Whitfield Diffie
Encyclopedia
Bailey Whitfield 'Whit' Diffie (born June 5, 1944) is an American
cryptographer and one of the pioneers of public-key cryptography
.
Diffie and Martin Hellman
's paper New Directions in Cryptography was published in 1976. It introduced a radically new method of distributing cryptographic
keys, that went far toward solving one of the fundamental problems of cryptography, key distribution
. It has become known as Diffie–Hellman key exchange. The article also seems to have stimulated the almost immediate public development of a new class of encryption algorithms, the asymmetric key algorithms.
After a long career at Sun Microsystems
, where he became a Sun Fellow, Diffie is currently serving as the Vice President for Information Security and Cryptography at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN
) and a visiting scholar at the Freeman Spogli Institute's Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University
.
He received a Bachelor of Science
degree in mathematics
from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
in 1965 and an honorary doctorate from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in 1992.
Diffie was Manager of Secure Systems Research for Northern Telecom, where he designed the key management architecture for the PDSO security system for X.25
networks.
In 1991 he joined Sun Microsystems
Laboratories (in Menlo Park, California
) as a Distinguished Engineer
, working primarily on public policy aspects of cryptography. Diffie remained with Sun, serving as its Chief Security Officer and as a Vice President until November 2009. He is also a Sun Fellow.
In 1992 he was awarded a Doctorate
in Technical Sciences (Honoris Causa) by the ETH Zurich
. He is also a fellow of the Marconi Foundation
and visiting fellow of the Isaac Newton Institute
. He has received various awards from other organisations. In July 2008, he was also awarded a Degree of Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) by Royal Holloway, University of London
. He was also awarded the IEEE Donald G. Fink Prize Paper Award in 1981 (together with Martin E. Hellman), the The Franklin Institute's Louis E. Levy Medal in 1997 a Golden Jubilee Award for Technological Innovation from the IEEE Information Theory Society
in 1998, and the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal in 2010.
, Diffie was a visiting professor at the Information Security Group
based at Royal Holloway, University of London
.
In May 2010, Diffie joined the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN
) as Vice President for Information Security and Cryptography.
to develop the fundamental ideas of dual-key, or public key, cryptography
. They published their results in 1976—solving one of the fundamental problems of cryptography, key distribution
—and essentially broke the monopoly
that had previously existed where government entities
controlled cryptographic technology and the terms on which other individuals could have access to it. "From the moment Diffie and Hellman published their findings..., the National Security Agency's crypto monopoly was effectively terminated. ... Every company, every citizen now had routine access to the sorts of cryptographic technology that not many years ago ranked alongside the atom bomb as a source of power."
The solution has become known as Diffie–Hellman key exchange.
. "I was always concerned about individuals
, an individual's privacy as opposed to Government secrecy."
, he remained "committed to those beliefs."
's book Privacy on the Line was published in 1998 on the politics of wiretapping and encryption. An updated and expanded edition appeared in 2007.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
cryptographer and one of the pioneers of public-key cryptography
Public-key cryptography
Public-key cryptography refers to a cryptographic system requiring two separate keys, one to lock or encrypt the plaintext, and one to unlock or decrypt the cyphertext. Neither key will do both functions. One of these keys is published or public and the other is kept private...
.
Diffie and Martin Hellman
Martin Hellman
Martin Edward Hellman is an American cryptologist, and is best known for his invention of public key cryptography in cooperation with Whitfield Diffie and Ralph Merkle...
's paper New Directions in Cryptography was published in 1976. It introduced a radically new method of distributing cryptographic
Cryptography
Cryptography is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of third parties...
keys, that went far toward solving one of the fundamental problems of cryptography, key distribution
Key distribution
In symmetric key cryptography, both parties must possess a secret key which they must exchange prior to using any encryption. Distribution of secret keys has been problematic until recently, because it involved face-to-face meeting, use of a trusted courier, or sending the key through an existing...
. It has become known as Diffie–Hellman key exchange. The article also seems to have stimulated the almost immediate public development of a new class of encryption algorithms, the asymmetric key algorithms.
