Markus Kuhn (computer scientist)

Last updated

Markus Kuhn
Born
Markus Guenther Kuhn

1971 (age 5152) [1]
Alma mater
Known for EURion constellation
Scientific career
Fields Computer science
Computer security
Tamper resistance [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]
Institutions
Thesis Compromising emanations: eavesdropping risks of computer displays  (2002)
Doctoral advisor Ross J. Anderson [8]
Doctoral students Steven Murdoch [9]
Website www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/

Markus Guenther Kuhn (born 1971) is a German computer scientist, currently working at the Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge and a fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge. [10] [11] [12] [13] [14]

Contents

Education

Kuhn was educated at University of Erlangen (Germany), he received his Master of Science degree at Purdue University and PhD at the University of Cambridge.

Research

Kuhn's main research interests include computer security, in particular the hardware and signal-processing aspects of it, and distributed systems. He is known, among other things, for his work on security microcontrollers, compromising emanations, and distance-bounding protocols. He developed the Stirmark test for digital watermarking schemes, the OTPW one-time password system, and headed the project that extended the X11 misc-fixed fonts to Unicode.

In 1994, as an undergraduate student, he became known for developing several ways to circumvent the VideoCrypt encryption system, most notably the Season7 smartcard emulator. [15]

In 2002, he published a new method for eavesdropping CRT screens [4] and in 2003 he went on to publish mitigations such as "Tempest fonts". [16]

In 2010, Kuhn was asked to analyse the ADE 651, a device used in Iraq that was said to be a bomb-detecting device; he found that it contained nothing but an anti-theft tag and said that it was "impossible" that the device could detect anything whatsoever. [17]

He is also known for some of his work on international standardisation, such as pioneering the introduction of Unicode/UTF-8 under Linux. [18]

Awards and honours

In 1987 and 1988, he won the German national computer-science contest, [19] and in 1989, he won a gold medal for the West German team at the International Olympiad in Informatics. [20] [21]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tempest (codename)</span> Espionage using electromagnetic leakage

TEMPEST is a U.S. National Security Agency specification and a NATO certification referring to spying on information systems through leaking emanations, including unintentional radio or electrical signals, sounds, and vibrations. TEMPEST covers both methods to spy upon others and how to shield equipment against such spying. The protection efforts are also known as emission security (EMSEC), which is a subset of communications security (COMSEC).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Onion routing</span> Technique for anonymous communication over a computer network

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Van Eck phreaking, also known as Van Eck radiation, is a form of eavesdropping in which special equipment is used to pick up side-band electromagnetic emissions from electronic devices that correlate to hidden signals or data to recreate these signals or data to spy on the electronic device. Side-band electromagnetic radiation emissions are present in keyboards, computer displays, printers, and other electronic devices.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aircrack-ng</span>

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References

  1. References Kuhn, M. (1971, January 1). Retrieved from Sicherheitsanalyse eines Mikroprozessors mit Busverschlusselun
  2. Markus Kuhn author profile page at the ACM Digital Library
  3. Kuhn, M. G. (1998). "Cipher instruction search attack on the bus-encryption security microcontroller DS5002FP". IEEE Transactions on Computers. 47 (10): 1153–1157. doi:10.1109/12.729797.
  4. 1 2 Kuhn, M. G. (2002). "Optical time-domain eavesdropping risks of CRT displays". Proceedings 2002 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy. pp. 3–4. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.7.5870 . doi:10.1109/SECPRI.2002.1004358. ISBN   978-0-7695-1543-4. S2CID   2385507.
  5. Hancke, G. P.; Kuhn, M. G. (2005). "An RFID Distance Bounding Protocol". First International Conference on Security and Privacy for Emerging Areas in Communications Networks (SECURECOMM'05). p. 67. doi:10.1109/SECURECOMM.2005.56. ISBN   978-0-7695-2369-9. S2CID   435025.
  6. Petitcolas, F. A. P.; Anderson, R. J.; Kuhn, M. G. (1999). "Information hiding-a survey". Proceedings of the IEEE. 87 (7): 1062. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.333.9397 . doi:10.1109/5.771065.
  7. Kuhn, M. G. (2011). "Compromising emanations of LCD TV sets". 2011 IEEE International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility. pp. 931–936. doi:10.1109/ISEMC.2011.6038442. ISBN   978-1-4577-0812-1. S2CID   47153474.
  8. Markus Kuhn at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  9. Murdoch, Steven James (2008). Covert channel vulnerabilities in anonymity systems (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge.
  10. The Blue Book – "The Computer Laboratory: an Introduction", University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, Oct 2006 Archived 4 February 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  11. Markus Kuhn publications indexed by Google Scholar
  12. Markus Kuhn publications indexed by Microsoft Academic
  13. Markus G. Kuhn at DBLP Bibliography Server OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
  14. Markus Kuhn's publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
  15. Kuhn, Markus (19 June 1994). "MS-DOS Videocrypt smart card emulator".
  16. Kuhn, Markus G. (December 2003). "Compromising emanations: eavesdropping risks of computer displays" (PDF). Technical Report. Cambridge, United Kingdom: University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory (577). ISSN   1476-2986. UCAM-CL-TR-577. Retrieved 29 October 2010.
  17. "Iraq backing for 'bomb detector'". BBC News. 24 January 2010.
  18. UTF-8 and Unicode FAQ for Unix/Linux
  19. P. Heyderhoff: Bundeswettbewerb Informatik. Informatik Spektrum, Vol. 11, pp. 107–108, Springer-Verlag, 1988
  20. P. Heyderhoff: Informatik-Olympiade. Informatik Spektrum, Vol. 12, p. 235, Springer-Verlag, 1989
  21. Results of the IOI 1989 Archived 28 June 2007 at the Wayback Machine