Two Cryptographers Win Turing Prize in the Midst of Apple’s Fight with FBI
It may be no coincidence that the two winners of this year’s Turing Award did much to shape one of the most controversial questions of our time: whether the government has the right to unlock our digital secrets. The $1 million award announced on Tuesday is awarded by the Association for Computing Machinery, and often dubbed the Nobel Prize of computing.
Most likely, Apple wouldn’t be battling the FBI over iPhone security had Martin Hellman and Whitfield Diffie not figured out a way for two parties to communicate securely over insecure digital networks using pairs of so-called public and private cryptographic keys. And Diffie, in particular, has long been an outspoken advocate of an individual’s right to privacy in the face of government surveillance demands. So the timing is nothing if not auspicious in light of the Apple-FBI spat.
Hellman and Diffie discovered an ingenious mathematical algorithm that makes it possible to encrypt a message using a person’s public key together with your own private key so that it can be unlocked using that person’s private key and your public one. But any eavesdropper cannot practically unlock the message using the public keys alone.
A British cryptographer, James Ellis, may have separately invented public-key cryptography several years before Hellman and Diffie. However, since Ellis worked for the British code-breaking agency GCHQ at the time, his efforts—somewhat ironically—remained secret for many years.
(Read more: "DoJ to Apple: Unlocking the iPhone Won't Set a Legal Precedent," "In Apple vs. the FBI, There Is No Technical Middle Ground," "Apple's 'Code = Speech' Mistake")
Keep Reading
Most Popular
DeepMind’s cofounder: Generative AI is just a phase. What’s next is interactive AI.
“This is a profound moment in the history of technology,” says Mustafa Suleyman.
What to know about this autumn’s covid vaccines
New variants will pose a challenge, but early signs suggest the shots will still boost antibody responses.
Human-plus-AI solutions mitigate security threats
With the right human oversight, emerging technologies like artificial intelligence can help keep business and customer data secure
Next slide, please: A brief history of the corporate presentation
From million-dollar slide shows to Steve Jobs’s introduction of the iPhone, a bit of show business never hurt plain old business.
Stay connected
Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review
Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.