This is a list of cryptographers.

Cryptography Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adve ...

is the practice and study of techniques for

secure communication Secure communication is when two entities are communicating and do not want a third party to listen in. For this to be the case, the entities need to communicate in a way that is unsusceptible to eavesdropping or interception. Secure communication ...

in the presence of third parties called adversaries.

Pre twentieth century

Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi Abu ‘Abd ar-Raḥmān al-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad ibn ‘Amr ibn Tammām al-Farāhīdī al-Azdī al-Yaḥmadī ( ar, أبو عبدالرحمن الخليل بن أحمد الفراهيدي; 718 – 786 CE), known as Al-Farāhīdī, or Al-Khalīl, ...

: wrote a (now lost) book on cryptography titled the "''Book of Cryptographic Messages''". *

Al-Kindi Abū Yūsuf Yaʻqūb ibn ʼIsḥāq aṣ-Ṣabbāḥ al-Kindī (; ar, أبو يوسف يعقوب بن إسحاق الصبّاح الكندي; la, Alkindus; c. 801–873 AD) was an Arab Muslim philosopher, polymath, mathematician, physician ...

, 9th century

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walte ...

polymath and originator of

frequency analysis In cryptanalysis, frequency analysis (also known as counting letters) is the study of the frequency of letters or groups of letters in a ciphertext. The method is used as an aid to breaking classical ciphers. Frequency analysis is based on ...

. *

Athanasius Kircher Athanasius Kircher (2 May 1602 – 27 November 1680) was a German Jesuit scholar and polymath who published around 40 major works, most notably in the fields of comparative religion, geology, and medicine. Kircher has been compared to ...

, attempts to decipher crypted messages * Augustus the Younger, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, wrote a standard book on cryptography * Ibn Wahshiyya: published several cipher alphabets that were used to encrypt magic formulas. *

John Dee John Dee (13 July 1527 – 1608 or 1609) was an English mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, teacher, occultist, and alchemist. He was the court astronomer for, and advisor to, Elizabeth I, and spent much of his time on alchemy, divinatio ...

, wrote an occult book, which in fact was a cover for crypted text * Ibn 'Adlan: 13th-century cryptographer who made important contributions on the sample size of the frequency analysis. *

Duke of Mantua During its history as independent entity, Mantua had different rulers who governed on the city and the lands of Mantua from the Middle Ages to the early modern period. From 970 to 1115, the Counts of Mantua were members of the House of Canos ...

Francesco I Gonzaga Portrait of Francesco I Gonzaga Francesco I Gonzaga (1366 – 7 March 1407) was ruler of Mantua from 1382 to 1407. He was also a condottiero. Succeeding his father Ludovico II Gonzaga in 1382, he led a policy of balance between the nearby ...

is the one who used the earliest example of homophonic

Substitution cipher In cryptography, a substitution cipher is a method of encrypting in which units of plaintext are replaced with the ciphertext, in a defined manner, with the help of a key; the "units" may be single letters (the most common), pairs of letters, t ...

in early 1400s. * Ibn al-Durayhim: gave detailed descriptions of eight cipher systems that discussed substitution ciphers, leading to the earliest suggestion of a "tableau" of the kind that two centuries later became known as the "Vigenère table". *

Ahmad al-Qalqashandi Shihāb al-Dīn Abū 'l-Abbās Aḥmad ibn ‘Alī ibn Aḥmad ‘Abd Allāh al-Fazārī al-Shāfiʿī better known by the epithet al-Qalqashandī ( ar, شهاب الدين أحمد بن علي بن أحمد القلقشندي; 1355 or 1356 &ndash ...

: Author of ''Subh al-a 'sha'', a fourteen volume encyclopedia in Arabic, which included a section on cryptology. The list of ciphers in this work included both substitution and transposition, and for the first time, a cipher with multiple substitutions for each plaintext letter. *

Charles Babbage Charles Babbage (; 26 December 1791 – 18 October 1871) was an English polymath. A mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer, Babbage originated the concept of a digital programmable computer. Babbage is considered ...

, UK, 19th century mathematician who, about the time of the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included t ...

, secretly developed an effective attack against

polyalphabetic substitution A polyalphabetic cipher substitution, using multiple substitution alphabets. The Vigenère cipher is probably the best-known example of a polyalphabetic cipher, though it is a simplified special case. The Enigma machine is more complex but is st ...

ciphers. *

Leone Battista Alberti Leon Battista Alberti (; 14 February 1404 – 25 April 1472) was an Italian Renaissance humanist author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher, and cryptographer; he epitomised the nature of those identified now as polymaths. ...

polymath A polymath ( el, πολυμαθής, , "having learned much"; la, homo universalis, "universal human") is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific pro ...

/universal

genius Genius is a characteristic of original and exceptional insight in the performance of some art or endeavor that surpasses expectations, sets new standards for future works, establishes better methods of operation, or remains outside the capabilit ...

, inventor of

(more specifically, the Alberti cipher), and what may have been the first mechanical encryption aid. *

Giovanni Battista della Porta Giambattista della Porta (; 1535 – 4 February 1615), also known as Giovanni Battista Della Porta, was an Italian scholar, polymath and playwright who lived in Naples at the time of the Renaissance, Scientific Revolution and Reformation. Giamba ...

, author of a seminal work on cryptanalysis. *

Étienne Bazeries Étienne Bazeries (21 August 1846, in Port Vendres – 7 November 1931, in Noyon) was a French military cryptanalyst active between 1890 and the First World War. He is best known for developing the "Bazeries Cylinder", an improved version of Tho ...

, French, military, considered one of the greatest natural cryptanalysts. Best known for developing the "

Bazeries Cylinder The Jefferson disk, also called the Bazeries Cylinder or wheel cypher as named by Thomas Jefferson, is a cipher system using a set of wheels or disks, each with the 26 letters of the alphabet arranged around their edge. The order of the letters ...

" and his influential 1901 text ''Les Chiffres secrets dévoilés'' ("Secret ciphers unveiled"). *

Giovan Battista Bellaso Giovan Battista Bellaso (Brescia 1505–...) was an Italian cryptologist. The Vigenère cipher is named after Blaise de Vigenère, although Giovan Battista Bellaso had invented it before Vigenère described his autokey cipher. Biography Bellaso ...

, Italian cryptologist * Giovanni Fontana (engineer), wrote two encrypted books *

Hildegard of Bingen Hildegard of Bingen (german: Hildegard von Bingen; la, Hildegardis Bingensis; 17 September 1179), also known as Saint Hildegard and the Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German Benedictine abbess and polymath active as a writer, composer, philosopher ...

used her own alphabet to write letters. * Julius Caesar, Roman general/politician, has the Caesar cipher named after him, and a lost work on cryptography by Probus (probably Valerius Probus) is claimed to have covered his use of military cryptography in some detail. It is likely that he did not invent the cipher named after him, as other

substitution cipher In cryptography, a substitution cipher is a method of encrypting in which units of plaintext are replaced with the ciphertext, in a defined manner, with the help of a key; the "units" may be single letters (the most common), pairs of letters, t ...

s were in use well before his time. * Friedrich Kasiski, author of the first published attack on the

Vigenère cipher The Vigenère cipher () is a method of encrypting alphabetic text by using a series of interwoven Caesar ciphers, based on the letters of a keyword. It employs a form of polyalphabetic substitution. First described by Giovan Battista Bellas ...

, now known as the Kasiski test. *

Auguste Kerckhoffs Auguste Kerckhoffs (19 January 1835 – 9 August 1903) was a Dutch linguistics, linguist and cryptographer in the late 19th century. Biography Kerckhoffs was born in Nuth, the Netherlands, as Jean Guillaume Auguste Victor François Huber ...

, known for contributing cipher design principles. *

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...

, author of the book, ''A Few Words on Secret Writing'', an essay on cryptanalysis, and '' The Gold Bug'', a short story featuring the use of letter frequencies in the solution of a cryptogram. *

Johannes Trithemius Johannes Trithemius (; 1 February 1462 – 13 December 1516), born Johann Heidenberg, was a German Benedictine abbot and a polymath who was active in the German Renaissance as a lexicographer, chronicler, cryptographer, and occultist. He is cons ...

, mystic and first to describe ''tableaux'' (tables) for use in

. Wrote an early work on

steganography Steganography ( ) is the practice of representing information within another message or physical object, in such a manner that the presence of the information is not evident to human inspection. In computing/electronic contexts, a computer file, ...

and cryptography generally. *

Philips van Marnix, lord of Sint-Aldegonde Philips of Marnix, Lord of Saint-Aldegonde, Lord of West-Souburg (Dutch: Filips van Marnix, heer van Sint-Aldegonde, heer van West-Souburg, French: Philippe de Marnix, seigneur de Sainte-Aldegonde; 7 March/20 July 1540 – 15 December 1598) was a ...

, deciphered Spanish messages for

William the Silent William the Silent (24 April 153310 July 1584), also known as William the Taciturn (translated from nl, Willem de Zwijger), or, more commonly in the Netherlands, William of Orange ( nl, Willem van Oranje), was the main leader of the Dutch Re ...

during the Dutch revolt against the Spanish. *

John Wallis John Wallis (; la, Wallisius; ) was an English clergyman and mathematician who is given partial credit for the development of infinitesimal calculus. Between 1643 and 1689 he served as chief cryptographer for Parliament and, later, the roya ...

codebreaker for Cromwell and Charles II *

Sir Charles Wheatstone Sir Charles Wheatstone FRS FRSE DCL LLD (6 February 1802 – 19 October 1875), was an English scientist and inventor of many scientific breakthroughs of the Victorian era, including the English concertina, the stereoscope (a device for dis ...

, inventor of the so-called

Playfair cipher The Playfair cipher or Playfair square or Wheatstone–Playfair cipher is a manual symmetric encryption technique and was the first literal digram substitution cipher. The scheme was invented in 1854 by Charles Wheatstone, but bears the name o ...

and general polymath.

World War I and World War II wartime cryptographers

Arne Beurling Arne Carl-August Beurling (3 February 1905 – 20 November 1986) was a Swedish mathematician and professor of mathematics at Uppsala University (1937–1954) and later at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Beurling worked ...

, Swedish mathematician and cryptograph. *

Lambros D. Callimahos Lambros Demetrios Callimahos (December 16, 1910 – October 28, 1977) was a US Army cryptologist and a flute player. Early life and education Callimahos was born in Alexandria of Greek parents; the family emigrated to the United States when he ...

, US, NSA, worked with William F. Friedman, taught NSA cryptanalysts. *

Ann Z. Caracristi Ann Zeilinger Caracristi (February 1, 1921 – January 10, 2016) was an American cryptanalyst, former Deputy Director of the National Security Agency, where she served at various positions over a 40-year career. She served as a member of the Se ...

, US, SIS, solved Japanese Army codes in World War II, later became deputy director of

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collectio ...

. * Alec Naylor Dakin, UK, Hut 4,

Bletchley park Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following ...

during World War II. *

Ludomir Danilewicz Ludomir Danilewicz (1905–1960) was a Polish engineer and, for some ten years before the outbreak of World War II, one of the four directors of the AVA Radio Company in Warsaw, Poland. AVA designed and built radio equipment for the Polish Gene ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is divided into Voivodeships of Poland, sixteen voivodeships and is the fifth most populous member state of the European Union (EU), with over 38 mill ...

, Biuro Szyfrow, helped to construct the Enigma machine copies to break the ciphers. * Alastair Denniston, UK, director of GC&CS at

Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following ...

from 1919 to 1942. *

Agnes Meyer Driscoll Agnes Meyer Driscoll (July 24, 1889 – September 16, 1971), known as "Miss Aggie" or "Madame X'", was an American cryptanalyst during both World War I and World War II and was known as “the first lady of naval cryptology." Early years Born in ...

, US, broke several Japanese ciphers. *

Genevieve Grotjan Feinstein Genevieve Marie Grotjan Feinstein (April 30, 1913 – August 10, 2006) was an American mathematician and cryptanalyst. She worked for the Signals Intelligence Service throughout World War II, during which time she played an important role in d ...

