World-leaders in Cryptography: Jonathan Katz
ASecuritySite Podcast
Jonathan was a professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Maryland. He is now a Senior Staff Research Scientist at Google, with a core focus on cryptography and cybersecurity.. Jonathan received his BS degree in mathematics and chemistry from MIT in 1996, and, in 2002, completed a PhD in computer science from Columbia University. He wrote a classic textbook on cryptography, and which is in its 3rd edition. Jonathon also has an online course on Coursera and has given tutorials of various forms on different topics to multiple kinds of audiences.
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Innovators in Cryptography and Blockchain: Maciej Zurawski
ASecuritySite Podcast
Maciej Zurawski is technology entrepreneur and blockchain specialist with over 25 years of experience in commercial software development, R&D and business leadership. He is currently the CEO at Redeem Technologies, and serves as the Executive Director of Blockchain Scotland - the principal industry association advancing commercial blockchain adoption across Scotland. His expertise spans enterprise software architecture, artificial intelligence and decentralised systems, complemented by a doctorate in AI. Maciej regularly advises government bodies and financial institutions on...
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Innovators in Cryptography and Blockchain: Greg McLardie
ASecuritySite Podcast
Greg McLardie has 30 years of executive experience in the USA, Australia, Japan, China and now the UK with the likes of Procter & Gamble and EY. He co-created Two Hands and has been operating for over 5 years in Australia and China, with Forbes Magazine publishing a three-page feature on its unique blockchain application in the food industry. With strong traction internationally, Two Hands has established a company and transferred global IP to the UK to attract investment to scale its impact into the UK, EU and beyond.
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World-leaders in Cryptography: Moti Yung
ASecuritySite Podcast
Moti is a Security and Privacy Research Scientist with Google and an Adjunct Research Faculty member at the Computer Science Dep of Columbia University. He received his PhD from Columbia University in 1988. In 2010 he gave the IACR Distinguished Lecture and has also been the recipient of the 2014 ACM’s SIGSAC Outstanding Innovation award, the 2014 ESORICS (European Symposium on Research in Computer Security) Outstanding Research award, an IBM Outstanding Innovation award, a Google OC award, and a Google founders’ award. Moti has also received three test of...
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Innovators in Cryptography and Blockchain: Jamie Gilchrist
ASecuritySite Podcast
Jamie is the CTO at Umazi, the Head of Research at DataFair.ai and co-founder and CEO of Tunestamp.
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World-leaders in Cryptography: Aggelos Kiayias
ASecuritySite Podcast
Aggelos Kiayias is a professor at the University of Edinburgh and the chief science officer at Input Output Global (formerly IOHK). He received his PhD in 2002 from City University of New York. He is chair in cyber security and privacy, and director of the Blockchain Technology Laboratory at the University of Edinburgh. In 2021, Aggelos was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE), and was recently awarded the BCS Lovelace Medal 2024 for his transformative contributions to the theory and practice of cyber security and cryptography. H works in areas of blockchain technology...
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World-leaders in Cryptography: Anna Lysyanskaya
ASecuritySite Podcast
Anna is a Professor of Computer Science at Brown University. Her research spans many areas of advanced cryptography including with digital signatures, group signatures, blind signatures, e-cash and anonymous digital credentials. She was originally from Ukraine, and undertook her masters degree at MIT in 1999, and then went onto a PhD in 2002 in the areas of Signature Schemes and Applications to Cryptographic Protocol Design. She joined Brown University in 2002, and was made a full professor in 2013. She is a member of the board of directors at the IACR, along with serving on...
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Apple Steps Back Their Security
ASecuritySite Podcast
The fallback for law enforcement agencies has always been the place where files are stored, and all the best encryption within end-to-end communications will not stop unencrypted files at rest from being examined. But when the user encrypts data into the Cloud and where they hold their own keys, that’s when the nightmare begins for them. The rise of cybersecurity on the Internet Let’s pinpoint the start of cybersecurity on the Internet to the 1970s. This saw the rise of the Lucifer cipher and saw banks properly protect their communications. This led to the 56-bit DES encryption method, and...
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Samsung S25 Goes PQC
ASecuritySite Podcast
YouTube: Yesterday, I gave two short presentations on PQC (Post Quantum Cryptography), and next week, I’m in London to give a more focused talk on the subject. And so, it’s great to see that Samsung is driving forward the adoption of PQC methods in their new S25 smartphone. There are two companies that have a core focus on creating trusted hardware for consumers: Apple and Samsung. Apple has always had a core focus on making sure they use the best cryptography to not only secure their devices but also to make them privacy-aware. Samsung, too, has strived for improved security but, at...
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Leaders in Digital Trust/Blockchain: Aysegul Sensoy
ASecuritySite Podcast
Aysegul Sensoy has over 20 years of management experience with blockchain, emerging technologies, fintech, business development, marketing and sales. She is currently the chair of the Istanbul Blockchain Women Association and CIS Regional Manager of Fuze Finance. She received her bachelor's degree in economics from Istanbul University and her master's degree in marketing communications management from Galatasaray University, as well as getting an executive MBA. She entered the tech sector after working in national and multinational companies as a marketing director, country manager, and...
info_outlineDaniel J Bernstein (djb) was born in 1971. He is a USA/German citizen and a Personal Professor at Eindhoven University of Technology and a Research Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
At the tender age of 24 — in 1995 — he, along with the Electronic Frontier Foundation — brought a case against the US Government related to the protection of free speech (Bernstein v. United States: here). It resulted in a ruling that software should be included in the First Amendment. A core contribution is that it has reduced government regulations around cryptography. It was a sign of the greatness that was to come from the amazing mind of Daniel. His viewpoint on reducing the strength of cryptography at the time defined:
“There are, fortunately, not many terrorists in the world. But there are many criminals exploiting Internet vulnerabilities for economic gain. They infiltrate computers and steal whatever secrets they can find, from individual credit-card numbers to corporate business plans. There are also quite a few vandals causing trouble just for fun.”
Since then few others have done so much for the cause of privacy, including creating the Sala20 [link] stream cipher in 2005, and then with ChaCha20 [link] and Poly1305 in 2008. Many connections in TLS now use ChaCha20, rather than AES, as it is faster — over three times after than AES — and has a lower computing requirement. His love of using dance names also comes to the fore with Rumba [here].
It is not just in symmetric key encryption that he has contributed to, he has made significant contributions to public key encryption. In 2005, he defined the Curve 25519 elliptic curve, and which is now a fairly standard way of defining elliptic curves. For signatures, he then defined Ed25519, and the resultant version of a new EdDSA signature (and which is now included in OpenSSH). The Tor protocol, for example, uses Curve 25519 for its key exchange for each of the nodes involved in a secure route.
He defined the SPHINCS+ method for PQC digital signatures. This is one of the NIST approved methods for quantum robust signatures.
In 2015, Daniel defined the methods that the NSA may have used to compromise the NIST defined elliptic curves [paper]. And 2005, it was Daniel again who introduced a new type of attack [here].
Daniel run his Web site from https://cr.yp.to