George Davida

Last updated

George I. Davida is an American computer scientist and cryptographer. He is an outspoken proponent of public access to cryptography and an opponent of various National Security Agency (NSA) and US federal government policies and initiatives like the Clipper chip, a stance dating back to his 1977 reception of a gag order from the NSA [1] [2] under the Invention Secrecy Act relating to a patent application for a stream cipher device, [3] using research funded by a National Science Foundation grant. He used to work at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Iowa. He was director of the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee's Center for Cryptography, Computer and Network Security, until retiring in 2010.

Related Research Articles

In cryptography, key size, key length, or key space refer to the number of bits in a key used by a cryptographic algorithm.

Elliptic-curve cryptography (ECC) is an approach to public-key cryptography based on the algebraic structure of elliptic curves over finite fields. ECC allows smaller keys compared to non-EC cryptography to provide equivalent security.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is a physical sciences laboratory and non-regulatory agency of the United States Department of Commerce. Its mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into laboratory programs that include nanoscale science and technology, engineering, information technology, neutron research, material measurement, and physical measurement. From 1901 to 1988, the agency was named the National Bureau of Standards.

National Security Agency U.S. signals intelligence organization

The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and processing of information and data for foreign and domestic intelligence and counterintelligence purposes, specializing in a discipline known as signals intelligence (SIGINT). The NSA is also tasked with the protection of U.S. communications networks and information systems. The NSA relies on a variety of measures to accomplish its mission, the majority of which are clandestine. The existence of the NSA was not revealed until 1975.

William F. Friedman American cryptologist (1891-1969)

William Frederick Friedman was a US Army cryptographer who ran the research division of the Army's Signal Intelligence Service (SIS) in the 1930s, and parts of its follow-on services into the 1950s. In 1940, subordinates of his led by Frank Rowlett broke Japan's PURPLE cipher, thus disclosing Japanese diplomatic secrets before America's entrance into World War II.

Daniel J. Bernstein American mathematician, cryptologist and programmer

Daniel Julius Bernstein is an American German mathematician, cryptologist, and computer scientist. He is visiting professor at CASA at Ruhr University Bochum, as well as a Research Professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Before this, he was a professor in the department of mathematics and computer science at the Eindhoven University of Technology

Robert H. Morris Sr. was an American cryptographer and computer scientist.

Martin Hellman American cryptologist (born 1945)

Martin Edward Hellman is an American cryptologist, best known for his invention of public key cryptography in cooperation with Whitfield Diffie and Ralph Merkle. Hellman is a longtime contributor to the computer privacy debate, and has applied risk analysis to a potential failure of nuclear deterrence.

Whitfield Diffie American cryptographer

Bailey Whitfield 'Whit' Diffie, ForMemRS, is an American cryptographer and one of the pioneers of public-key cryptography along with Martin Hellman and Ralph Merkle. Diffie and Hellman's 1976 paper New Directions in Cryptography introduced a radically new method of distributing cryptographic keys, that helped solve key distribution—a fundamental problem in cryptography. Their technique became known as Diffie–Hellman key exchange. The article stimulated the almost immediate public development of a new class of encryption algorithms, the asymmetric key algorithms.

Books on cryptography Wikimedia list article

Books on cryptography have been published sporadically and with highly variable quality for a long time. This is despite the tempting, though superficial, paradox that secrecy is of the essence in sending confidential messages — see Kerckhoffs' principle.

James Bamford

James Bamford is an American bestselling author, journalist and documentary producer widely noted for his writing about United States intelligence agencies, especially the National Security Agency (NSA). The New York Times has called him "the nation's premier journalist on the subject of the National Security Agency" and in a lengthy profile The New Yorker named him "the NSA's chief chronicler." Bamford has taught at the University of California, Berkeley as a distinguished visiting professor and has written for The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Harper's, and many other publications. In 2006, he won the National Magazine Award for Reporting, the highest award in the magazine industry, for his writing on the war in Iraq published in Rolling Stone. He is also an Emmy nominated documentary producer for PBS and spent a decade as the Washington investigative producer for ABC's World News Tonight. In 2015 he became the national security columnist for Foreign Policy Magazine and he also writes for The New Republic. His most recent book, The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA From 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America, became a New York Times bestseller and was named by The Washington Post as one of "The Best Books of the Year." It is the third in a trilogy by Bamford on the NSA, following The Puzzle Palace (1982) and Body of Secrets (2001), also New York Times bestsellers.

The Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) is an American non-profit corporation that administers three federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) – the Systems and Analyses Center (SAC), the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI), and the Center for Communications and Computing (C&C) – to assist the United States government in addressing national security issues, particularly those requiring scientific and technical expertise. It is headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia.

Kaisa Nyberg is a Finnish cryptographer and computer security researcher.

Matthew D. Green

Matthew Daniel Green is a cryptographer and security technologist. Green is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute. He specializes in applied cryptography, privacy-enhanced information storage systems, anonymous cryptocurrencies, elliptic curve crypto-systems, and satellite television piracy. He is a member of the teams that developed the Zerocoin anonymous cryptocurrency and Zerocash. He has also been influential in the development of the Zcash system. He has been involved in the groups that exposed vulnerabilities in RSA BSAFE, Speedpass and E-ZPass.

The National Cyber Security Hall of Fame, founded by Larry Letow and Rick Geritz, was established in 2012 to recognize the contributions of key individuals in the field of cyber security; its mission statement is, Respect the Past - Protect the Future. According to its website, it is designed to honor the innovative individuals and organizations which had the vision and leadership to create the fundamental building blocks for the cyber security Industry. The organization also highlights major milestones in the industry's 40-year history through a timeline representation, which includes inductees and their corresponding accomplishments.

Crypto Wars

The Crypto Wars is an unofficial name for the attempts of the United States (US) and allied governments to limit the public's and foreign nations' access to cryptography strong enough to thwart decryption by national intelligence agencies, especially the National Security Agency (NSA).

Roger Dingledine American computer scientist

Roger Dingledine is an American computer scientist known for having co-founded the Tor Project. A student of mathematics, computer science, and electrical engineering, Dingledine is also known by the pseudonym arma. As of December 2016, he continues in a leadership role with the Tor Project, as a project Leader, Director, and Research Director.

J. Alex Halderman

J. Alex Halderman is professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan, where he is also director of the Center for Computer Security & Society. Halderman's research focuses on computer security and privacy, with an emphasis on problems that broadly impact society and public policy.

Hardware backdoor Hardware or firmware of computer chips

Hardware backdoors are backdoors in hardware, such as code inside hardware or firmware of computer chips. The backdoors may be directly implemented as hardware Trojans in the integrated circuit.

References

  1. Bamford, James (1982). The Puzzle Palace: Inside the National Security Agency, America's Most Secret Intelligence Organization. Penguin. pp. 426–57.
  2. Markoff, John (9 August 1989). "Paper on Codes Is Sent Despite U.S. Objections". New York Times (Late Edition (East Coast)). New York, N.Y. p. A.16. 'The N.S.A. has bullied the academic community,' said George Davida, a computer scientist at the University of Wisconsin. 'This dispute is typical of the kinds of things that I have warned about. The N.S.A. does not want to see research into cryptography.'
  3. US 4202051,Davida, George I.&Wells, David L.,"Digital data enciphering and deciphering circuit and method",issued 1980-05-06