Turing Award Winner: NSA, Public Key Cryptography, Crypto Wars | Martin Hellman

Martin Hellman is a Turing Award winner who helped to invent public-key cryptography against the NSA's wishes. I interviewed him all about his work and why it broke the law at the time.

• My ergonomic keyboard project I mentioned, you can follow along here: read.compose.llc
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Podcast links:

• YouTube: youtu.be/AZLOETBCQM4
• Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peterman-pod…
• Transcript: developing.dev/p/turing-award-winner-nsa-publi…

Thank you to this episode's sponsor for supporting my work:

• WorkOS: makes your app Enterprise Ready with easy to use APIs to add SSO, SCIM, RBAC, and more in just a few lines of code, check them out at workos.com

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro
(00:34) Why his work broke the law
(08:39) How people did encryption before
(18:51) The crypto wars
(26:22) The story behind Diffie Hellman key exchange
(36:48) Signatures vs key exchange
(43:05) RSA patent wars
(48:08) Why inventions happen at similar times
(50:29) What he worked on after cryptography
(57:31) His thoughts on death
(59:40) Advice for his younger self
(01:00:45) Outro

Where to find Martin:

• Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Hellman
• Website: ee.stanford.edu/~hellman

Where to find Ryan:

• Newsletter: developing.dev
• X/Twitter: x.com/ryanlpeterman
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman
• Threads: threads.com/@ryanlpeterman
• Instagram: instagram.com/ryanlpeterman
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Referenced in this episode:

• Martin Hellman's “The Evolution of Public Key Cryptography”: youtube.com/watch?v=Tev3tVzH91s
• Keys Under Doormats: cacm.acm.org/opinion/keys-under-doormats
• Cryptography's Role in Securing the Information Society (CRISIS report): nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/5131/cryptog…
• Secure Communications Over Insecure Channels: doi.org/10.1145/359460.359473
• New Directions in Cryptography: doi.org/10.1109/TIT.1976.1055638