10 ms·
Diffie and Hellman Win Turing Award
- drallison 11y agoThe ACM announcement: http://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/diffie_8371646.cfm http://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/diffie_8371646.cfm Marty and Whit deserve kudos for their important work in cryptography.
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- redthrowaway 11y agoIs it usual practice for a Turing Award to be awarded so long after the work in question?
- JoshTriplett 11y agoYes. See past recipients at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_Award https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_Award . Almost all of them are for fundamental work that everyone builds on, and seeing that relies on the benefit of years or decades of hindsight.
- redthrowaway 11y agoIt seems the trend has been towards later and later recognition, which makes sense given the age of the field and the award. - Knuth got his for TAOCP in 1976, 8 years after first publication. - Thompson and Ritchie got theirs for UNIX in 1983, 10 or so years after its introduction. - Englebart got his for his HCI work in 1997, 30 or so years after the fundamental work was done (but just after its universal adoption) - Alan Kay got his for OOP & Smalltalk in 2003, 20+ years after the first stable release. - Cert & Kahn got theirs for TCP/IP in 2005, 20+ years on. And so forth.
- kleiba 11y agoI think that's probable a good way to do it. Some things that gain great traction at one time may later turn out to have been just a sparkle, or a fad. Standing the test of time is a good litmus test for the importance of scientific achievements.
- kodis 11y agoNobel Prizes, at least in the science fields, follow the same pattern. I suspect that at least in part the Nobel committee wants to avoid awarding for something unproven such as cold fusion. The committees in the humanities seem much less concerned about this, and are able to award much sooner.
- DenisM 11y agoAny advice on what paper of theirs to read in celebration of the event? Something approachable. When Lamport got his in 2013 I took the time to read "Time, Clocks, and the Ordering of Events in a Distributed System" [1]. Been sleeping under the rock since then. [1] http://www.ics.uci.edu/~cs230/reading/time.pdf http://www.ics.uci.edu/~cs230/reading/time.pdf
- fjarlq 11y agoDiffie and Hellman's 1976 paper, "New Directions in Cryptography"[1], cited by their Turing Award, seems like a good start. [1] https://www-ee.stanford.edu/~hellman/publications/24.pdf https://www-ee.stanford.edu/~hellman/publications/24.pdf
- fjarlq 11y agoAlso relevant: Whitfield Diffie's 1988 paper, "The First Ten Years of Public-Key Cryptography"[1]. [1] https://cr.yp.to/bib/1988/diffie.pdf https://cr.yp.to/bib/1988/diffie.pdf
- imglorp 11y agoInteresting story about Diffie testifying at the Newegg trial. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/11/newegg-trial-crypto-legend-diffie-takes-the-stand-to-knock-out-patent/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/11/newegg-trial-cryp...
- mabbo 11y ago"We've heard a good bit in this courtroom about public key encryption," said Albright. "Are you familiar with that?" "Yes, I am," said Diffie, in what surely qualified as the biggest understatement of the trial. "And how is it that you're familiar with public key encryption?" "I invented it."
- atmosx 11y agoepic :-)
- pc86 11y agoSo the public key encryption equivalent of referring to TBL as "Web Developer" :)
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- Cyph0n 11y agoHoly damn that must have felt good haha.
- ignoramous 11y agoHere's another interesting bit: Then Fenster dropped this bombshell: "Dr. Diffie, you were not the first to invent public key cryptography, were you?" "I believe that I may have been," said Diffie, speaking cautiously. "But perhaps you could be more specific?" "In fact, a gentleman named James Ellis in England invented it before you, right?" Diffie sighed. He seemed, suddenly, almost tired. He had heard this one before. "I spent a lot of time talking to James Ellis, and I can't figure it out," he said. "James Ellis did very fine work."
- titzer 11y agoFor a couple years I had an office across the hall from Diffie at Sun Labs and spent many a Friday evening Sun Labs Bash chatting with him about various topics of all kinds. Diffie is a kind and gracious man, well versed on a broad range of topics, a lot of fun, and well, a better dresser than I. Congrats to him and Martin Hellman!
