This idea was so outrageous …
This idea was so outrageous …
We are so happy to have Marty Hellman coming along to talk to our MSc students. Few people have advanced cybersecurity as much as him. Along with Whitefield Diffie, he laid out a wonderfully simple key exchange method and with Steve Pohlig (RIP), he defined the exponentiation cipher (M^e mod p). Marty, too, laid out the possibility of creating an almost perfect machine.
The most perfect of machines …
So, imagine you have invented the most perfect machine. This machine addresses all of the problems of every other machine that was ever created and was based on a new method that you had come up with. You would, of course, be proud of your work, and want to share in the praise that you would rightly receive.
And, now imagine, that this machine is a new cybersecurity method that was almost perfect in its creation. It would address many of the existing problems of online security, and make sure that everyone’s online identity was trusted and that you didn’t go to untrusted sites. It would also be one which allowed you to communicate securely, even though others were listening. Also, it would allow you to create an almost non-forgeable signature for all your transactions.
This “machine” is public-key encryption, and (possibly) one of the greatest advancements in computer science, ever. It is certainly up there with the greats of communication theory, Von Neumann architecture and machine learning. With the advent of public-key encryption, for the first time in human history, we could start to communicate with others without the fear of others listening in on our communications.
So who invented this amazing machine?
And, so who invented it? Well, where Diffie, Hellman and Merkle proposed that it could exist, and it was then up to Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman to create the actual working version of it (RSA). And, so, end of story!
But, no! That’s not the full story. Clifford Cocks, James Ellis, and Malcolm Williamson at GCHQ had also proposed and had found the solution to public key encryption before the others. And, while Diffie and Hellman published their work in 1976, and Rivest, Shamir and Adleman published in 1977, the GCHQ team were working on their method at the start of the 1970s. Unfortunately, the work was not disclosed at the time due to national security issues.
James, in fact, proposed the possibility of public key encryption in 1970, and then in 1973, came up with a factoring system that created a public key method. Malcolm improved it in 1974, and then Clifford integrated it into a protocol that could be used in practice. James died in November 1976, and which was just one month after the official public announcement of his discovery.
James Ellis died on 25 November 1997, a month before the public announcement was made.
And, so, in 2021, their contribution was further recognized with their admission into the Crytological Hall of Honor at the NSA (National Security Agency). Basically, in terms of cybersecurity, it is the equivalent of a musical Hall of Fame that only the likes of Bob Dylan or The Beatles would have entry to. At present, there are just 104 people admitted to the Crytological Hall of Honor.
With humbleness, Clifford Cocks has outlined:
“For this award, principal recognition should go to James Ellis for his truly original mind, and for having the idea that secure communication is possible without any primary exchange. At the time, this idea was so outrageous, but he showed how it might be done.”
Conclusions
And, so, in cybersecurity, and in protecting our citizens, we all stand on their shoulders. The amazingness of the human brain will also find new ways to solve our existing problems and build worlds that are currently beyond our imagination. Public key encryption has gone on to become a thorn in the side of law enforcement and defence agencies, but that’s another story!
If you want to learn how RSA actually works, try here: