Posted: 5th July 2018

Whitfield Diffie, preeminent cryptographer and co-creator of public key encryption, is giving a talk on 9 July at 2pm at Said Business School.

The talk, entitled ‘Beginning with Al Kindi, a look at how cryptography develops’, will explore how cryptography has responded to new requirements and new tools over a long lifetime. The basic elements used in cryptography can be seen in work done in Italy 500 years ago and in Baghdad some 700 years earlier.

A mathematician, computer scientist and author, Whitfield is winner of the 2015 Turing Award, often referred to as the Nobel Prize of Computing. Among his other honours, Whitfield is also an elected Foreign Member of the Royal Society, a IEEE Hamming Medal winner, winner of the Franklin Institute’s Louis E Levy medal, a Fellow of the Computer History Museum and a Marconi Foundation Fellow.

Currently, Diffie is Chief Scientist at Cryptic Labs, an innovative research lab primarily focused on solving fundamental problems to advance the viability and growth of the Blockchain. Whitfield received a degree in mathematics from M.I.T. He also holds both an honorary doctorate from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and a Degree of Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) from Royal Holloway, University of London.

His talk is free to attend, but registration is essential. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/professor-whit-diffie-beginning-with-al-kindi-a-look-at-how-cryptography-develops-tickets-47808470422