- silasdavis 11y agoHistory may have been different if you'd been comparable dressers... Interesting to read things from contemporaries of famous computer scientists
- Kinnard 11y agoI think it's clear that this is very uncoincidentally an extremely timely award. The average person may have no idea, but we are in the middle of a cryptowar[1]. [1] http://reason.com/archives/2013/03/12/the-second-great-crypto-war http://reason.com/archives/2013/03/12/the-second-great-crypt...
- kchoudhu 11y agoYeah. Individual achievement aside (and I'm not minimizing it in any way, shape or form), I'm pretty sure this is the CS profession's way of telling the FBI to get bent.
- pklausler 11y agoAs much as I like to believe your theory, I suspect that a big award like this probably has a longer lead time than the recent Apple/FBI brouhaha.
- bsharitt 11y agoThe current Apple/FBI business is just the latest flare up in conflict that started when Apple started encrypting phones by default.
- reitanqild 11y agoThe conflict started way before that. My reference is to when encryption was considered munitions and a bunch of people printed, shipped and scanned source code to get around the rules.
- r00fus 11y agoI wonder if the timing is coincident with potentially a 2nd Clinton coming to the whitehouse?
- Kinnard 11y agoNice!
- fjarlq 11y agoMartin Hellman explains what he plans to do with his share of the Turing Award money: https://nuclearrisk.wordpress.com/2016/03/01/the-turing-award-nuclear-risk-and-recapturing-true-love/ https://nuclearrisk.wordpress.com/2016/03/01/the-turing-awar...
- ekianjo 11y agoA noble cause. Reminding the world we have tens of thousands of nukes ready to hit every major city at any time. I wish people were more conscious of that.
- throwaway6497 11y agoI used to wrongly think you need a PhD to be able to win a Turing. Diffe proved me wrong. He serves as an inspiration to anyone who mentally feels inferior to PhDs when it comes to making significant contributions to the field of Computer Science
- kenjackson 11y agoThe very first Turing award went to Robert Floyd... he also didn't have a PhD. Most people with PhDs are probably pretty smart. But most smart people don't have PhDs.
- gavinpc 11y agoI thought the first one was Alan Perlis?
- kenjackson 11y agoYou're right -- he was. I'm not sure why I thought Floyd won the first one. But Floyd did win it, without a PhD. :-)
- gavinpc 11y agoYes, good to learn about him. Like me, he got a B.A. in Liberal Arts. Unlike me, he got his at age 17!
- eloy 11y agoMartin Hellman actually has a PhD, and their work together resulted in a Turing Award.
- dougws 11y agoYou absolutely shouldn't feel "mentally inferior" to folks with PhDs. Doing academic research, which probably involves getting a PhD, is almost certainly the best way to make a significant contribution to Computer Science. These two facts aren't really in conflict, I don't think.
- pklausler 11y agoPoor Ralph Merkle. Diffie and Hellman always seem to have gone out of their way to acknowledge his contribution to public key encryption, but it looks like the ACM overlooked it.
- fjarlq 11y agoACM did at least acknowledge Merkle in 1996, along with Adleman, Diffie, Hellman, Rivest, and Shamir, in the inaugural Paris Kanellakis Award[1]. Merkle has an article on his website about the history of his public-key cryptography work[2]. [1] http://awards.acm.org/award_winners/merkle_4605383.cfm http://awards.acm.org/award_winners/merkle_4605383.cfm [2] http://www.merkle.com/1974/ http://www.merkle.com/1974/
- bachback 11y agoBoth gave speeches about the history of their research: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTGqP0nxX08 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTGqP0nxX08 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BJuuUxCaaY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BJuuUxCaaY Merkle had a huge influence also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Merkle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Merkle
- rurban 11y agoHuge influence? It's his paper, his invention and this price without him is again a huge fuckup. But he should be used to that in the meantime.