, US, SIS, noticed the pattern that led to breaking

Purple Purple is any of a variety of colors with hue between red and blue. In the RGB color model used in computer and television screens, purples are produced by mixing red and blue light. In the RYB color model historically used by painters, ...

. * Elizebeth Smith Friedman, US,

Coast Guard A coast guard or coastguard is a Maritime Security Regimes, maritime security organization of a particular country. The term embraces wide range of responsibilities in different countries, from being a heavily armed military force with cust ...

and

US Treasury Department The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States, where it serves as an executive department. The department oversees the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and t ...

cryptographer, co-invented modern cryptography. * William F. Friedman, US, SIS, introduced statistical methods into

cryptography Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adve ...

. * Cecilia Elspeth Giles, UK,

* Jack Good UK, GC&CS,

worked with

Alan Turing Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical c ...

on the statistical approach to cryptanalysis. * Nigel de Grey, UK,

Room 40 Room 40, also known as 40 O.B. (old building; officially part of NID25), was the cryptanalysis section of the British Admiralty during the First World War. The group, which was formed in October 1914, began when Rear-Admiral Henry Oliver, th ...

, played an important role in the decryption of the Zimmermann Telegram during World War I. *

Dillwyn Knox Alfred Dillwyn "Dilly" Knox, CMG (23 July 1884 – 27 February 1943) was a British classics scholar and papyrologist at King's College, Cambridge and a codebreaker. As a member of the Room 40 codebreaking unit he helped decrypt the Zimme ...

, UK,

and GC&CS, broke commercial Enigma cipher as used by the

Abwehr The ''Abwehr'' ( German for ''resistance'' or ''defence'', but the word usually means ''counterintelligence'' in a military context; ) was the German military-intelligence service for the '' Reichswehr'' and the ''Wehrmacht'' from 1920 to 1944. ...

(German military intelligence). * Solomon Kullback US, SIS, helped break the Japanese Red cipher, later Chief Scientist at the

. * Frank W. Lewis US, worked with William F. Friedman, puzzle master * William Hamilton Martin and Bernon F. Mitchell, U.S.

cryptologists who defected to the Soviet Union in 1960 *

Leo Marks Leopold Samuel Marks, (24 September 1920 – 15 January 2001) was an English writer, screenwriter, and cryptographer. During the Second World War he headed the codes office supporting resistance agents in occupied Europe for the secret Special ...

UK,

SOE SOE may refer to: Organizations * State-owned enterprise * Special Operations Executive, a British World War II clandestine sabotage and resistance organisation ** Special Operations Executive in the Netherlands, or Englandspiel * Society of Opera ...

cryptography director, author and playwright. * Donald Michie UK, GC&CS,

worked on

Cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher Cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher was the process that enabled the British to read high-level German army messages during World War II. The British Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park decrypted many communications betwe ...

and the

Colossus computer Colossus was a set of computers developed by British codebreakers in the years 1943–1945 to help in the cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher. Colossus used thermionic valves (vacuum tubes) to perform Boolean and counting operations. Colossus ...

. *

Max Newman Maxwell Herman Alexander Newman, FRS, (7 February 1897 – 22 February 1984), generally known as Max Newman, was a British mathematician and codebreaker. His work in World War II led to the construction of Colossus, the world's first operatio ...

, UK, GC&CS,

headed the section that developed the

for

. *

Georges Painvin Georges Jean Painvin (; 28 January 1886 – 21 January 1980) was a French geologist and industrialist, best known as the cryptanalyst who broke the ADFGX/ADFGVX cipher used by the Germans during the First World War. Early life Painvin was born i ...

French, broke the

ADFGVX cipher In cryptography, the ADFGVX cipher was a manually applied field cipher used by the Imperial German Army during World War I. It was used to transmit messages secretly using wireless telegraphy. ADFGVX was in fact an extension of an earlier cipher ca ...

during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fig ...

. *

Marian Rejewski Marian Adam Rejewski (; 16 August 1905 – 13 February 1980) was a Polish mathematician and cryptography, cryptologist who in late 1932 reconstructed the sight-unseen German military Enigma machine, Enigma cipher machine, aided by limited docu ...

Biuro Szyfrów The Cipher Bureau, in Polish: ''Biuro Szyfrów'' (), was the interwar Polish General Staff's Second Department's unit charged with SIGINT and both cryptography (the ''use'' of ciphers and codes) and cryptanalysis (the ''study'' of ciphers and ...

, a Polish mathematician and cryptologist who, in 1932, solved the Enigma machine with plugboard, the main cipher device then in use by Germany. * John Joseph Rochefort US, made major contributions to the break into

JN-25 The vulnerability of Japanese naval codes and ciphers was crucial to the conduct of World War II, and had an important influence on foreign relations between Japan and the west in the years leading up to the war as well. Every Japanese code was ...

after the

attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawa ...

. * Leo Rosen US, SIS, deduced that the Japanese Purple machine was built with stepping switches. * Frank Rowlett US, SIS, leader of the team that broke

. * Jerzy Różycki,

, helped break German Enigma ciphers. * Luigi Sacco, Italy, Italian General and author of the ''Manual of Cryptography''. *

Laurance Safford Captain, U.S.N. Laurance Frye Safford (October 22, 1893 – May 15, 1973) was a U.S. Navy cryptologist. He established the Naval cryptologic organization after World War I, and headed the effort more or less constantly until shortly after t ...

US, chief cryptographer for the US Navy for 2 decades+, including World War II. * Abraham Sinkov US, SIS. * John Tiltman UK, Brigadier,

, GC&CS,

GCHQ Government Communications Headquarters, commonly known as GCHQ, is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the Uni ...

, NSA. Extraordinary length and range of cryptographic service *

Alan Mathison Turing Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical comp ...

UK, GC&CS,

where he was chief cryptographer, inventor of the

Bombe The bombe () was an electro-mechanical device used by British cryptologists to help decipher German Enigma-machine-encrypted secret messages during World War II. The US Navy and US Army later produced their own machines to the same functiona ...

that was used in decrypting Enigma, mathematician, logician, and renowned pioneer of

Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includin ...