After a long career at Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
, where he became a Sun Fellow, Diffie is currently serving as the Vice President for Information Security and Cryptography at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN
ICANN
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a non-profit corporation headquartered in Marina del Rey, California, United States, that was created on September 18, 1998, and incorporated on September 30, 1998 to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly...
) and a visiting scholar at the Freeman Spogli Institute's Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
.
Background and Career
Diffie's interest in cryptography began at "age 10 when his father, a professor, brought home the entire crypto shelf of the City College Library in New York."He received a Bachelor of Science
Bachelor of Science
A Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years .-Australia:In Australia, the BSc is a 3 year degree, offered from 1st year on...
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...
from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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...
in 1965 and an honorary doctorate from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in 1992.
Diffie was Manager of Secure Systems Research for Northern Telecom, where he designed the key management architecture for the PDSO security system for X.25
X.25
X.25 is an ITU-T standard protocol suite for packet switched wide area network communication. An X.25 WAN consists of packet-switching exchange nodes as the networking hardware, and leased lines, Plain old telephone service connections or ISDN connections as physical links...
networks.
In 1991 he joined Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
Laboratories (in Menlo Park, California
Menlo Park, California
Menlo Park, California is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, in the United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south; Atherton, North Fair Oaks, and Redwood City...
) as a Distinguished Engineer
Engineer
An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...
, working primarily on public policy aspects of cryptography. Diffie remained with Sun, serving as its Chief Security Officer and as a Vice President until November 2009. He is also a Sun Fellow.
In 1992 he was awarded a Doctorate
Doctorate
A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder to teach in a specific field, A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder...
in Technical Sciences (Honoris Causa) by the ETH Zurich
ETH Zurich
The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich or ETH Zürich is an engineering, science, technology, mathematics and management university in the City of Zurich, Switzerland....
. He is also a fellow of the Marconi Foundation
Marconi Foundation
The Guglielmo Marconi International Fellowship Foundation, briefly called Marconi Foundation and currently known as The Marconi Society, was established by Gioia Marconi Braga in 1974 to commemorate the centennial of the birth of her father Guglielmo Marconi)...
and visiting fellow of the Isaac Newton Institute
Isaac Newton Institute
The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences is an international research institute for mathematics and theoretical physics. Part of the University of Cambridge, it is named after one of the university's most illustrious figures, the mathematician and natural philosopher Sir Isaac Newton....
. He has received various awards from other organisations. In July 2008, he was also awarded a Degree of Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) by Royal Holloway, University of London
Royal Holloway, University of London
Royal Holloway, University of London is a constituent college of the University of London. The college has three faculties, 18 academic departments, and about 8,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students from over 130 different countries...
. He was also awarded the IEEE Donald G. Fink Prize Paper Award in 1981 (together with Martin E. Hellman), the The Franklin Institute's Louis E. Levy Medal in 1997 a Golden Jubilee Award for Technological Innovation from the IEEE Information Theory Society
IEEE Information Theory Society
The IEEE Information Theory Society , formerly the IEEE Information Theory Group, is a professional society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers focused on several aspects of information: its processing, transmission, storage, and usage; and the "foundations of the...
in 1998, and the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal in 2010.
, Diffie was a visiting professor at the Information Security Group
Information Security Group
The Information Security Group or ISG is one of the worlds largest academic security groups and is based at Royal Holloway, University of London....
based at Royal Holloway, University of London
Royal Holloway, University of London
Royal Holloway, University of London is a constituent college of the University of London. The college has three faculties, 18 academic departments, and about 8,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students from over 130 different countries...
.
In May 2010, Diffie joined the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN
ICANN
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a non-profit corporation headquartered in Marina del Rey, California, United States, that was created on September 18, 1998, and incorporated on September 30, 1998 to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly...
) as Vice President for Information Security and Cryptography.
