Silvio Micali
Encyclopedia
Silvio Micali is an Italian
-born computer scientist
at MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
and a professor
of computer science in MIT
's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science since 1983. His research centers on the theory of cryptography
and information security
. He received his Ph.D.
from the University of California, Berkeley
in 1982; his thesis adviser was Manuel Blum
.
Micali won the Gödel Prize
in 1993. In 2007, he was selected to be a member of the National Academy of Sciences
and a Fellow of the IACR
. He is also a member of the National Academy of Engineering
and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
.
Micali is best known for some of his fundamental early work on public-key cryptosystems, pseudorandom function
s, digital signature
s, oblivious transfer
, secure multiparty computation
, and is one of the co-inventors of zero-knowledge proof
s.
Palermo
Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...
-born computer scientist
Computer scientist
A computer scientist is a scientist who has acquired knowledge of computer science, the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their application in computer systems....
at MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology formed by the 2003 merger of the Laboratory for Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory...
and a professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
of computer science in MIT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science since 1983. His research centers on the theory of cryptography
Cryptography
Cryptography is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of third parties...
and information security
Information security
Information security means protecting information and information systems from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, perusal, inspection, recording or destruction....
. He received his Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
from the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
in 1982; his thesis adviser was Manuel Blum
Manuel Blum
Manuel Blum is a computer scientist who received the Turing Award in 1995 "In recognition of his contributions to the foundations of computational complexity theory and its application to cryptography and program checking".-Biography:Blum attended MIT, where he received his bachelor's degree and...
.
Micali won the Gödel Prize
Gödel Prize
The Gödel Prize is a prize for outstanding papers in theoretical computer science, named after Kurt Gödel and awarded jointly by the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science and the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computation Theory .The...
in 1993. In 2007, he was selected to be a member of the National Academy of Sciences
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
and a Fellow of the IACR
International Association for Cryptologic Research
The International Association for Cryptologic Research is a non-profit scientific organization whose purpose is to further research in cryptology and related fields...
. He is also a member of the National Academy of Engineering
National Academy of Engineering
The National Academy of Engineering is a government-created non-profit institution in the United States, that was founded in 1964 under the same congressional act that led to the founding of the National Academy of Sciences...
and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
.
Micali is best known for some of his fundamental early work on public-key cryptosystems, pseudorandom function
Pseudorandom function
In cryptography, a pseudorandom function family, abbreviated PRF, is a collection of efficiently-computable functions which emulate a random oracle in the following way: no efficient algorithm can distinguish between a function chosen randomly from the PRF family and a random oracle...
s, digital signature
Digital signature
A digital signature or digital signature scheme is a mathematical scheme for demonstrating the authenticity of a digital message or document. A valid digital signature gives a recipient reason to believe that the message was created by a known sender, and that it was not altered in transit...
s, oblivious transfer
Oblivious transfer
In cryptography, an oblivious transfer protocol is a type of protocol in which a sender transfers one of potentially many pieces of information to a receiver, but remains oblivious as to what piece has been transferred....
, secure multiparty computation
Secure multiparty computation
Secure multi-party computation is a sub field of cryptography. The goal of methods for secure multi-party computation is to enable parties to jointly compute a function over their inputs, while at the same time keeping these inputs private...
, and is one of the co-inventors of zero-knowledge proof
Zero-knowledge proof
In cryptography, a zero-knowledge proof or zero-knowledge protocol is an interactive method for one party to prove to another that a statement is true, without revealing anything other than the veracity of the statement....
s.
Selected publications
- Michael J. FischerMichael J. FischerMichael John Fischer is a computer scientist who works in the fields of distributed computing, parallel computing, cryptography, algorithms and data structures, and computational complexity.-Career:...
, Silvio Micali, and Charles RackoffCharles RackoffCharles Weill Rackoff is an American cryptologist. Born and raised in New York City, Rackoff attended MIT as both an undergraduate and graduate student, and earned a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science in 1974. He spent a year as a postdoctoral scholar at INRIA in France.He currently works at the...
. A Secure Protocol for the Oblivious TransferOblivious transferIn cryptography, an oblivious transfer protocol is a type of protocol in which a sender transfers one of potentially many pieces of information to a receiver, but remains oblivious as to what piece has been transferred....
(Extended Abstract). Journal of CryptologyJournal of CryptologyThe Journal of Cryptology is a scientific journal in the field of cryptology and cryptography. The journal is published quarterly by the International Association for Cryptologic Research....
, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 191–195, 1996. - Oded GoldreichOded GoldreichOded Goldreich is a professor of Computer Science at the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science of Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. His research interests lie within the theory of computation...
, Silvio Micali, and Avi WigdersonAvi WigdersonAvi Wigderson is an Israeli mathematician and computer scientist, a professor of mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. His research interests include complexity theory, parallel algorithms, graph theory, cryptography, distributed computing, and neural...
