What a guy. ``PGP has done a good deal for the practice of cryptology. It's close to my heart because it's close to my original objectives.'' --Whitfield Diffie, Sun Microsystems Conference in Maryland? Maybe some of those NSA spooks will learn something :) ------- Forwarded Message Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1993 21:20:10 -0400 From: farber@central.cis.upenn.edu (David Farber) Subject: UMBC talk 10/20: Diffie on "Key Escrow, Privacy, and Good Business" Precedence: list Distinguished Lecture Series sponsored by The Department of Computer Science The Department of Information Systems The Maryland Center for Telecommunications Research University of Maryland Baltimore County KEY ESCROW, PRIVACY, AND GOOD BUSINESS WHITFIELD DIFFIE SUN MICROSYSTEMS The U.S. Federal Government is pushing a plan to adopt a federal standard cryptographic system whose workings are secret and which enables the government to read messages whenever it considers this necessary. We will examine the implications not only for personal privacy, but for the future of the American computer and communications industries in a global economy in which no country is any longer big enough to dictate the rules. -- o -- Whitfield Diffie, who holds the position of Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems, is best known for his 1975 discovery of the concept of public key cryptography, for which he was recently awarded a Doctorate in Technical Sciences (Honoris Causa) by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. For a dozen years prior to assuming his present position in 1991, Diffie was Manager of Secure Systems Research for Northern Telecom, functioning as the center of expertise in advanced security technologies throughout the corporation. Among his achievements in this position was the design of the key management architecture for NT's recently released PDSO security system for X.25 packet networks. Diffie received a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1965. Prior to becoming interested in cryptography, he worked on the development of the Mathlab symbolic manipulation system --- sponsored jointly at Mitre and the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory --- and later on proof of correctness of computer programs at Stanford University. He is the recipient of the IEEE Information Theory Society Best Paper Award for 1979 and the IEEE Donald E. Fink award for 1981. 1:00pm Wednesday, October 20, 1993 Lecture Hall 5 Engineering and Computer Science Building University of Maryland Baltimore County Baltimore Maryland coffee and discussion 2:00pm-3:00pm in ECS 210I For additional information, contact Angie Silanskis, 410-455-3000. ------- End of Forwarded Message