- bachback 11y agocertainly don't disagree. An acquaintance of mine has trying to get him work on Cryptocurrencies where Merkle trees are all around. he showed some interest and was very open to new ideas. he has a nice website http://www.merkle.com/ http://www.merkle.com/ http://www.merkle.com/1974/RejectionLetter.pdf http://www.merkle.com/1974/RejectionLetter.pdf "I had failed to provide any references to the prior work on public key cryptography, and the reasons previous workers in the field had rejected it as impossible. I should have looked up "public key cryptography" on Google before submitting my paper. My defense is feeble: there was no Google, the term "public key cryptography" did not yet exist, and there were no previous workers in the field. There were no words for what I had done, and looking up a concept to show that no one had previously thought of it is difficult. This is not a unique problem: it illustrates a problem faced by anyone trying to explain a new idea to an "expert" who expects a properly referenced article anytime anyone tries to explain something to them. The more a new idea is unrelated to any prior idea or concept the more it must appear as a squawling bastard, naked and alone, appearing de novo and lacking any respectable pedigree or family to vouch for its acceptability."
- 64bitbrain 11y agoyayy!! This is just great! Congrats to Martin and Hellman. Why it takes such long time for Computer Scientist to achieve such Award. DH Algo has been well known for long time. On the other hand Physicists(Theoretical, Astro, ...) dont have to wait too long to gain such recognition.
- thieving_magpie 11y ago>Congrats to Martin and Hellman. :)
- Godel_unicode 11y agoMartin (sic) Hellman is one person. His co-awardee is Whitfield Diffie.
- haberman 11y agoIt speaks to how exclusive an award this is that these guys hadn't won it already. It's hard to think of achievements in computing that are as important or influential as public-key cryptography.
- nathan_long 11y agoI just found these free-to-watch episodes on crypto, featuring interviews with Diffie and Hellman: http://simonsingh.net/media/online-videos/cryptography/the-science-of-secrecy-going-public/ http://simonsingh.net/media/online-videos/cryptography/the-s... This is by Simon Singh, who wrote the excellent book "The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography", including a chapter on Diffie–Hellman–Merkle key exchange.
- DanBC 11y agoThe very short interview with Clifford Cocks is good too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwNv0b-2AcU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwNv0b-2AcU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-xEiOvXux4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-xEiOvXux4 "...I'm allowed to think about things outside work, but not allowed to put anything down on paper"
- anaphor 11y agoSeems like a good place to link this awesome panel from Defcon 19 with Whitfield Diffie and Moxie Marlinspike on SSL/PKI/etc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt7uW6vDk00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt7uW6vDk00 Some of the Q&A is pretty weird
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- lukeh 11y agoThis was on the BBC last night: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03l61pn http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03l61pn
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- bkinman 11y agoFinally, took long enough.
- lkowalcz 11y agoSurprising it took this long. (Especially since, for example, RS and A have had Turing awards for more than a decade)
- 1632TestAccount 11y agoTest
- maaku 11y agoWhy was Merkle not included?
- akoster 11y agoSince the article doesn't quote Martin Hellman here's sons of his words on cryptography (from an interview after receiving a different award): http://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/march/inventor-prize-hellman-030411.html http://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/march/inventor-prize-hell...
- signa11 11y agojust curious, is anyone wondering why ralph-merkle is not here as well ?
- dmbaggett 11y agoI attended the panel today when this was announced, and regarding the omission of Ralph Merkle, both recipients explicitly acknowledged him by name. Diffie specifically said that they built upon his prior work. It also occurred to me that Moxie Marlinspike was in the unusual position of being the only one on the panel of five not to have (yet!) received a Turing Award. (He came off very well nonetheless.) (In addition to Diffie and Hellman, the other two Turing-awarded panelists were Ron Rivest and Adi Shamir.)
- obvio171 11y agoI'm a big fan of Moxie's work, but would you mind elaborating on for which work he'd receive a Turing award? I'm not familiar with their eligibility standards. Thanks!
- dmbaggett 11y agoIt's like the Nobel Prize of computer science. It's generally given to academics rather than practitioners, for deep theoretical contributions. But not always. In any case, I didn't mean to imply that Moxie should receive a Turing Award. I just thought it was remarkable that 80% of the panel was Turing Award winners -- but only officially as of the beginning of the panel!
- wbsun 11y agotl;dr version of the 2016 ACM Turing Award: ((g^a) mod p)^b mod p = (g^ab) mod p = ((g^b) mod p)^a mod p -- The beauty of math.
- AstralStorm 11y agoThis skips the most important part of the proof which explains why this is not easily invertible without the secret key.
- lkowalcz 11y agoWhat is this part? Isn't it just by assumption? (also, by secret key, I'm guessing you mean 'a', 'b')
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