Malcolm John Williamson (2 November 1950 – 15 September 2015) was a British mathematician and cryptographer. In 1974 he developed what is now known as

Diffie–Hellman key exchange Diffie–Hellman key exchangeSynonyms of Diffie–Hellman key exchange include: * Diffie–Hellman–Merkle key exchange * Diffie–Hellman key agreement * Diffie–Hellman key establishment * Diffie–Hellman key negotiation * Exponential key exc ...

. He was then working at

GCHQ Government Communications Headquarters, commonly known as GCHQ, is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the Uni ...

and was therefore unable to publicise his research as his work was classified.

Martin Hellman Martin Edward Hellman (born October 2, 1945) is an American cryptologist and mathematician, best known for his involvement with public key cryptography in cooperation with Whitfield Diffie and Ralph Merkle. Hellman is a longtime contributor to ...

, who independently developed the key exchange at the same time, received credit for the discovery until Williamson's research was declassified by the British government in 1997. Williamson studied at

Manchester Grammar School The Manchester Grammar School (MGS) in Manchester, England, is the largest independent school (UK), independent day school for boys in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1515 as a Grammar school#free tuition, free grammar school next to Manchester C ...

, winning first prize in the 1968 British Mathematical Olympiad. He also won a Silver prize at the 1967

International Mathematical 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, excep ...

in Cetinje, Yugoslavia and a Gold prize at the 1968 International Mathematical Olympiad in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

. He read mathematics at

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...

, graduating in 1971. After a year at

Liverpool University , mottoeng = These days of peace foster learning , established = 1881 – University College Liverpool1884 – affiliated to the federal Victoria Universityhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/2004/4 University of Manchester Act 200 ...

, he joined

, and worked there until 1982. From 1985 to 1989 Williamson worked at Nicolet Instruments in Madison, Wisconsin where he was the primary author on two digital hearing aid patents. After that, he moved to the IDA Center for Communications Research, La Jolla, where he worked for the rest of his career. His contributions to the invention of

public-key cryptography Public-key cryptography, or asymmetric cryptography, is the field of cryptographic systems that use pairs of related keys. Each key pair consists of a public key and a corresponding private key. Key pairs are generated with cryptographic a ...

, together with

Clifford Cocks Clifford Christopher Cocks (born 28 December 1950) is a British mathematician and cryptographer. In 1973, while working at the United Kingdom Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), he invented a public-key cryptography algorithm equiv ...

and James Ellis, have been recognized by the IEEE Milestone Award #104 in 2010 and by induction into the Cryptologic Hall of Honor in 2021.

References

External links

Williamson's January 1974 internal GCHQ note "Non-Secret Encryption Using a Finite Field"
(A couple of typos in this pdf: Extended Euclidean Algorithm modulus should be (p-1) instead of p. Enc and Dec are performed using exponentiation; It should have been A^k instead of Ak; similar A^(KI) and A^I instead of AKI and AI, respectively. ) * 1950 births 2015 deaths GCHQ cryptographers Public-key cryptographers Modern cryptographers People educated at Manchester Grammar School 20th-century British mathematicians 21st-century British mathematicians Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge International Mathematical Olympiad participants GCHQ people {{UK-mathematician-stub

See also

References

External links