

The transmitter of a message uses a private key to sign the message, while the receiver uses the transmitter’s public key to authenticate it. Reversing the process provides a digital signature. This asymmetric cryptosystem is designed in such a way that the calculation of the private key from the public key is not feasible computationally, even though one uniquely determines the other. In Diffie and Hellman’s invention, a public key, which is not secret and can be freely distributed, is used for encryption, while a private key, that need never leave the receiving device, is used for decryption. In “New Directions in Cryptography,” Diffie and Hellman presented an algorithm that showed that asymmetric or public-key cryptography was possible. In addition, overuse of a particular key may provide an opponent with sufficient ciphertext to break the cryptosystem (i.e., discover the key). Two significant shortcomings of symmetric cryptosystems are the need for a secure means of key transfer and, because both parties have the same key, one could forge a message to oneself, claiming it came from the other.

Supplying these keys-key management-was a major limitation of the flexibility of encrypted communications. In the past, when two parties were seeking to establish secure communications, they needed to have identical keys. The fact that it is so central to the field is amazing.” “It’s the third time the Turing award has been given to cryptographers.

“Naturally I’m thrilled by this by this award, but thrilled for cryptography,” Diffie said. The Diffie-Hellman Protocol protects daily Internet communications and trillions of dollars in financial transactions. On a daily basis, individuals establish secure online connections with banks, e-commerce sites, email servers and the cloud.ĭiffie and Hellman’s groundbreaking 1976 paper, “New Directions in Cryptography,” introduced the ideas of public-key cryptography and digital signatures, which are the foundation for most regularly-used security protocols on the Internet today. The ability for two parties to communicate privately over a secure channel is fundamental for billions of people around the world. Diffie, former Chief Security Officer of Sun Microsystems and Hellman, Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, will receive the award and the prize this summer at AMC’s annual Awards Banquet. The ACM Turing Award, often referred to as the “Nobel Prize of Computing,” carries a $1 million prize with financial support provided by Google. Turing Award for critical contributions to modern cryptography. ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery has announced at RSA Conference that it has awarded crypto pioneers Whitfield Diffie and Martin E.