. *

William Thomas Tutte William Thomas Tutte Order of Canada, OC Royal Society, FRS Royal Society of Canada, FRSC (; 14 May 1917 – 2 May 2002) was an English and Canadian cryptanalysis, codebreaker and mathematician. During the Second World War, he made a brilliant a ...

UK, GC&CS,

, with John Tiltman, broke Lorenz SZ 40/42 encryption machine (codenamed Tunny) leading to the development of the

. *

William Stone Weedon William Stone Weedon (July 5, 1908 – May 13, 1984), was a scholar, university professor (philosophy, mathematics, logic, linguistic analysis), and U.S. Navy Officer. Early life and education Weedon was born in 1908 in Wilmington, Delaware, the ...

, US, *

Gordon Welchman William Gordon Welchman (15 June 1906 – 8 October 1985) was a British mathematician. During World War II, he worked at Britain's secret codebreaking centre, "Station X" at Bletchley Park, where he was one of the most important contributors. ...

UK, GC&CS,

where he was head of Hut Six (German Army and Air Force Enigma

cipher In cryptography, a cipher (or cypher) is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption—a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is ''encipherment''. To encipher or encode i ...

decryption In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can dec ...

), made an important contribution to the design of the

. * Herbert Yardley US, MI8 (US), author "The American Black Chamber", worked in China as a cryptographer and briefly in Canada. * Henryk Zygalski,

, helped break German Enigma ciphers. * Karl Stein German, Head of the Division IVa (security of own processes) at Cipher Department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht. Discoverer of

Stein manifold In mathematics, in the theory of several complex variables and complex manifolds, a Stein manifold is a complex submanifold of the vector space of ''n'' complex dimensions. They were introduced by and named after . A Stein space is similar to a St ...

. *

Gisbert Hasenjaeger Gisbert F. R. Hasenjaeger (June 1, 1919 – September 2, 2006) was a German mathematical logician. Independently and simultaneously with Leon Henkin in 1949, he developed a new proof of the completeness theorem of Kurt Gödel for predicate l ...

German, Tester of the Enigma. Discovered new proof of the

completeness theorem Complete may refer to: Logic * Completeness (logic) * Completeness of a theory, the property of a theory that every formula in the theory's language or its negation is provable Mathematics * The completeness of the real numbers, which implies t ...

Kurt Gödel Kurt Friedrich Gödel ( , ; April 28, 1906 – January 14, 1978) was a logician, mathematician, and philosopher. Considered along with Aristotle and Gottlob Frege to be one of the most significant logicians in history, Gödel had an imm ...

for

predicate logic First-order logic—also known as predicate logic, quantificational logic, and first-order predicate calculus—is a collection of formal systems used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. First-order logic uses quanti ...

. * Heinrich Scholz German, Worked in Division IVa at OKW. Logician and pen friend of Alan Turning. *

Gottfried Köthe Gottfried Maria Hugo Köthe (born 25 December 1905 in Graz – died 30 April 1989 in Frankfurt) was an Austrian mathematician working in abstract algebra and functional analysis. Scientific career In 1923 Köthe enrolled in the University of ...

German, Cryptanalyst at OKW. Mathematician created theory of

topological vector spaces In mathematics, a topological vector space (also called a linear topological space and commonly abbreviated TVS or t.v.s.) is one of the basic structures investigated in functional analysis. A topological vector space is a vector space that is al ...

. *

Ernst Witt Ernst Witt (26 June 1911 – 3 July 1991) was a German mathematician, one of the leading algebraists of his time. Biography Witt was born on the island of Alsen, then a part of the German Empire. Shortly after his birth, his parents moved the ...

German, Mathematician at OKW. Mathematical Discoveries Named After Ernst Witt. * Helmut Grunsky German, worked in

complex analysis Complex analysis, traditionally known as the theory of functions of a complex variable, is the branch of mathematical analysis that investigates functions of complex numbers. It is helpful in many branches of mathematics, including algebra ...

and

geometric function theory Geometric function theory is the study of geometric properties of analytic functions. A fundamental result in the theory is the Riemann mapping theorem. Topics in geometric function theory The following are some of the most important topics in ge ...

. He introduced Grunsky's theorem and the

Grunsky inequalities In complex analysis and geometric function theory, the Grunsky matrices, or Grunsky operators, are infinite matrices introduced in 1939 by Helmut Grunsky. The matrices correspond to either a single holomorphic function on the unit disk or a pair of ...

. * Georg Hamel. * Oswald Teichmüller German, Temporarily employed at OKW as cryptanalyst. Introduced

quasiconformal mapping In mathematical complex analysis, a quasiconformal mapping, introduced by and named by , is a homeomorphism between plane domains which to first order takes small circles to small ellipses of bounded eccentricity. Intuitively, let ''f'' : '' ...

s and differential geometric methods into

. Described by Friedrich L. Bauer as an extreme Nazi and a true genius. * Hans Rohrbach German, Mathematician at AA/Pers Z, the German department of state, civilian diplomatic cryptological agency. * Wolfgang Franz German, Mathematician who worked at OKW. Later significant discoveries in

Topology In mathematics, topology (from the Greek words , and ) is concerned with the properties of a geometric object that are preserved under continuous deformations, such as stretching, twisting, crumpling, and bending; that is, without closing ho ...

. * Werner Weber German, Mathematician at OKW. *

Georg Aumann Georg Aumann (11 November 1906, Munich, Germany – 4 August 1980), was a German mathematician. He was known for his work in general topology and regulated functions. During World War II, he worked as part of a group of five mathematicians, rec ...

German, Mathematician at OKW. His doctoral student was Friedrich L. Bauer. * Otto Leiberich German, Mathematician who worked as a linguist at the Cipher Department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht. *

Alexander Aigner Alexander Aigner (18 May 1909 – 2 September 1988) was number theorist and a full university professor for mathematics at the Karl Franzens University in Graz, Austria. During World War II he was part of a group of five mathematicians, whic ...

