Roger Michael Needham (9 February 1935 – 1 March 2003) was a British computer scientist.

Early life and education

Needham was born in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...

, England, the only child of Phyllis Mary, ''née'' Baker (''c''.1904–1976) and Leonard William Needham (''c''.1905–1973), a university chemistry lecturer. He attended Doncaster Grammar School for Boys in Doncaster (then in the

West Riding The West Riding of Yorkshire is one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the administrative county County of York, West Riding (the area under the control of West Riding County Council), abbreviated County ...

) going on to St John's College, Cambridge in 1953, and graduating with a BA in 1956 in mathematics and philosophy. Herbert, Andrew James
"Needham, Roger Michael (1935–2003)"
, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, March 2009; online edition, January 2007. Retrieved 27 August 2018 His PhD thesis was on applications of digital computers to the automatic classification and retrieval of documents. He worked on a variety of key computing projects in

security" \n\n\nsecurity.txt is a proposed standard for websites' security information that is meant to allow security researchers to easily report security vulnerabilities. The standard prescribes a text file called \"security.txt\" in the well known locat ...

, operating systems,

computer architecture In computer engineering, computer architecture is a description of the structure of a computer system made from component parts. It can sometimes be a high-level description that ignores details of the implementation. At a more detailed level, the ...

(capability systems) and local area networks.

Career and research

Among his theoretical contributions is the development of the Burrows-Abadi-Needham logic for

authentication Authentication (from ''authentikos'', "real, genuine", from αὐθέντης ''authentes'', "author") is the act of proving an assertion, such as the identity of a computer system user. In contrast with identification, the act of indicatin ...

, generally known as the BAN logic. His Needham–Schroeder (co-invented with Michael Schroeder)

security protocol A security protocol (cryptographic protocol or encryption protocol) is an abstract or concrete protocol that performs a security-related function and applies cryptographic methods, often as sequences of cryptographic primitives. A protocol describe ...

forms the basis of the Kerberos

and

key exchange Key exchange (also key establishment) is a method in cryptography by which cryptographic keys are exchanged between two parties, allowing use of a cryptographic algorithm. If the sender and receiver wish to exchange encrypted messages, each ...

system. He also co-designed the

TEA Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of ''Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of southwestern China and north ...

and XTEA

encryption algorithm In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can deci ...

s. He pioneered the technique of protecting passwords using a one-way hash function. In 1962 he joined the University of Cambridge's Computer Laboratory, then called the Mathematical Laboratory, becoming Head of Laboratory in 1980. He was made a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

in 1981 and remained with the laboratory until his retirement in 1995. In 1997 he set up

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

's UK-based

Research Laboratory A research institute, research centre, research center or research organization, is an establishment founded for doing research. Research institutes may specialize in basic research or may be oriented to applied research. Although the term often im ...

. He was a founding

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 University College,

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...

, which became Wolfson College. Needham was a longtime and respected member 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 ...

, the

IEEE Computer Society The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

Technical Committee on Security and Privacy and the University Grants Committee. He was made a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery in 1994.

Awards and honours

Needham was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemat ...

(FRS) in 1985, and a

Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) is an award and fellowship for engineers who are recognised by the Royal Academy of Engineering as being the best and brightest engineers, inventors and technologists in the UK and from aroun ...

(FREng) in 1993. He was appointed

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...

(CBE) for his contributions to

computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, ...

in 2001. Needham held honorary doctorate degrees from University of Twente, Loughborough University, and University of Kent.

Named in Needhams honour

Needham has several awards named after him in his honour. The British Computer Society established an annual Roger Needham Award in 2004. The European Conference on Computer Systems (EuroSys) established the annual ''Roger Needham PhD award''. It awards €2,000 to a PhD student from a European university whose thesis is regarded to be an exceptional, innovative contribution to knowledge in the computer systems area. Past winners have been: * 2021 Victor van de Veen, ( Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) * 2020 Michael Schwarz, Graz University of Technology for his PhD thesis ''Software-based Side-Channel Attacks and Defenses in Restricted Environments'' * 2019 Manolis Karpathiotakis, EPFL * 2018 Dennis Andriesse ( Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) for his PhD thesis ''Analyzing and Securing Binaries Through Static Disassembly'' * 2015 Cristiano Giuffrida ( Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) for his PhD thesis '' Safe and Automatic Live Update'' * 2014 Torvald Riegel ( Technische Universitaet Dresden), for his thesis '' Software Transactional Memory Building Blocks'' * 2013 Asia Slowinska ( Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) for her PhD thesis ''Using Information Flow Tracking to Protect Legacy Binaries'' * 2012 Derek Murray, for his thesis ''A Distributed Execution Engine Supporting Data-Dependent Control Flow'' * 2011 Jorrit Herder for '' Building a Dependable Operating System: Fault Tolerance in MINIX 3'' * 2010 Willem de Bruijn ( Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) for '' Adaptive Operating System Design for High Throughput I/O'' * 2009 Jacob Gorm Hansen ( DIKU) for ''Virtual Machine Mobility with Self-Migration'' * 2008 Adam Dunkels ( SICS) for ''Programming Memory-Constrained Networked Embedded Systems'' * 2007 Nick Cook ( Newcastle University) for '' Middleware Support for Non-repudiable Business-to-Business Interactions'' * 2006 Oliver Heckmann ( TU Darmstadt) for '' A System-oriented Approach to Efficiency and Quality of Service for Internet Service Providers''

Personal life

Needham married fellow computer scientist

Karen Spärck Jones Karen Sparck Jones is a computer science researcher and innovator who pioneered the search engine algorithm known as inverse document frequency (IDF). While many early information scientists and computer engineers were focused on developing progr ...

in 1958. He died of cancer in March 2003 at his home in

Willingham, Cambridgeshire Willingham is a village in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located in the South Cambridgeshire district and sits just outside the border of the Fens, just south of the River Great Ouse. Located approximately 12 miles (19 km) northwest of Camb ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Needham, Roger 1935 births 2003 deaths Academics of the University of Cambridge Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge British computer scientists Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Fellows of the British Computer Society Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of University College, Cambridge Fellows of Wolfson College, Cambridge Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Microsoft employees Deaths from cancer in England People from Doncaster People from South Cambridgeshire District