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The Encryption Pioneer Who Was Written Out of History
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."
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.
Maybe he should have protected his work. Perhaps with some kind of ... encryption?
I bet they forgot to tick the "don't let our government gift more of our cool sh!t to America" box at the bottom either. One day you're going to find our Queen left in a cardboard box on the steps of the Whitehouse with a note saying "sorry, we can't afford her any more, please take care of her - one lump of suger in her tea, etc."
If he's the Walrus then can I be a penguin please?
It's really not a milestone for anything if nobody can build on your results. It's certainly a great achievement to come up with an approach like that. However it contributes nothing to science if you don't publish it - the contribution was made by others. They weren't written out of history - they opted out.
There were two reasons for not going ahead with patents: one was the view that it should stay classified, because it was for our own use. The other was the advice we got that this is mathematics and couldn’t be patented even if we wanted to. The rules in the US are different, which is why it was possible for it to be patented eventually in the US.
I thought even US law said that purely mathematical algorithms couldn't be patented? Can anyone shed light on why this was patentable (or is this another example of the USPTO letting through something they shouldn't?)
I'd tell a UDP joke, but you may not get it. I'd tell a TCP joke, but I'd have to keep repeating it until you got it.
I don't believe you.
In effect, what you're saying is that multiple independent researchers could make the same contemporaneous discovery.
I think Dr. Cocks would agree with me when I say I find that totally inconceivable.
Moe: Phone call for C. Cocks. C Cocks? Anyone?
If you just do a little time travel then you could have verified his claim like I just did.
Home of The Suki Series
The History repeats, Columbus announce his discover. The US Researchers published their work. But someone was there before.
Who is "The Discoverer"?
I bet they forgot to tick the "don't let our government gift more of our cool sh!t to America" box at the bottom either.
One day you're going to find our Queen left in a cardboard box on the steps of the Whitehouse with a note saying "sorry, we can't afford her any more, please take care of her - one lump of suger in her tea, etc."
Hey! You can't make fun of the Queen like that!!!
You should have correctly spelt sugar.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Dude does groundbreaking work, work gets suppressed by British government for reasons of national security, dude gets screwed.
At least this guy didn't then get force-fed oestrogen by the government until he killed himself, which is something I suppose.
GCHQ was ready to talk of this issue and had all the press like 'kits' ready for a nice PR peek in 1984.
Then came the Peter Writes's Spycatcher book.
Thatcher was destroying any trace of union activity within the GCHQ at the time to, so the PKE release was dropped until 1997.
In the 1970's the NSA and GCHQ did not know what to do with it.
With "no" internet, one idea floated was nuke go codes.
The more interesting issue was the 1985 quadripartite (UK, US, German, French) to keep DES open to the NSA/GCHQ but safe from commercial rivals/hackers.
PKE was fought later with Clipper, key recovery, key escrow.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
She spells it "Zucker"
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
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.
Maybe you don't care, but he would obviously have been bound by the Official Secrets Act. Publishing his findings "so that humanity could benefit" would therefore have had some very real, negative consequences for him. The best case, I imagine, would have been losing his job. At worst, a couple of years at Her Majesty's pleasure. When was the last time you risked prison time by sharing your employer's secrets?
what about Calculus. Leibnitz and Newton within months of each other. Newton came up with it first, but didn't publish, then Leibnitz published, and Newton got annoyed, published, claimed he was first and there was a big kerfuffle.
In the end we actually use Leibnitz notation for calculus, even though most people don't know who he was, and think Newton invented it.
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
The development was made at the height of the Cold War. I imagine the secrecy had more to do with not handing a hugely robust encryption method over to perceived enemies at the height of a conflict fought through military intelligence, and that the decision was not made simply to annoy you personally.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
The history of post-War British technology has been a long succession of failed innovations which shortly afterwards have been appropriated and successfully marketed by American companies: Jet airliners, liquid crystal displays, public key encryption, home computers, the Web, and Pop Idol. Whichever British scientists don't end up emigrating to the US outright usually end up working for the US economy anyway.
Sadly, as a nation, the British seem not only contented with this state of affairs, but actually quite proud of their "special relationship". I blame the BBC for buying too many syndicated shows.
May the Maths Be with you!
It's a good thing the Official Secrets Act prevented this from being news at the time. I'm not sure reporters could have kept a straight face reporting on the "Cocks Algorithm."
It doesn't apply to spys.
Most of them are arts graduates with about as much scientific and technical knowledge as a comatose slug. Nothing has changed. They wouldn't know technical innovation if it kicked them in the balls. While this country his still run by people who think quoting shakespeare parrot fashion is the last word in intellect then we stand no chance.
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.
I went back in time and posted before you, even made sure it was farther upthread than your post.
Home of The Suki Series
The history of post-War British technology has been a long succession of failed innovations which shortly afterwards have been appropriated and successfully marketed by American companies: Jet airliners, liquid crystal displays, public key encryption, home computers, the Web, and Pop Idol.
Having them take pop-idol almost makes up for them getting all the others.
No, we're not contented with it. The trouble is, we've had 30 years of right-wing government since 1979, which has emphasised the financial sector above all else. The Thatcher government shut down the shipyards, the steel mills that supplied the shipyards, and the coal pits that supplied the steel mills. Then, if that wasn't enough, the Conservatives sold off the railways and the post office. Now we have expensive crap trains, an expensive crap postal service, and expensive crap telephone system. Then John Major's government managed to screw the economy until the Stock Market collapsed in 1992. As a little parting gift, they did away with student grants, so now students leave university with anything up to £100k of debt.
This paved the way for the Labour government, who decided that if you can't beat 'em you should join 'em. They set about selling off any publically-owned service that was left, pocketed the cash that they didn't spunk on things like the London Eye and Millenium Dome. Once again, though, right-wing politics lead to the inevitable economic collapse as they encouraged people to pay crazy prices for houses, with mortgages that no-one in their right mind would consider.