German, Mathematician who worked at OKW. *

Erich Hüttenhain Erich Hüttenhain (26 January 1905 in Siegen – 1 December 1990 in Brühl) was a German academic mathematician and cryptographer (Cryptography) and considered a leading cryptanalyst in the Third Reich. He was Head of the cryptanalysis unit ...

German, Chief cryptanalyst of and led Chi IV (section 4) of the Cipher Department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht. A German mathematician and cryptanalyst who tested a number of German cipher machines and found them to be breakable. *

Wilhelm Fenner Wilhelm Fenner (* 14 April 1891 in Saint Petersburg † after 1946) was a German Cryptanalysis, cryptanalyst, before and during the time of World War II in the OKW/Chi, the Cipher Department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht, working within ...

German, Chief Cryptologist and Director of Cipher Department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht. *

Walther Fricke Walther is a masculine given name and a surname. It is a German form of Walter, which is derived from the Old High German ''Walthari'', containing the elements ''wald'' -"power", "brightness" or "forest" and ''hari'' -"warrior". The name was firs ...

German, Worked alongside Dr Erich Hüttenhain at Cipher Department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht. Mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst and linguist. *

Fritz Menzer Ostwin Fritz Menzer (6 April 1908 in Herrndorf near Niederschöna in Saxony between Chemnitz and Dresden – 25 October 2005 in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe) was a German cryptologist, who before and during World War II, worked in the In 7/VI, the ...

German. Inventor of SG39 and SG41.

Other pre-computer

Rosario Candela Rosario Candela (March 7, 1890 – October 3, 1953) was an Italian American architect who achieved renown through his apartment building designs in New York City, primarily during the boom years of the 1920s. He is credited with defining the cit ...

, US, Architect and notable amateur cryptologist who authored books and taught classes on the subject to civilians at

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also adm ...

. * Claude Elwood Shannon, US, founder of

information theory Information theory is the scientific study of the quantification, storage, and communication of information. The field was originally established by the works of Harry Nyquist and Ralph Hartley, in the 1920s, and Claude Shannon in the 1940s. ...

, proved the

one-time pad In cryptography, the one-time pad (OTP) is an encryption technique that cannot be cracked, but requires the use of a single-use pre-shared key that is not smaller than the message being sent. In this technique, a plaintext is paired with a r ...

to be unbreakable.

Modern

See also: Modern cryptographers for a more exhaustive list.

Symmetric-key algorithm inventors

* Ross Anderson, UK,

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

, co-inventor of the Serpent cipher. * Paulo S. L. M. Barreto, Brazilian,

University of São Paulo The University of São Paulo ( pt, Universidade de São Paulo, USP) is a public university in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. It is the largest Brazilian public university and the country's most prestigious educational institution, the best ...

, co-inventor of the Whirlpool hash function. * George Blakley, US, independent inventor of

secret sharing Secret sharing (also called secret splitting) refers to methods for distributing a secret among a group, in such a way that no individual holds any intelligible information about the secret, but when a sufficient number of individuals combine th ...

. * Eli Biham, Israel, co-inventor of the Serpent cipher. *

Don Coppersmith Don Coppersmith (born 1950) is a cryptographer and mathematician. He was involved in the design of the Data Encryption Standard block cipher at IBM, particularly the design of the S-boxes, strengthening them against differential cryptanalysis. ...

, co-inventor of DES and

MARS Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmos ...

ciphers. * Joan Daemen, Belgian, co-developer of Rijndael which became the

Advanced Encryption Standard The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), also known by its original name Rijndael (), is a specification for the encryption of electronic data established by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2001. AES is a variant ...

(AES), and

Keccak SHA-3 (Secure Hash Algorithm 3) is the latest member of the Secure Hash Algorithm family of standards, released by NIST on August 5, 2015. Although part of the same series of standards, SHA-3 is internally different from the MD5-like stru ...

which became

SHA-3 SHA-3 (Secure Hash Algorithm 3) is the latest member of the Secure Hash Algorithm family of standards, released by NIST on August 5, 2015. Although part of the same series of standards, SHA-3 is internally different from the MD5-like stru ...

. * Horst Feistel, German, IBM, namesake of Feistel networks and

Lucifer Lucifer is one of various figures in folklore associated with the planet Venus. The entity's name was subsequently absorbed into Christianity as a name for the devil. Modern scholarship generally translates the term in the relevant Bible passage ...

cipher. * Lars Knudsen,

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , establishe ...

, co-inventor of the Serpent cipher. *

Ralph Merkle Ralph C. Merkle (born February 2, 1952) is a computer scientist and mathematician. He is one of the inventors of public-key cryptography, the inventor of cryptographic hashing, and more recently a researcher and speaker on cryonics. Contribution ...

, US, inventor of Merkle trees. *

Bart Preneel Bart Preneel (born 15 October 1963 in Leuven, Belgium) is a Flemish cryptographer and cryptanalyst. He is a professor at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, in the COSIC group. He was the president of the International Association for Cryptologic ...

, Belgian, co-inventor of

RIPEMD-160 RIPEMD (RIPE Message Digest) is a family of cryptographic hash functions developed in 1992 (the original RIPEMD) and 1996 (other variants). There are five functions in the family: RIPEMD, RIPEMD-128, RIPEMD-160, RIPEMD-256, and RIPEMD-320, of w ...

. *

Vincent Rijmen Vincent Rijmen (; born 16 October 1970) is a Belgian cryptographer and one of the two designers of the Rijndael, the Advanced Encryption Standard. Rijmen is also the co-designer of the WHIRLPOOL cryptographic hash function, and the block cip ...

, Belgian, co-developer of Rijndael which became the

(AES). * Ronald L. Rivest, US, MIT, inventor of RC cipher series and MD algorithm series. *

Bruce Schneier Bruce Schneier (; born January 15, 1963) is an American cryptographer, computer security professional, privacy specialist, and writer. Schneier is a Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and a Fellow at the Berkman Klein Ce ...

