the development of Bitcoin. Todd has been involved in cryptocurrency since the early 2010s and has worked on blockchain and privacy-focused projects.

References

  1. ↑ Singh, Rachna (2019). The Bitcoin Saga: A Mixed Montage. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN   978-9388271837.
  2. 1 2 3 Kharif, Olga (2 June 2020). "Latest Satoshi Nakamoto Candidate Buying Bitcoin No Matter What". Bloomberg. Retrieved 3 June 2020.
  3. ↑ "Proof of Work - An interview with Adam Back (Blockstream)". YouTube . 7 August 2019. Archived from the original on 15 December 2021.
  4. ↑ Leising, Matthew (30 June 2018). "Is Bitcoin Creator Writing a Book? Cryptic Note Indicates Yes". Bloomberg. Retrieved 13 May 2020.
  5. ↑ Bustillos, Maria (25 August 2015). "Inside the Fight Over Bitcoin's Future". New Yorker. Retrieved 13 May 2020.
  6. ↑ Narayanan, Arvind; Bonneau, Joseph; Felten, Edward; Miller, Andrew; Goldfeder, Steven (2016). Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies: A Comprehensive Introduction. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. ISBN   978-0-691-17169-2.
  7. ↑ Shaw, Jessica Marmor (8 January 2018). "Bitcoin and cryptocurrency on Twitter: The most important people to follow". Marketwatch. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
  8. ↑ "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" (PDF).
  9. ↑ Casey, Michael J. (22 October 2020). "BitBeat: Bitcoin Coding Allstars Launch Sidechains Project to Boost Innovation". WSJBlogs. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
  10. ↑ Frisby, Dominic (2015). "Footnotes". Bitcoin: The future of money?. Unbound. ISBN   978-1783521029.
  11. ↑ "credlib - Credential Library". cypherspace.org.
  12. ↑ Boyd, Colin. "A Modern View on Forward Security" (PDF). IACR. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
  13. ↑ Anderson, Ross (2002). "Two remarks on public key cryptology" (PDF). Cambridge University. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
  14. ↑ "Non-Interactive Forward Secrecy". cypherspace.org.
  15. ↑ Salomon, David (2003). "Secure Programming with Perl". Data Privacy and Security. Springer. p. 200. ISBN   9781441918161.
  16. ↑ Judmayer, Aljosha; Stifter, Nicholas (2017). "Before bitcoin". Blocks and Chains: Introduction to Bitcoin, Cryptocurrencies, and Their Consensus Mechanisms (Synthesis Lectures on Information Security, Privacy, and Tru). Morgan & Claypool Publishers. p. 17. ISBN   9781627057165.
  17. ↑ "export-a-crypto-system sig". cypherspace.org.
  18. ↑ Sinn, Richard (2007). "Secure Programming with Perl". Software Security Technologies. Cengage Learning. p. 366. ISBN   9781428319455.
  19. ↑ Blanchette, Jean-François (2012). "On the brink of revolution". Burdens of Proof: Cryptographic Culture and Evidence Law in the Age of Electronic Documents. MIT Press. p. 50. ISBN   978-0262017510.
  20. ↑ "Munitions T-shirt". cypherspace.org.
  21. ↑ Brunton, Finn (2019). "On the brink of revolution". Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency. Princeton Press. p. 97. ISBN   9780691179490.
  22. ↑ RATLIFF, EVAN (16 July 2019). "Was Bitcoin Created by This International Drug Dealer? Maybe!". Wired. Retrieved 13 May 2020.
  23. ↑ Kaminska, Izabella (7 May 2016). "Bitcoin: Identity crisis". Financial Times. Retrieved 4 June 2020.
  24. ↑ Kharif, Olga (2 June 2020). "Latest Satoshi Nakamoto Candidate Buying Bitcoin No Matter What". Bloomberg News. Retrieved 2 June 2020.
  25. ↑ del Castillo, Michael (17 December 2018). "Who Needs Verizon? Blockstream Broadcasts Entire Bitcoin Blockchain From Space". Forbes. Retrieved 13 May 2020.
  26. ↑ Blockstream (3 October 2016). "Blockstream Appoints Hashcash Inventor Dr. Adam Back as CEO". PR News Wire. Retrieved 2020-12-05.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.