Ivan Damgård
Encyclopedia
Ivan Bjerre Damgård is a Danish cryptographer and currently a professor at the Department of Computer Science (DAIMI), Aarhus University, Denmark
.
In 1983, he obtained a Master's degree in mathematics
(with minors in music
and computer science
) at Aarhus University. He began his PhD studies in 1985 at the same university, and was for a period a guest researcher at CWI in Amsterdam in 1987. He earned his PhD degree in May, 1988, with the thesis Ubetinget beskyttelse i kryptografiske protokoller and has been employed at DAIMI ever since. Damgård was made full professor in 2005.
He is known among other things for the Merkle–Damgård construction used in most modern cryptographic hash function
s such as SHA-1 and MD5
. He discovered the structure independently of Ralph Merkle
and published it in 1989.
Ivan Damgård is also one of the founders of the Cryptomathic
company. In 2010, he was selected as IACR Fellow.
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
.
In 1983, he obtained a Master's degree in mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
(with minors in music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
and computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
) at Aarhus University. He began his PhD studies in 1985 at the same university, and was for a period a guest researcher at CWI in Amsterdam in 1987. He earned his PhD degree in May, 1988, with the thesis Ubetinget beskyttelse i kryptografiske protokoller and has been employed at DAIMI ever since. Damgård was made full professor in 2005.
He is known among other things for the Merkle–Damgård construction used in most modern cryptographic hash function
Cryptographic hash function
A cryptographic hash function is a deterministic procedure that takes an arbitrary block of data and returns a fixed-size bit string, the hash value, such that an accidental or intentional change to the data will change the hash value...
s such as SHA-1 and MD5
MD5
The MD5 Message-Digest Algorithm is a widely used cryptographic hash function that produces a 128-bit hash value. Specified in RFC 1321, MD5 has been employed in a wide variety of security applications, and is also commonly used to check data integrity...
. He discovered the structure independently of Ralph Merkle
Ralph Merkle
Ralph C. Merkle is a researcher in public key cryptography, and more recently a researcher and speaker on molecular nanotechnology and cryonics...
and published it in 1989.
Ivan Damgård is also one of the founders of the Cryptomathic
Cryptomathic
Cryptomathic is a software company specializing in the area of cryptography.Cryptomathic has its headquarters in Aarhus, Denmark. The company was founded in 1986 by three professors from University of Aarhus, among them Ivan Damgård, Peter Landrock...
company. In 2010, he was selected as IACR Fellow.