, US, inventor of Blowfish and co-inventor of

Twofish In cryptography, Twofish is a symmetric key block cipher with a block size of 128 bits and key sizes up to 256 bits. It was one of the five finalists of the Advanced Encryption Standard contest, but it was not selected for standardization. Two ...

and Threefish. * Xuejia Lai, CH, co-inventor of

International Data Encryption Algorithm In cryptography, the International Data Encryption Algorithm (IDEA), originally called Improved Proposed Encryption Standard (IPES), is a symmetric-key block cipher designed by James Massey of ETH Zurich and Xuejia Lai and was first described i ...

(IDEA). *

Adi Shamir Adi Shamir ( he, עדי שמיר; born July 6, 1952) is an Israeli cryptographer. He is a co-inventor of the Rivest–Shamir–Adleman (RSA) algorithm (along with Ron Rivest and Len Adleman), a co-inventor of the Feige–Fiat–Shamir identifica ...

, Israel,

Weizmann Institute The Weizmann Institute of Science ( he, מכון ויצמן למדע ''Machon Vaitzman LeMada'') is a public research university in Rehovot, Israel, established in 1934, 14 years before the State of Israel. It differs from other Israeli un ...

, inventor of

Asymmetric-key algorithm inventors

Leonard Adleman Leonard Adleman (born December 31, 1945) is an American computer scientist. He is one of the creators of the RSA encryption algorithm, for which he received the 2002 Turing Award, often called the Nobel prize of Computer science. He is also know ...

, US, USC, the 'A' in

RSA RSA may refer to: Organizations Academia and education * Rabbinical Seminary of America, a yeshiva in New York City *Regional Science Association International (formerly the Regional Science Association), a US-based learned society *Renaissance S ...

. *

David Chaum David Lee Chaum (born 1955) is an American computer scientist, cryptographer, and inventor. He is known as a pioneer in cryptography and privacy-preserving technologies, and widely recognized as the inventor of digital cash. His 1982 dissertatio ...

, US, inventor of blind signatures. *

Clifford Cocks Clifford Christopher Cocks (born 28 December 1950) is a British mathematician and cryptographer. In 1973, while working at the United Kingdom Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), he invented a public-key cryptography algorithm equiv ...

, UK

first inventor of

, a fact that remained secret until 1997 and so was unknown to

Rivest Ronald Linn Rivest (; born May 6, 1947) is a cryptographer and an Institute Professor at MIT. He is a member of MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and a member of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intell ...

, Shamir, and

Adleman Adleman is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Leonard Adleman (born 1945), American theoretical computer scientist and professor of computer science and molecular biology * Robert H. Adleman (1919–1995), American novelist and h ...

. * Whitfield Diffie, US, (public) co-inventor of the Diffie-Hellman key-exchange protocol. *

Taher Elgamal Taher Elgamal (Arabic: طاهر الجمل) (born 18 August 1955) is an Egyptian cryptographer and entrepreneur. He has served as the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Security at Salesforce since 2013. Prior to that, he was the founder and CEO ...

, US (born Egyptian), inventor of the

Elgamal discrete log cryptosystem In cryptography, the ElGamal encryption system is an asymmetric key encryption algorithm for public-key cryptography which is based on the Diffie–Hellman key exchange. It was described by Taher Elgamal in 1985. ElGamal encryption is used in the ...

. *

Shafi Goldwasser en, Shafrira Goldwasser , name = Shafi Goldwasser , image = Shafi Goldwasser.JPG , caption = Shafi Goldwasser in 2010 , birth_place = New York City, New York, U.S. , birth_date = , death_dat ...

, US and Israel, MIT and

, co-discoverer of

zero-knowledge proofs In cryptography, a zero-knowledge proof or zero-knowledge protocol is a method by which one party (the prover) can prove to another party (the verifier) that a given statement is true while the prover avoids conveying any additional information a ...

, and of

Semantic security In cryptography, a semantically secure cryptosystem is one where only negligible information about the plaintext can be feasibly extracted from the ciphertext. Specifically, any probabilistic, polynomial-time algorithm (PPTA) that is given the cip ...

. *

Martin Hellman Martin Edward Hellman (born October 2, 1945) is an American cryptologist and mathematician, best known for his involvement with public key cryptography in cooperation with Whitfield Diffie and Ralph Merkle. Hellman is a longtime contributor to ...

, US, (public) co-inventor of the Diffie-Hellman key-exchange protocol. * Neal Koblitz, independent co-creator of

elliptic curve cryptography Elliptic-curve cryptography (ECC) is an approach to public-key cryptography based on the algebraic structure of elliptic curves over finite fields. ECC allows smaller keys compared to non-EC cryptography (based on plain Galois fields) to provide e ...

. * Alfred Menezes, co-inventor of MQV, an

elliptic curve In mathematics, an elliptic curve is a smooth, projective, algebraic curve of genus one, on which there is a specified point . An elliptic curve is defined over a field and describes points in , the Cartesian product of with itself. If ...

technique. *

Silvio Micali Silvio Micali (born October 13, 1954) is an Italian computer scientist, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the founder of Algorand. Micali's research centers on cryptography and information security. In 2012, he receive ...

, US (born Italian), MIT, co-discoverer of

, and of

. * Victor Miller, independent co-creator of

. *

David Naccache David Naccache is a cryptographer, currently a professor at the École normale supérieure and a member of its Computer Laboratory. He was previously a professor at Panthéon-Assas University. Biography He received his Ph.D. in 1995 from the ...

, inventor of the Naccache–Stern cryptosystem and of the

Naccache–Stern knapsack cryptosystem The Naccache–Stern Knapsack cryptosystem is an atypical public-key cryptosystem developed by David Naccache and Jacques Stern in 1997. This cryptosystem is deterministic, and hence is not semantically secure. While unbroken to date, this system ...

. * Moni Naor, co-inventor the Naor–Yung encryption paradigm for CCA security. * Rafail Ostrovsky, co-inventor of

Oblivious RAM An oblivious RAM (ORAM) simulator is a compiler that transforms algorithms in such a way that the resulting algorithms preserve the input-output behavior of the original algorithm but the distribution of memory access pattern of the transformed al ...

