Ian Avrum Goldberg (born March 31, 1973) is a
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
cypherpunk
A cypherpunk is any individual advocating widespread use of strong cryptography and privacy-enhancing technologies as a route to social and political change. Originally communicating through the Cypherpunks electronic mailing list, informal g ...
. 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 Systems
Zero-Knowledge Systems (also known as ZKS) was a Canadian privacy technology software and services company, best known for the Freedom Network, its privacy network. It was founded by brothers Austin Hill & Hamnett Hill and their father Hamnett H ...
), a Canadian software company. Goldberg is currently a professor at the Faculty of Mathematics of the
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science within the
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 ...
, and the Canada Research Chair in Privacy Enhancing Technologies.
He was formerly
Tor Project
Tor, short for The Onion Router, is free and open-source software for enabling anonymous communication. It directs Internet traffic through a free, worldwide, volunteer overlay network, consisting of more than seven thousand relays, to conc ...
board of directors chairman, and is one of the designers of
off the record messaging
Off-the-Record Messaging (OTR) is a cryptographic protocol that provides encryption for instant messaging conversations. OTR uses a combination of Advanced Encryption Standard, AES symmetric-key algorithm with 128 bits key length, the Diffie–Hell ...
.
Education
He attended high school at the
University of Toronto Schools
University of Toronto Schools (UTS) is an independent secondary day school affiliated with the University of Toronto in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The school follows a specialized academic curriculum, and admission is determined by competitive ex ...
, graduating in 1991. In 1995, he received a
B.Math from the
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 ...
in
pure mathematics and computer science. He obtained a
Ph.D.
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...
from the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
in December 2000. His thesis was entitled ''A Pseudonymous Communications Infrastructure for the Internet''. His advisor was
Eric Brewer.
Accomplishments
As a high school student, Goldberg was a member of Canada's team to the
International Math Olympiad
The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) is a mathematical olympiad for pre-university students, and is the oldest of the International Science Olympiads. The first IMO was held in Romania in 1959. It has since been held annually, except ...
from 1989 to 1991, where he received a bronze, silver, and gold medal respectively. He was also a member of
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 ...
team that won the
ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest
The ICPC International Collegiate Programming Contest, known as the ICPC, is an annual multi-tiered competitive programming competition among the universities of the world. Directed by ICPC Executive Director and Baylor Professor Dr. William B. ...
in 1994. In 1998, ''Wired'' Magazine chose him as a member of the "Wired 25".
[
]
In 2011 he won the
EFF Pioneer Award
The EFF Pioneer Award is an annual prize by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) for people who have made significant contributions to the empowerment of individuals in using computers. Until 1998 it was presented at a ceremony in Washington, ...
. In 2019, he won the USENIX Security Test of Time Award along with his colleagues David Wagner and Randi Thomas and former PhD supervisor Eric Brewer.
Work in cryptography
In 1995, Goldberg with
David Wagner discovered a flaw in the
random number generator
Random number generation is a process by which, often by means of a random number generator (RNG), a sequence of numbers or symbols that cannot be reasonably predicted better than by random chance is generated. This means that the particular outc ...
used for temporary key generation in the SSL implementation of
Netscape Navigator
Netscape Navigator was a web browser, and the original browser of the Netscape line, from versions 1 to 4.08, and 9.x. It was the flagship product of the Netscape Communications Corp and was the dominant web browser in terms of usage share in ...
.
One of the first cryptanalyses on the
WEP wireless encryption protocol was conducted by Goldberg with
Nikita Borisov and David Wagner, revealing serious flaws in its design.
[
]
Goldberg was a co-author of the
Off-the-Record instant messaging
Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...
encryption protocol. He is also the author of the
Perl
Perl is a family of two high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming languages. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it also referred to its redesigned "sister language", Perl 6, before the latter's name was offic ...
script included in the novel ''
Cryptonomicon
''Cryptonomicon'' is a 1999 novel by American author Neal Stephenson, set in two different time periods. One group of characters are World War II-era Allied codebreakers and tactical-deception operatives affiliated with the Government Code an ...
'' by
Neal Stephenson.
[
]
In 2009 Goldberg was co-author of the Sphinx Mix Format, which is nowadays implemented with the extension of a per-hop payload to increase the privacy of both payer and payee while routing
Bitcoin payments through the
Lightning Network.
Vitalik Buterin
Vitaly "Vitalik" Buterin (born 1994) is a Russian-Canadian computer programmer and founder of Ethereum. Buterin became involved with cryptocurrency early in its inception, co-founding ''Bitcoin Magazine'' in 2011. In 2014, Buterin deployed Eth ...
, co-founder of
Ethereum
Ethereum is a decentralized, open-source blockchain with smart contract functionality. Ether (Abbreviation: ETH; sign: Ξ) is the native cryptocurrency of the platform. Among cryptocurrencies, ether is second only to bitcoin in market capita ...
, was a research assistant of Goldberg while a student at the
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 ...
.
Goldberg is a member of the Cryptography, Security and Privacy group as well as the Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute (CPI). He has been collaborating with the CPI works on the development of a new interdisciplinary research and education program.
See also
*
Data privacy
Information privacy is the relationship between the collection and dissemination of data, technology, the public expectation of privacy, contextual information norms, and the legal and political issues surrounding them. It is also known as data pr ...
*
Information privacy
Information privacy is the relationship between the collection and dissemination of data, technology, the public expectation of privacy, contextual information norms, and the legal and political issues surrounding them. It is also known as data ...
*
List of University of Waterloo people
The University of Waterloo, located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, is a comprehensive public university that was founded in 1957 by Drs. Gerry Hagey and Ira G. Needles. It has grown into an institution of more than 42,000 students, faculty, and ...
Notes and references
External links
* University of Waterloo
:
Ian Goldbergat the
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
:
Ian Goldberg's publications:
Ian Goldberg's websiteat cypherpunks.ca
* UC Berkeley
:
Ian Goldberg's websiteat the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
:
Experience With Top Gun Wingman: A Proxy-Based Graphical Web Browser for the3Com
3Com Corporation was an American digital electronics manufacturer best known for its computer network products. The company was co-founded in 1979 by Robert Metcalfe, Howard Charney and others. Bill Krause joined as President in 1981. Metcalfe e ...
PalmPilot
The PalmPilot Personal and PalmPilot Professional are the second generation of Palm PDA devices produced by Palm Inc (then a subsidiary of U.S. Robotics, later 3Com). These devices were launched on March 10, 1997.
Accessories and pricing
Pa ...
br>
:
Wingman: A web browser created for the Palm Pilot PDA
:
BARWAN research project, UC Berkeley (1995-1998)
:
ISAAC research group, UC Berkeley (1996-2005)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Goldberg, Ian
1973 births
Living people
Canadian computer scientists
Modern cryptographers
University of Waterloo alumni
Cypherpunks
University of California, Berkeley alumni
University of Waterloo faculty
International Mathematical Olympiad participants
Competitive programmers