. Proofs that Yield Nothing But Their Validity, or All Languages in NPNP (complexity)In computational complexity theory, NP is one of the most fundamental complexity classes.The abbreviation NP refers to "nondeterministic polynomial time."...
have Zero-Knowledge ProofZero-knowledge proofIn cryptography, a zero-knowledge proof or zero-knowledge protocol is an interactive method for one party to prove to another that a statement is true, without revealing anything other than the veracity of the statement....
systems. Journal of the ACMAssociation for Computing MachineryThe Association for Computing Machinery is a learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 as the world's first scientific and educational computing society. Its membership is more than 92,000 as of 2009...
vol. 38, no. 3, pp. 691–729, 1991. - Manuel BlumManuel BlumManuel Blum is a computer scientist who received the Turing Award in 1995 "In recognition of his contributions to the foundations of computational complexity theory and its application to cryptography and program checking".-Biography:Blum attended MIT, where he received his bachelor's degree and...
, Alfredo De Sants, Silvio Micali, and Giuseppe Persiano. Noninteractive Zero-KnowledgeNon-interactive zero-knowledge proofNon-interactive zero-knowledge proofs are a variant of zero-knowledge proofs. Blum, Feldman, and Micali showed that a common reference string shared between the prover and the verifier is enough to achieve computational zero-knowledge without requiring interaction. Goldreich and Oren gave...
. SIAM Journal on ComputingSIAM Journal on ComputingThe SIAM Journal on Computing is a scientific journal focusing on the mathematical and formal aspects of computer science. It is published by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics . As of September 2008, Éva Tardos serves as editor-in-chief.-External links:** on DBLP...
vol. 20, no. 6, pp. 1084–1118, 1991. - Michael Ben-Or, Oded GoldreichOded GoldreichOded Goldreich is a professor of Computer Science at the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science of Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. His research interests lie within the theory of computation...
, Silvio Micali, and Ronald L. RivestRon RivestRonald Linn Rivest is a cryptographer. He is the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor of Computer Science at MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a member of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory...
. A Fair Protocol for Signing Contracts. IEEE Transactions on Information TheoryIEEE Transactions on Information TheoryThe IEEE Transactions on Information Theory is a scientific journal published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers...
vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 40–46, 1990. - Shafi GoldwasserShafi GoldwasserShafrira Goldwasser is the RSA Professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, and a professor of mathematical sciences at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel.-Biography:...
, Silvio Micali, and Charles Rackoff. The Knowledge Complexity of Interactive Proof Systems. SIAM Journal on ComputingSIAM Journal on ComputingThe SIAM Journal on Computing is a scientific journal focusing on the mathematical and formal aspects of computer science. It is published by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics . As of September 2008, Éva Tardos serves as editor-in-chief.-External links:** on DBLP...
vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 186–208, 1989. - Shafi Goldwasser, Silvio Micali, and Ronald L. RivestRon RivestRonald Linn Rivest is a cryptographer. He is the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor of Computer Science at MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a member of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory...
. A Digital SignatureDigital signatureA digital signature or digital signature scheme is a mathematical scheme for demonstrating the authenticity of a digital message or document. A valid digital signature gives a recipient reason to believe that the message was created by a known sender, and that it was not altered in transit...
Scheme Secure Against Adaptive Chosen-Message Attacks. SIAM Journal on ComputingSIAM Journal on ComputingThe SIAM Journal on Computing is a scientific journal focusing on the mathematical and formal aspects of computer science. It is published by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics . As of September 2008, Éva Tardos serves as editor-in-chief.-External links:** on DBLP...
vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 281–308, 1988. - Silvio Micali, Charles Rackoff, and Bob Sloan. The Notion of Security for Probabilistic Cryptosystems. SIAM Journal on ComputingSIAM Journal on ComputingThe SIAM Journal on Computing is a scientific journal focusing on the mathematical and formal aspects of computer science. It is published by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics . As of September 2008, Éva Tardos serves as editor-in-chief.-External links:** on DBLP...
vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 412–426, 1988. - Oded Goldreich, Silvio Micali, and Avi Wigderson. How to Play any Mental Game, or A Completeness Theorem for Protocols with Honest Majority, Proceedings of STOC 1987, pp. 218–229, 1987.
- Shafi Goldwasser and Silvio Micali. Probabilistic Encryption. Journal of Computer and System SciencesJournal of Computer and System SciencesThe Journal of Computer and System Sciences is a peer-reviewed scientific journal journal in the field of computer science. JCSS is published by Elsevier, and it was started in 1967. Many influential scientific articles have been published in JCSS; these include four papers that have won the Gödel...
, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 270–299, 1984. - Manuel Blum and Silvio Micali. How to Generate Cryptographically Strong Sequences of Pseudo-Random BitsCryptographically secure pseudorandom number generatorA cryptographically secure pseudo-random number generator is a pseudo-random number generator with properties that make it suitable for use in cryptography.Many aspects of cryptography require random numbers, for example:...
. SIAM Journal on ComputingSIAM Journal on ComputingThe SIAM Journal on Computing is a scientific journal focusing on the mathematical and formal aspects of computer science. It is published by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics . As of September 2008, Éva Tardos serves as editor-in-chief.-External links:** on DBLP...
vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 850–864, 1984.