Whitfield Diffie, Jim Bidzos and Bruce Schneier

By Deborah Radcliff

September 30, 2002 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - Twenty years before the Internet would create a need for it, a public-key cryptographic standard was discovered and patented by Whitfield Diffie, along with another student and a professor at Stanford University.
Diffie-Hellman was released free to the technical community, ultimately becoming the ubiquitous standard it is today. In his 20 years of waiting for the market's need to catch up with the standard, Diffie coached another visionary who sought to commercialize a different form of encryption. That standard was RSA, discovered by three MIT researchers, and that visionary was Jim Bidzos, who kept RSA Data Security Inc. alive for the 12 years it took for the market's need to catch up with the algorithm.
Diffie's and Bidzos' patience paid off. Both algorithms are bundled in browser security and just about every network protocol in existence, says Dorothy Denning, a professor of computer science at Georgetown University who has written extensively about both standards.
In her many writings on information security, Denning has also often quoted a third cryptographer, Bruce Schneier, who hails from a background of cryptographic management for the military and whose seminal 1993 book, Applied Cryptography (John Wiley & Sons), has brought cryptographic concepts to the mainstream.

Whitfield Diffie


Whitfield Diffie, CSO at Sun Microsystems Inc.

Age: 58
Claim to fame: Co-discoverer of public key cryptography, now an Internet standard called Diffie-Hellman.
What he's doing now: Chief security officer at Sun Microsystems Inc. in Santa Clara, Calif.

In 1976, Diffie and his wife, Mary, were struggling college students who lived in a car. Amid his poverty as a Stanford student in the '70s, Diffie was working on complex mathematical algorithms to help protect freedom of speech and privacy in the coming digital age.
Things were a little better when Diffie discovered the solution to these problems in the form of public-key cryptography, which uses public and private digital keys to scramble and unscramble data.
But as Diffie waited the 20 years it would take for the Diffie-Hellman algorithm to be needed, he also fought to lift export-control laws that would hamper people's ability to use encryption, particularly overseas. Those export-control laws were abolished in the late '90s.
"Whit Diffie has been a very public figure for all the right causes. Internet freedom and privacy through cryptography are his personal vision. He's talked to very influential people. A lot of it is due to the sheer force of his personality," says fellow cryptographer Bruce Schneier.

Jim Bidzos
Age: 47
Claim to fame: Took a leadership position at RSA Security

Recommend Digg Twitter ShareThis

Email Print Send Feedback Reprints

Additional Resources

POLL RESULTS

Leading IT Pros Weigh In on Top IT Issues

Accelerate your knowledge of the IT world you inhabit by viewing the results of a series of polls taken by your IT peers. These polls of 100+ IT professionals each are available for full viewing. They cover key topics such as virtualization, processor performance, green IT, cloud computing and many others. Be a part of the buzz.

WHITE PAPER

For Best Results, Think Beyond the Box

Technology is complex. Keeping it running productively shouldn't be. To that end, you want to minimize the number of solutions needed in-house to simplify operations, maintenance, and support. Kodak offers a best-practices model. One company provides support for both scanner and software, for fast problem resolution without vendor finger-pointing. Download now!

WHITE PAPER

Accelerating the Path to Demand Intelligence with a Demand Signal Repository

Utilizing demand intelligence improves the precision of pricing, product assortments, channel/store placement, and promotion, which are all essential for sustainable revenue management performance. Learn more, download this free whitepaper today.

White Papers & Webcasts

Sustaining SOX Compliance: Best Practices to Mitigate Risk, Automate Compliance, and Reduce Costs
Since the adoption of SOX, much has been learned about IT compliance. Discover how to make SOX efforts more effective in "Sustaining Sox...

Usability Is Everything
Learn what sets Workday's HR and Payroll solutions apart from the competition....

IDC White Paper: CCM for IT Compliance and Risk Management
Learn from industry analysts how IT organizations are using configuration management to meet compliance requirements and instill best practices. Find out how these...

The Value of Real SaaS at Workday
Cost savings, speed to value, and innovation brought to the enterprise by Workday's software-as-a-service solutions for HR and Payroll....

Keep it Clean: Maintaining the Integrity of your CMDB through Change Detection
Learn how configuration drift can challenge configuration management database (CMDB) integrity and how a configuration audit tool and an effective change management process...

SaaS at Flextronics, Inc.
Dave Smoley, CIO of Flextronics, discusses the real value of software-as-a-service and why he chose Workday for his HR solution....

The Tripwire HIPAA Solution: Meeting the Security Standards Set Forth in Section 164
HIPAA requires businesses that handle personal health information (PHI) to set up strong controls to ensure the security and integrity of that information....

Why Compliance Pays
This OnDemand webcast explores the relationship that firms with best compliance records have higher revenue, greater customer retention, lower financial losses from data...

Configuration Assessment: Choosing the Right Solution
Configuration assessment lets businesses proactively secure their IT infrastructure and achieve compliance with important industry standards and regulations. Learn why configuration assessment is...

Agile Enterprise Content Management (ECM) for Rapid ROI
Find out how combining ECM and BPM will help adress issues about content rich business processes....

All White Papers | All Webcasts