, of single-server Private Information Retrieval, and proactive cryptosystems. *

Pascal Paillier The Paillier cryptosystem, invented by and named after Pascal Paillier in 1999, is a probabilistic asymmetric algorithm for public key cryptography. The problem of computing ''n''-th residue classes is believed to be computationally difficult. The ...

, inventor of

Paillier encryption The Paillier cryptosystem, invented by and named after Pascal Paillier in 1999, is a probabilistic asymmetric algorithm for public key cryptography. The problem of computing ''n''-th residue classes is believed to be computationally difficult. The ...

. *

Michael O. Rabin Michael Oser Rabin ( he, מִיכָאֵל עוזר רַבִּין; born September 1, 1931) is an Israeli mathematician and computer scientist and a recipient of the Turing Award. Biography Early life and education Rabin was born in 1931 in ...

, Israel, inventor of Rabin encryption. * Ronald L. Rivest, US, MIT, the 'R' in

. *

, Israel,

, the 'S' in

. *

Moti Yung Mordechai M. "Moti" Yung is a cryptographer and computer scientist known for his work on cryptovirology and kleptography. Career Yung earned his PhD from Columbia University in 1988 under the supervision of Zvi Galil. In the past, he worked at t ...

, co-inventor of the Naor–Yung encryption paradigm for CCA security, of threshold cryptosystems, and proactive cryptosystems.

Cryptanalysts

Joan Clarke Joan Elisabeth Lowther Murray, MBE (''née'' Clarke; 24 June 1917 – 4 September 1996) was an English cryptanalyst and numismatist best known for her work as a code-breaker at Bletchley Park during the Second World War. Although she did ...

, English cryptanalyst and numismatist best known for her work as a code-breaker at Bletchley Park during the Second World War. * Ross Anderson, UK. * Eli Biham, Israel, co-discoverer of

differential cryptanalysis Differential cryptanalysis is a general form of cryptanalysis applicable primarily to block ciphers, but also to stream ciphers and cryptographic hash functions. In the broadest sense, it is the study of how differences in information input can af ...

and

Related-key attack In cryptography, a related-key attack is any form of cryptanalysis where the attacker can observe the operation of a cipher under several different keys whose values are initially unknown, but where some mathematical relationship connecting the k ...

. *

Matt Blaze Matt may refer to: *Matt (name), people with the given name ''Matt'' or Matthew, meaning "gift from God", or the surname Matt *In British English, of a surface: having a non-glossy finish, see gloss (material appearance) *Matt, Switzerland, a mu ...

, US. *

Dan Boneh Dan Boneh (; he, דן בונה) is an Israeli-American professor in applied cryptography and computer security at Stanford University. In 2016, Boneh was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for contributions to the theory an ...

, US, Stanford University. *

Niels Ferguson Niels T. Ferguson (born 10 December 1965, Eindhoven) is a Dutch cryptographer and consultant who currently works for Microsoft. He has worked with others, including Bruce Schneier, designing cryptographic algorithms, testing algorithms and protoco ...

, Netherlands, co-inventor of Twofish and Fortuna. *

Ian Goldberg Ian Avrum Goldberg (born March 31, 1973) is a cryptographer and cypherpunk. He is best known for breaking Netscape's implementation of SSL (with David Wagner), and for his role as chief scientist of Radialpoint (formerly Zero Knowledge Sys ...

, Canada,

University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a public research university with a main campus in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is on of land adjacent to "Uptown" Waterloo and Waterloo Park. The university also operates ...

. * Lars Knudsen, Denmark, DTU, discovered

integral cryptanalysis In cryptography, integral cryptanalysis is a cryptanalytic attack that is particularly applicable to block ciphers based on substitution–permutation networks. It was originally designed by Lars Knudsen as a dedicated attack against Square, s ...

. * Paul Kocher, US, discovered differential power analysis. *

Mitsuru Matsui is a Japanese cryptographer and senior researcher for Mitsubishi Electric Company. Career While researching error-correcting codes in 1990, Matsui was inspired by Eli Biham and Adi Shamir's differential cryptanalysis, and discovered the techni ...

, Japan, discoverer of

linear cryptanalysis In cryptography, linear cryptanalysis is a general form of cryptanalysis based on finding affine approximations to the action of a cipher. Attacks have been developed for block ciphers and stream ciphers. Linear cryptanalysis is one of the two ...

. * David Wagner, US,

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...

, co-discoverer of the

slide Slide or Slides may refer to: Places *Slide, California, former name of Fortuna, California Arts, entertainment, and media Music Albums * ''Slide'' (Lisa Germano album), 1998 * ''Slide'' (George Clanton album), 2018 *''Slide'', by Patrick Glees ...

and

boomerang attack In cryptography, the boomerang attack is a method for the cryptanalysis of block ciphers based on differential cryptanalysis. The attack was published in 1999 by David Wagner, who used it to break the COCONUT98 cipher. The boomerang attack has ...

s. * Xiaoyun Wang, the People's Republic of China, known for MD5 and

SHA-1 In cryptography, SHA-1 (Secure Hash Algorithm 1) is a cryptographically broken but still widely used hash function which takes an input and produces a 160-bit (20- byte) hash value known as a message digest – typically rendered as 40 hexadec ...

hash function A hash function is any function that can be used to map data of arbitrary size to fixed-size values. The values returned by a hash function are called ''hash values'', ''hash codes'', ''digests'', or simply ''hashes''. The values are usually ...

attacks. *

Alex Biryukov Alex Biryukov is a cryptographer, currently a full professor at the University of Luxembourg. His notable work includes the design of the stream cipher LEX, as well as the cryptanalysis of numerous cryptographic primitives. In 1998, he developed ...

University of Luxembourg The University of Luxembourg (French: ''Université du Luxembourg''; German: ''Universität Luxemburg''; Luxembourgish: ''Universitéit Lëtzebuerg'') is a public research university in Luxembourg. History The University of Luxembourg was found ...

, known for impossible differential cryptanalysis and

slide attack The slide attack is a form of cryptanalysis designed to deal with the prevailing idea that even weak ciphers can become very strong by increasing the number of rounds, which can ward off a differential attack. The slide attack works in such a way ...

