Markus Guenther Kuhn (born 1971) is a German

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (al ...

, currently working at the

Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge The Department of Computer Science and Technology, formerly the Computer Laboratory, is the computer science department of the University of Cambridge. it employed 35 academic staff, 25 support staff, 35 affiliated research staff, and about 15 ...

and a fellow of

Wolfson College, Cambridge Wolfson College () is a colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. The majority of students at the college are postgraduate education, postgraduates. The college also a ...

Education

Kuhn was educated at

University of Erlangen A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...

(Germany), he received his Master of Science degree at

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...

and PhD at the

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 ...

Research

Kuhn's main research interests include

computer security Computer security, cybersecurity (cyber security), or information technology security (IT security) is the protection of computer systems and networks from attack by malicious actors that may result in unauthorized information disclosure, the ...

, in particular the hardware and signal-processing aspects of it, and

distributed system A distributed system is a system whose components are located on different networked computers, which communicate and coordinate their actions by passing messages to one another from any system. Distributed computing is a field of computer sci ...

s. He is known, among other things, for his work on security microcontrollers, compromising emanations, and

distance-bounding protocol Distance bounding protocols are cryptographic protocols that enable a verifier V to establish an upper bound on the physical distance to a prover P. They are based on timing the delay between sending out challenge bits and receiving back the cor ...

s. He developed the Stirmark test for

digital watermarking A digital watermark is a kind of marker covertly embedded in a noise-tolerant signal such as audio, video or image data. It is typically used to identify ownership of the copyright of such signal. "Watermarking" is the process of hiding digital inf ...

schemes, the

OTPW OTPW is a one-time password system developed for authentication in Unix-like operating systems by Markus Kuhn (computer scientist), Markus Kuhn. A user's real password is not directly transmitted across the Computer networking, network. Rather, a s ...

one-time password system, and headed the project that extended the

X11 The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wi ...

misc-fixed ''misc-fixed'' is a collection of monospace bitmap fonts that is distributed with the X Window System. It is a set of independent bitmap fonts which—apart from all being sans-serif fonts—cannot be described as belonging to a single font famil ...

fonts to

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...

. In 1994, as an undergraduate student, he became known for developing several ways to circumvent the

VideoCrypt VideoCrypt is a cryptographic, smartcard-based conditional access television encryption system that scrambles analogue pay-TV signals. It was introduced in 1989 by News Datacom and was used initially by Sky TV and subsequently by several other broa ...

encryption system, most notably the ''Season7'' smartcard emulator. In 2002, he published a new method for eavesdropping CRT screens and in 2003 he went on to publish mitigations such as "Tempest fonts". In 2010, Kuhn was asked to analyse the

ADE 651 The ADE 651 is a fake bomb detector produced by the British company Advanced Tactical Security & Communications Ltd (ATSC). Its manufacturer claimed it could detect bombs, guns, ammunition, and more from kilometers away. However, it was a scam ...

, a device used in Iraq that was said to be a bomb-detecting device; he found that it contained nothing but an anti-theft tag and said that it was "impossible" that the device could detect anything whatsoever. He is also known for some of his work on international standardisation, such as pioneering the introduction of

UTF-8 UTF-8 is a variable-width encoding, variable-length character encoding used for electronic communication. Defined by the Unicode Standard, the name is derived from ''Unicode'' (or ''Universal Coded Character Set'') ''Transformation Format 8-bit'' ...

under

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

Awards and honours

In 1987 and 1988, he won the German national computer-science contest, and in 1989, he won a gold medal for the West German team at the

International Olympiad in Informatics The International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) is an annual competitive programming and one of the International Science Olympiads for secondary school students. It is the second largest science olympiad, after International Mathematical Olympia ...

.Results of the IOI 1989

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kuhn, Markus 1971 births Living people German computer scientists Purdue University alumni Fellows of Wolfson College, Cambridge Members of the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory Computer security academics Studienstiftung alumni University of Erlangen-Nuremberg alumni Scientists from Munich Alumni of the University of Cambridge