George Robert (Bob) Blakley Jr. was an American

cryptographer 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 adver ...

and a professor of mathematics at

Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...

, best known for inventing a

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 t ...

scheme in 1979 (see ).

Biography

Blakley did his undergraduate studies in physics at

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...

, and received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...

in 1960. After postdoctoral studies at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

and

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

, he held faculty positions at the

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univer ...

and the

State University of New York at Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 1846 ...

before joining Texas A&M in 1970. At Texas A&M, he was chairman of the mathematics department from 1970 to 1978.Curriculum vitae
, Texas A&M University, retrieved 2010-07-14. Blakley served on the board of directors of the

International Association for Cryptologic Research International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations". International may also refer to: Music Albums * ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011 * ''International'' (New Order album), 2002 * ''International'' (The T ...

from 1993 to 1995. He co-founded the '' International Journal of Information Security'', published by

Springer-Verlag Springer Science+Business Media, commonly known as Springer, is a German multinational publishing company of books, e-books and peer-reviewed journals in science, humanities, technical and medical (STM) publishing. Originally founded in 1842 ...

, in 2000, and then served on its advisory board. His son, George Robert (Bob) Blakley III, is also a computer security researcher.

Secret-sharing scheme

In order to split a secret into several shares, Blakley's scheme specifies the secret as a point in ''n''-dimensional space, and gives out shares that correspond to hyperplanes that intersect the secret point. Any ''n'' such hyperplanes will specify the point, while fewer than ''n'' hyperplanes will leave at least one degree of freedom, and thus leave the point unspecified. In contrast, Shamir's secret sharing scheme represents the secret as the ''y''-intercept of an ''n''- degree polynomial, and shares correspond to points on the polynomial.

Awards and honors

In 2001 Blakley received an honorary doctorate from

Queensland University of Technology Queensland University of Technology (QUT) is a public research university located in the urban coastal city of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. QUT is located on two campuses in the Brisbane area viz. Gardens Point and Kelvin Grove. The univ ...

. In 2009 he was named a

fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of the

.Fellow citation
IACR, retrieved 2010-07-13.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blakley, George American cryptographers Modern cryptographers Georgetown College (Georgetown University) alumni University of Maryland, College Park alumni University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty University at Buffalo faculty Texas A&M University faculty 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Number theorists International Association for Cryptologic Research fellows 2018 deaths