. *

Kleptography Kleptography is the study of stealing information securely and subliminally. The term was introduced by Adam Young and Moti Yung in the Proceedings of Advances in Cryptology—Crypto '96.A. Young, M. Yung, "The Dark Side of Black-Box Cryptography, ...

Algorithmic number theorists

Daniel J. Bernstein Daniel Julius Bernstein (sometimes known as djb; born October 29, 1971) is an American German mathematician, cryptologist, and computer scientist. He is a visiting professor at CASA at Ruhr University Bochum, as well as a research professor of ...

, US, developed several popular algorithms, fought US government restrictions in ''

Bernstein v. United States ''Bernstein v. United States'' is a set of court cases brought by Daniel J. Bernstein challenging restrictions on the export of cryptography from the United States. History The case was first brought in 1995, when Bernstein was a student at ...

.'' *

, US * Dorian M. Goldfeld, US. Along with Michael Anshel and Iris Anshel invented the Anshel–Anshel–Goldfeld key exchange and the

Algebraic Eraser Algebraic Eraser (AE)Also referred to as the colored Burau key agreement protocol (CBKAP), Anshel–Anshel–Goldfeld–Lemieux key agreement protocol, Algebraic Eraser key agreement protocol (AEKAP), and Algebraic Eraser Diffie–He ...

. They also helped found

Braid Group Cryptography Group-based cryptography is a use of groups to construct cryptographic primitives. A group is a very general algebraic object and most cryptographic schemes use groups in some way. In particular Diffie–Hellman key exchange uses finite cyclic gro ...

Theoreticians

Mihir Bellare Mihir Bellare is a cryptographer and professor at the University of California San Diego. He has published several seminal papers in the field of cryptography (notably in the area of provable security), many of which were co-written with Phillip R ...

, US,

UCSD The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is th ...

, co-proposer of the

Random oracle In cryptography, a random oracle is an oracle (a theoretical black box) that responds to every ''unique query'' with a (truly) random response chosen uniformly from its output domain. If a query is repeated, it responds the same way every time tha ...

model. *

, US,

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

. *

Gilles Brassard Gilles Brassard, is a faculty member of the Université de Montréal, where he has been a Full Professor since 1988 and Canada Research Chair since 2001. Education and early life Brassard received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Cornell Univ ...

, Canada,

Université de Montréal The Université de Montréal (UdeM; ; translates to University of Montreal) is a French-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university's main campus is located in the Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood of Côte- ...

. Co-inventor of

quantum cryptography Quantum cryptography is the science of exploiting quantum mechanical properties to perform cryptographic tasks. The best known example of quantum cryptography is quantum key distribution which offers an information-theoretically secure solutio ...

. * Claude Crépeau, Canada,

McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Universit ...

. *

Oded Goldreich Oded Goldreich ( he, עודד גולדרייך; b. 1957) is a professor of Computer Science at the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science of Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. His research interests lie within the theory of computation ...

, Israel,

, author of

Foundations of Cryptography Foundation may refer to: * Foundation (nonprofit), a type of charitable organization ** Foundation (United States law), a type of charitable organization in the U.S. ** Private foundation, a charitable organization that, while serving a good caus ...

. *

, US and Israel. *

, US, MIT. * Rafail Ostrovsky, US,

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a Normal school, teachers colle ...

. * Charles Rackoff, co-discoverer of zero-knowledge proofs. * Oded Regev, inventor of learning with errors. *

Phillip Rogaway Phillip Rogaway is a professor of computer science at the University of California, Davis. He graduated from Beverly Hills High School, and later earned a BA in computer science from UC Berkeley and completed his PhD in cryptography at MIT, in ...

, US,

UC Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the Uni ...

, co-proposer of the

model. *

Amit Sahai Amit Sahai (born 1974) is an American computer scientist. He is a professor of computer science at UCLA and the director of the Center for Encrypted Functionalities. Biography Amit Sahai was born in 1974 in Thousand Oaks, California, to parents ...

, US,

. * Gustavus Simmons, US, Sandia,

authentication Authentication (from ''authentikos'', "real, genuine", from αὐθέντης ''authentes'', "author") is the act of proving an assertion, such as the identity of a computer system user. In contrast with identification, the act of indicat ...

theory. *

, US, Google.

Government cryptographers

, UK,

, secret inventor of the algorithm later known as

. *

James H. Ellis James Henry Ellis (25 September 1924 – 25 November 1997) was a British engineer and cryptographer. In 1970, while working at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Cheltenham, he conceived of the possibility of "non-secret encr ...

, UK,

, secretly proved the possibility of asymmetric encryption. * Lowell Frazer, USA,

* Julia Wetzel, USA,

Malcolm Williamson Malcolm Benjamin Graham Christopher Williamson, (21 November 19312 March 2003) was an Australian composer. He was the Master of the Queen's Music from 1975 until his death. Biography Williamson was born in Sydney in 1931; his father was an ...

, UK,

, secret inventor of the protocol later known as the

Diffie–Hellman key exchange Diffie–Hellman key exchangeSynonyms of Diffie–Hellman key exchange include: * Diffie–Hellman–Merkle key exchange * Diffie–Hellman key agreement * Diffie–Hellman key establishment * Diffie–Hellman key negotiation * Exponential key exc ...

Cryptographer businesspeople

, US, CTO and founder of Counterpane Internet Security, Inc. and cryptography author. *

Scott Vanstone Scott A. Vanstone was a mathematician and cryptographer in the University of Waterloo Faculty of Mathematics. He was a member of the school's Centre for Applied Cryptographic Research, and was also a founder of the cybersecurity company Certicom ...

, Canada, founder of

Certicom BlackBerry Limited is a Canadian software company specializing in cybersecurity. Founded in 1984, it was originally known as Research In Motion (RIM). As RIM, it developed the BlackBerry brand of interactive pagers, smartphones, and tablets ...

and

proponent.

References

External links

List of cryptographers' home pages
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cryptographers Lists of people by occupation Cryptography lists and comparisons