Steven M. Bellovin is a researcher on
computer networking
A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ma ...
and
security
Security is protection from, or resilience against, potential harm (or other unwanted coercive change) caused by others, by restraining the freedom of others to act. Beneficiaries (technically referents) of security may be of persons and social ...
. He has been a professor in the Computer Science department at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
since 2005. Previously, Bellovin was a Fellow at
AT&T Labs
AT&T Labs is the research & development division of AT&T, the telecommunications company. It employs some 1,800 people in various locations, including: Bedminster NJ; Middletown, NJ; Manhattan, NY; Warrenville, IL; Austin, TX; Dallas, TX; Atlan ...
Research in
Florham Park
Florham Park is a Borough (New Jersey), borough in Morris County, New Jersey, Morris County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States census, the borough's population was 11,696,[New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...]
.
In September 2012, Bellovin was appointed Chief Technologist for the United States
Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. The FTC shares jurisdiction ov ...
, replacing
Edward W. Felten
Edward William Felten (born March 25, 1963) is the Robert E. Kahn Professor of Computer Science and Public Affairs at Princeton University, where he was also the Director of the Center for Information Technology Policy from 2007 to 2015 and fr ...
, who returned to
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
.
["FTC Announces Appointments to Agency Leadership Positions"](_blank)
FTC press release, August 3, 2012 He served in this position from September 2012 to August 2013.
In February 2016, Bellovin became the first technology scholar for the
Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board
The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) is an independent agency within the executive branch of the United States government, established by Congress in 2004 to advise the President and other senior executive branch officials to en ...
.
["Technology Scholar Appointed by Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board"](_blank)
, PCLOB press release, February 12, 2016
Career
He received a BA degree from
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, and an MS and PhD in Computer Science from the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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 ...
.
As a graduate student, Bellovin was one of the originators of
USENET
Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it was ...
. He later suggested that
Gene Spafford
Eugene Howard Spafford (born 1956), known as Spaf, is an American professor of computer science at Purdue University and a computer security expert.
Spafford serves as an advisor to U.S. government agencies and corporations. In 1998, he founded ...
should create the Phage mailing list as a response to the
Morris Worm.
He and Michael Merritt invented the
Encrypted key exchange
Encrypted Key Exchange (also known as EKE) is a family of password-authenticated key agreement methods described by Steven M. Bellovin and Michael Merritt. Although several of the forms of EKE in this paper were later found to be flawed , the survi ...
password-authenticated key agreement In cryptography, a password-authenticated key agreement method is an interactive method for two or more parties to establish cryptographic keys based on one or more party's knowledge of a password.
An important property is that an eavesdropper or m ...
methods. He was also responsible for the discovery that
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 ran ...
s were invented in 1882, not 1917, as previously believed.
Bellovin has been active in the
IETF
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a standards organization for the Internet and is responsible for the technical standards that make up the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP). It has no formal membership roster or requirements and a ...
. He was a member of the
Internet Architecture Board
The Internet Architecture Board (IAB) is "a committee of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and an advisory body of the Internet Society (ISOC). Its responsibilities include architectural oversight of IETF activities, Internet Standards ...
from 1996–2002. Bellovin later was Security Area co-director, and a member of the
Internet Engineering Steering Group
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a standards organization for the Internet and is responsible for the technical standards that make up the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP). It has no formal membership roster or requirements and a ...
(IESG) from 2002–2004. He identified some key security weaknesses in the
Domain Name System
The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information with domain names assigned to ...
; this and other weaknesses eventually led to the development of
DNSSEC
The Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) are a suite of extension specifications by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) for securing data exchanged in the Domain Name System (DNS) in Internet Protocol (IP) networks. The protocol ...
.
He received 2007 National Computer Systems Security Award by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Security Agency (NSA). In 2001, he was elected as a member into the
National Academy of Engineering
The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy ...
for his contributions to network applications and security.
In 2015, Bellovin was part of a team of proponents that included
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 ...
,
J. Alex Halderman
J. Alex Halderman (born January 1981) is professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan, where he is also director of the Center for Computer Security & Society. Halderman's research focuses on computer security a ...
,
Nadia Heninger
Nadia Heninger (born 1982) is an American cryptographer, computer security expert, and computational number theorist at the University of California, San Diego.
Contributions
Heninger is known for her work on freezing powered-down security devic ...
, and
Andrea M. Matwyshyn
Andrea M. Matwyshyn is a United States law professor and engineering professor at The Pennsylvania State University. She is known as a scholar of technology policy, particularly as an expert at the intersection of law and computer security and fo ...
who successfully proposed a security research exemption to Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Bellovin is an active
NetBSD
NetBSD is a free and open-source Unix operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). It was the first open-source BSD descendant officially released after 386BSD was forked. It continues to be actively developed and is a ...
user and a
NetBSD
NetBSD is a free and open-source Unix operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). It was the first open-source BSD descendant officially released after 386BSD was forked. It continues to be actively developed and is a ...
developer focusing on architectural, operational, and security issues.
Selected publications
Bellovin is the author and co-author of several books, RFCs and technical papers, including:
* ''
Firewalls and Internet Security
''Firewalls and Internet Security: Repelling the Wily Hacker'' is a 1994 book by William R. Cheswick and Steven M. Bellovin that helped define the concept of a network firewall.
Describing in detail one of the first major firewall deployments a ...
: Repelling the Wily Hacker'' (with
W. Cheswick) – one of the first books on internet security.
** ''Firewalls and Internet Security: Repelling the Wily Hacker'' 2nd edition (with Cheswick and Aviel D. Rubin)
* ''Thinking Security: Stopping Next Year's Hackers'' (2015)
* ''Firewall-Friendly FTP''
* ''Security Concerns for IPng''
* ''On Many Addresses per Host''
* ''Defending Against Sequence Number Attacks''
*
RFC 3514 ''The Security Flag in the IPv4 Header'' (
April Fools' Day RFC
April is the fourth month of the year in the Gregorian and Julian calendars. It is the first of four months to have a length of 30 days, and the second of five months to have a length of less than 31 days.
April is commonly associated with ...
)
* ''On the Use of Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) with IPsec'' (with J. Ioannidis, A. Keromytis, R. Stewart.)
* ''Security Mechanisms for the Internet'' (with J. Schiller, Ed., C. Kaufman)
* ''Guidelines for Cryptographic Key Management'' (with R. Housley)
As of October 21, 2020, his publications have been cited 19,578 times, and he has an
h-index
The ''h''-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The ''h''-index correlates with obvious success indicators such as winn ...
of 59.
See also
*
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 ...
*
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 adver ...
References
External links
Missing Link: Knotty Privacy – Interview With Steven Bellovin Heise News, August 4, 2019
"Steven M. Bellovin", DBLP Bibliography "Amnesty v. McConnell - Declaration of Steven M. Bellovin", ''ACLU''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bellovin, Steven M.
Computer security academics
Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering
Living people
Stuyvesant High School alumni
Columbia College (New York) alumni
Scientists at Bell Labs
American chief technology officers
Columbia School of Engineering and Applied Science faculty
Usenet people
Cypherpunks
Year of birth missing (living people)
Federal Trade Commission personnel
People from Brooklyn