Public key cryptography
In the early 1970s, Diffie worked with Martin HellmanMartin Hellman
Martin Edward Hellman is an American cryptologist, and is best known for his invention of public key cryptography in cooperation with Whitfield Diffie and Ralph Merkle...
to develop the fundamental ideas of dual-key, or public key, cryptography
Cryptography
Cryptography is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of third parties...
. They published their results in 1976—solving one of the fundamental problems of cryptography, key distribution
Key distribution
In symmetric key cryptography, both parties must possess a secret key which they must exchange prior to using any encryption. Distribution of secret keys has been problematic until recently, because it involved face-to-face meeting, use of a trusted courier, or sending the key through an existing...
—and essentially broke the monopoly
Monopoly
A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...
that had previously existed where government entities
State (polity)
A state is an organized political community, living under a government. States may be sovereign and may enjoy a monopoly on the legal initiation of force and are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Many states are federated states which participate in a federal union...
controlled cryptographic technology and the terms on which other individuals could have access to it. "From the moment Diffie and Hellman published their findings..., the National Security Agency's crypto monopoly was effectively terminated. ... Every company, every citizen now had routine access to the sorts of cryptographic technology that not many years ago ranked alongside the atom bomb as a source of power."
The solution has become known as Diffie–Hellman key exchange.
Philosophical leanings
Diffie self-identifies as an iconoclastIconoclast
An iconoclast is someone who engages in iconoclasm—destruction of religious symbols or, by extension, established dogma or conventions.Iconoclast may also refer to:...
. "I was always concerned about individuals
Individualism
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that stresses "the moral worth of the individual". Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so value independence and self-reliance while opposing most external interference upon one's own...
, an individual's privacy as opposed to Government secrecy."
, he remained "committed to those beliefs."
Published work
Diffie and Susan LandauSusan Landau
Susan Landau is an American mathematician and engineer, as of 2011, a Visiting Scholar at the Computer Science Department, Harvard University....
's book Privacy on the Line was published in 1998 on the politics of wiretapping and encryption. An updated and expanded edition appeared in 2007.
External links
- Oral history interview with Martin Hellman Oral history interview 2004, Palo Alto, California. Charles Babbage InstituteCharles Babbage InstituteThe Charles Babbage Institute is a research center at the University of Minnesota specializing in the history of information technology, particularly the history since 1935 of digital computing, programming/software, and computer networking....
, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. HellmanMartin HellmanMartin Edward Hellman is an American cryptologist, and is best known for his invention of public key cryptography in cooperation with Whitfield Diffie and Ralph Merkle...
describes his invention of public key cryptography with collaborators Whitfield Diffie and Ralph MerkleRalph MerkleRalph C. Merkle is a researcher in public key cryptography, and more recently a researcher and speaker on molecular nanotechnology and cryonics...
at Stanford University in the mid-1970s. He also relates his subsequent work in cryptography with Steve Pohlig (the Pohlig–Hellman algorithm) and others. Hellman addresses the National Security AgencyNational Security AgencyThe National Security Agency/Central Security Service is a cryptologic intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence, as well as protecting U.S...
’s (NSA) early efforts to contain and discourage academic work in the field, the Department of Commerce’s encryption export restrictions, and key escrow (the so-called Clipper chipClipper chipThe Clipper chip was a chipset that was developed and promoted by the U.S. National Security Agency as an encryption device to be adopted by telecommunications companies for voice transmission...
). He also touches on the commercialization of cryptography with RSA Data Security and VeriSignVeriSignVerisign, Inc. is an American company based in Dulles, Virginia that operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including two of the Internet's thirteen root nameservers, the authoritative registry for the .com, .net, and .name generic top-level domains and the .cc and .tv country-code...
. - Cranky Geeks Episode 133
- Wired Magazine biography of Whitfield Diffie
- Interview with Whitfield Diffie on Chaosradio Express International
- Cranky Geeks Episode 71
- Risking Communications Security: Potential Hazards of the Protect America Act
- Diffie at the 2009 RSA conference, video with Diffie participating on the Cryptographer's Panel, April 21, 2009, Moscone Center, San Francisco