An introductory Overview of Cryptography

When?

Wednesday 24 January 2007, 14:00 to 15:00

Where?

39BB02

Open to:

Students, Staff

Abstract:

We will look at the development of cryptography from a black art to a popular science.

Particular emphasis will be given to investigating how advances in technology have influenced changed in both the design of algorithms and how/where they are applied.

Notes:

Professor Fred Piper, BSc, PhD (London), ARCS, DIC, CEng, CMath, FIEE, FIMA, BCS, CISSP, CISM, Director of External Relations, Information Security Group.

Fred Piper was appointed Professor of Mathematics at the University of London in 1975 and has worked in information security since 1979. In 1985, he formed a company, Codes & Ciphers Ltd, which offers consultancy advice in all aspects of information security. He has acted as a consultant to over 80 companies including a number of financial institutions and major industrial companies in the UK, Europe, Asia, Australia, South Africa and the USA. The consultancy work has been varied and has included algorithm design and analysis, work on EFTPOS and ATM networks, data systems, security audits, risk analysis and the formulation of security policies. He has lectured worldwide on information security, both academically and commercially, has published more than 100 papers and is joint author of Cipher Systems (1982), one of the first books to be published on the subject of protection of communications, Secure Speech Communications (1985), Digital Signatures - Security & Controls (1999) and Cryptography: A Very Short Introduction (2002).

Fred has been a member of a number of DTI advisory groups. He has also served on a number of Foresight Crime Prevention Panels and task forces concerned with fraud control, security and privacy. He is currently a member of the Scientific Council of the Smith Institute, the Board of Trustees for Bletchley Park and the Board of the Institute of Information Security professionals. He is also a member of (ISC)2’s European Advisory Board, the steering group of the DTI’s Cyber Security KTN, ISSA’s advisory panel and the BCS’s Information Security Forum.

In 2002, he was awarded an IMA Gold Medal for “services to mathematics” and received an honorary CISSP for “leadership in Information Security”. In 2003, Fred received an honorary CISM for “globally recognised leadership” and “contribution to the Information Security Profession”.