Post-Snowden Cryptography: 04.05.2015 at ETH Zurich
Recently, a series of unprecedented leaks by Edward Snowden had made it possible for the first time to get a glimpse into the actual capabilities and limitations of the techniques used by the NSA to eavesdrop to computers and other communication devices. In this talk, Prof. Shamir will survey some of the things they have learned, and discuss possible countermeasures against these capabilities.
Adi Shamir, an Israeli cryptographer and computer scientist and co-winner, with American computer scientists Leonard M. Adleman and Ronald L. Rivest, of the 2002 A.M. Turing Award, the highest honour in computer science, for their “ingenious contribution for making public-key cryptography useful in practice.” The three scientists patented their “Cryptographic Communication System and Method,” commonly known as RSA encryption, and assigned patent rights to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Shamir holds more than a dozen patents related to cryptography and computer science. In addition to the Turing Award, Shamir, Adleman, and Rivest were awarded the 2000 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Koji Kobayashi Computers and Communications Award. Shamir’s other awards include the Israel Mathematical Union Erdős Prize in Mathematics (1983), the Association for Computing Machinery Paris Kannellakis Theory and Practice Award (1996), and the Israel Prize in Computer Science (2008).