Nadim Kobeissi ( ar, نديم قبيسي; born 28 September 1990) is a French-Lebanese computer science researcher specialized in
applied cryptography
Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logy, -logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of ...
. He is the author of
Cryptocat, an open-source encrypted web chat client. Kobeissi is also known for speaking publicly against
Internet censorship and
Internet surveillance.
Early life and education
Kobeissi was born in
Beirut, Lebanon. He studied at the
Lebanese American University in Beirut from 2008 to 2009, and graduated with a degree in philosophy at
Concordia University
Concordia University ( French: ''Université Concordia'') is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1974 following the merger of Loyola College and Sir George Williams University, Concordia is one of the t ...
in Montreal, Canada in 2013.
Kobeissi was a Ph.D. student in applied cryptography at
Inria in Paris. from 2015 to 2018.
In 2018 and 2019 he was
adjunct professor
An adjunct professor is a type of academic appointment in higher education who does not work at the establishment full-time. The terms of this appointment and
the job security of the tenure vary in different parts of the world, however the genera ...
of computer science at
New York University's Paris campus teaching a course on computer security. In 2021 Kobeissi was
naturalized
Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-citizen of a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country. It may be done automatically by a statute, i.e., without any effort on the part of the in ...
French Citizen. Kobeissi is fluent in Arabic, French, and English and is based in Paris.
Research
Kobeissi is the primary author of
Cryptocat. The project was discontinued in 2019.
In 2015, Kobeissi became active in researching formal verification for cryptographic protocols. In December 2018, he defended his Ph.D. thesis, ''"Formal Verification for Real-World Cryptographic Protocols and Implementations. (Vérification formelle des protocoles et des implementations cryptographiques)."''.
Activism
In 2010, Kobeissi was an early supporter of US army whistleblower
Chelsea Manning. He organized a march through Montreal in December that year in support of
WikiLeaks, ran a WikiLeaks mirror site, and defended WikiLeaks on various Canadian news publications. During 2011 and 2012, Kobeissi hosted CHOMP.FM, a radio program on Internet activism that ran weekly on Montreal's
CKUT-FM radio station. The show included guests from the
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed on 10 July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote Internet ci ...
(EFF), security researcher
Bruce Schneier, and journalist
Glenn Greenwald.
In 2013, Kobeissi led an effort known as the Skype Open Letter which brought together more than forty organizations, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation,
Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders (RWB; french: Reporters sans frontières; RSF) is an international non-profit and non-governmental organization with the stated aim of safeguarding the right to freedom of information. It describes its advocacy as found ...
, and the
Open Technology Institute, calling on
Microsoft and
Skype to release
transparency reports regarding Skype monitoring and surveillance. The effort was successful, and Microsoft released its first transparency report shortly after the letter was published.
Entrepreneurship
In 2017, Kobeissi founded Symbolic Software, which offers security audits for company infrastructure, software code, and cryptographic protocols.
In January 2021, a tweet by Kobeissi about his plans to design a form of "decentralized social media" immediately sparked the interest of several investors and led to the creation of Capsule Social, Inc. a startup whose mission is to build a truly decentralized social media platform to foster free speech, making it more resilient to censorship and control.
References
External links
Capsule Social, Inc.Symbolic SoftwarePersonal websiteTechcrunch article about Capsule Social
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kobeissi, Nadim
1990 births
Living people
Cryptographers
Computer security specialists
Concordia University alumni
Lebanese expatriates in France
Scientists from Beirut