Scott A. Vanstone was a mathematician and

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 ...

in the

University of Waterloo Faculty of Mathematics The Faculty of Mathematics is one of six faculties of the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, offering more than 500 courses in mathematics, statistics and computer science. The faculty also houses the David R. Cheriton School of Comput ...

. He was a member of the school's

Centre for Applied Cryptographic Research The Centre for Applied Cryptographic Research (CACR) is a group of industrial representatives, professors, and students at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada who work and do research in the field of cryptography. The CACR aim ...

, and was also a founder of the cybersecurity company

Certicom BlackBerry Limited is a Canadian software company specializing in cybersecurity. Founded in 1984, it was originally known as Research In Motion (RIM). As RIM, it developed the BlackBerry brand of interactive pagers, smartphones, and tablets ...

. He received his PhD in 1974 at the University of Waterloo, and for about a decade worked principally in combinatorial design theory, finite geometry, and finite fields. In the 1980s he started working in cryptography. An early result of Vanstone (joint with Ian Blake, R. Fuji-Hara, and Ron Mullin) was an improved algorithm for computing discrete logarithms in binary fields, which inspired

Don Coppersmith Don Coppersmith (born 1950) is a cryptographer and mathematician. He was involved in the design of the Data Encryption Standard block cipher at IBM, particularly the design of the S-boxes, strengthening them against differential cryptanalysis ...

to develop his famous exp(n^) algorithm (where n is the degree of the field). Vanstone was one of the first to see the commercial potential of

Elliptic Curve Cryptography Elliptic-curve cryptography (ECC) is an approach to public-key cryptography based on the algebraic structure of elliptic curves over finite fields. ECC allows smaller keys compared to non-EC cryptography (based on plain Galois fields) to provide e ...

(ECC), and much of his subsequent work was devoted to developing ECC algorithms, protocols, and standards. In 1985 he co-founded

, which later became the chief developer and promoter of ECC. Vanstone authored or coauthored five widely used books and almost two hundred research articles, and he held several patents. He was 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

Royal Society of Canada The Royal Society of Canada (RSC; french: Société royale du Canada, SRC), also known as the Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada (French: ''Académies des arts, des lettres et des sciences du Canada''), is the senior national, bil ...

and a Fellow 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 ...

. In 2001 he won the

RSA Award for Excellence in Mathematics RSA may refer to: Organizations Academia and education * Rabbinical Seminary of America, a yeshiva in New York City *Regional Science Association International (formerly the Regional Science Association), a US-based learned society *Renaissance S ...

, and in 2009 he received the Ontario Premier's Catalyst Award for Lifetime Achievement in Innovation. He died on March 2, 2014 shortly after a cancer diagnosis.

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References

Notes

External links

Handbook of Applied Cryptography (Free download)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vanstone, Scott Modern cryptographers University of Waterloo alumni University of Waterloo faculty 1947 births 2014 deaths 20th-century Canadian mathematicians 21st-century Canadian mathematicians People associated with computer security Public-key cryptographers Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada International Association for Cryptologic Research fellows

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