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The Encryption Pioneer Who Was Written Out of History

Posted by samzenpus on from the who-now? dept.

nk497 writes "Clifford Cocks is one of three British men who developed an encryption system while working for the UK government in the early 1970s, but was forced to keep the innovation quiet for national security reasons. Just a few years later, their Public Encryption Key was developed separately by US researchers at Stanford and MIT, and eventually evolved into the RSA encryption algorithm, which now secures billions of transactions on the internet every day. 'The first I knew about [the US discovery] was when I read about it in Scientific American. I opened it one lunchtime and saw a description and thought, "Ah, that's what we did,"' he said. 'You don't go into the business to get external credit and recognition — quite the opposite. Quite honestly, the main reaction was one of complete surprise that this had actually been discovered outside.' The UK trio have now won recognition for their accomplishment in the form of the Milestone Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers."

3 of 238 comments (clear)

  1. They have a headstart by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: 5, Funny

    The Brits are pretty amazing. It's like they are a step ahead of everyone in this field. I imagine not brushing your teeth gives you a few minutes extra every day, and that adds up.

    I'm kidding of course. But the British, maybe because of brains, maybe because of necessity, have been pushing the boundaries of computation for almost two hundred years. We owe a great debt of gratitude towards them.

    But they were also kind of dicks about that whole independence thing. So it all evens out.

  2. Maybe he should have... by Allnighte · · Score: 5, Funny

    Maybe he should have protected his work. Perhaps with some kind of ... encryption?

  3. Re:Me too! by jamesh · · Score: 4, Funny

    This story is an amazing coincidence. I discovered relativity before Einstein, but I never published my findings. Do you agree recognition is long overdue?

    I stole Einstein's research, applied it to building a time machine, then went back in time and discovered it before him. I _still_ didn't get recognition and worse still, his research now claims that time travel is impossible so I can't try it again.