We're now in a position where the Conservative-Liberal coalition is slightly left of where "New Labour" (now *that* sounds Orwellian, does it not?) started in 1997. It doesn't look like they're going to do anything to stem the rising tide of anti-intellectualism. We're stuffed, basically. Maybe seeking asylum in Somalia would work out better, I just don't know.
This story is an amazing coincidence. I discovered relativity before Einstein, but I never published my findings. Do you agree recognition is long overdue?
No worries, Mr Smith. We all knew it was you all along.
Just that every time the editor for their papers saw the list of names at the top with "C. Cocks" in it they always thought it was a childish prank and erased his name.
To this day every time he gets pulled over the cops say "Come on buddy, your REAL ID this time".
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Why should anyone get recognition if they keep their discovery a secret?
The reason Brits dont make Home computers is that they cant figure out how to make them leak oil.
And YES I have owned 3 british cars and to british bikes... I have experienced British engineering first hand.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Knuth's TAOCP, Volume 2, Third Edition, Page 407:
"Historical note: It was revealed in 1998 that Clifford Cocks had considered encoding messages by the transformation $x^{pq} mod pq$ already in 1973, but his work was kept secret".
And that feels like the correct amount of recognition.
I got a loan because grants had been severely limited by 1991.
According to the cryptography textbook I use and the article, this was made public in 1997. He is also mentioned in the textbook when detailing the development the RSA-algorithm, so I wouldn't say he's been written out of history. Introduction to Cryptography with Coding theory 2nd edition by Wade Trappe, Lawrence Washington
it leads to people acting on peer pressure. we try to discourage that sort of thing.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
Oh no you di'nt
NZ claims the right to that...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popstars
IN YOUR FACE WORLD!
muh ha ha ha ?!@?!
appropriated You HAVE to be kidding. The engines were developed by the Germans, which ALL allies had access to. UK DID develop the first jet airliner, but it had major issues. More importantly, NOTHING was appropriated from it. So, a number of companies did this. What America had was the largest economy and we used to buy American.
LCDs was done by Austrian, French, UK, USA, and Swiss. Basically, different aspects of it were discovered by various ppl.
Exactly HOW was RSA appropriated? UK kept the tech to themselves, and the Americans did not know about it. Or are you saying that RSA crept into MI6 and stole the ideas?
The core of ALL home computers were American designed and developed. Zx80 and MOS were very American.
The web was based on SGML which was GML from where? IBM in America. Hypertext comes from Ted Nelson, American. And how did America 'Appropriate' it? Last I checked, it was EVERYWHERE.
And as to American idol, I agree. It is yours. PLEASE, PLEASE, I beg you, TAKE IT BACK TO YOUR COUNTRY.
The truth is, that the west was powerful because we WORKED together and were not aiming bombs at each other. Our societies worked together, rather than trying to fight each. We need to get back to that.
My brother invented the internal combustion engine.
He was very sad when I told him it had been done before.
This is a true story.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Much of Cocks' work is documented in Simon Singh's fantastic treatise on cryptography and stenography through history, 'The Code Book'. This includes thoughts by Cocks' and James Ellis on the secrecy of their work, and their comfort at that -- they knew what they were getting into. Especially telling are Ellis' quotes -- as he died ~1 month before the public announcement was made...
Gifted to America? I think it was independently developed. But it seems like the Brits developed it independently a little sooner, they should have gotten credit then. Such a waste these government classification things. Holds so much science and technology back. As well as the current patent situation which fosters idea's for money not idea's for idea's and progress. I think our priorities are off with these money centric, government centric ethics.
As a little parting gift, they did away with student grants, so now students leave university with anything up to £100k of debt
What on earth are students doing to get this much debt? Tuition fees are capped at £3,225 a year, with financial aid available for people with families that can't easily afford this much (I only paid about £300/year back when the fees were closer to £1000 as a result of this). You can get a room in a student flat for under £200/month, which works out at £1,800 for the 9 months that you have to be at university. Bills and food come to around £200-300 on top of that, giving at most around £7,000/year. Assuming that you then don't get a summer job, pay the full fee, and don't have any parental assistance, you're still only a fifth of the way to the £100,000 that you claim, after a typical three-year bachelor's degree. A bit more if you go to university in London or do a four-year course.
To rack up £100k of debts, even after a four year degree they'd need to be spending over £20K/year, beyond the tuition fees. That's about twice what someone earning minimum wage makes, before tax.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
That's what I'm hearing here....
Is a regular bachelor's degree in the U.K. a 3-year program?
what about Calculus. Leibnitz and Newton within months of each other. Newton came up with it first, but didn't publish, then Leibnitz published, and Newton got annoyed, published, claimed he was first and there was a big kerfuffle.
In the end we actually use Leibnitz notation for calculus, even though most people don't know who he was, and think Newton invented it.
Certain people in college kept telling me that it was invented in Arabia long before those men were born. Eventually I grew skeptical.
You're thinking of Algebra.
By post-war, I assume you mean the American "War for Independence," or perhaps the American "War of 1812." I think the failed innovations start at least as early as Babbage's Difference Engine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_engine
Hardly written out of history. As I recall he got a whole chapter in "The Code Book" . I would bet that most people familiar with RSA or Diffie Helman have read that.
Good thing they aren't. Right in the fucking summary no less.
Happy people make bad consumers.
In other words, Brits are great at creating innovative technology, while Americans are good at exploiting it to make as much money as possible?
Whilst the Dome was a huge waste of taxpayer's money the London Eye is a profitable private enterprise.
I hate to do this, but no AC has jumped in with a helpful "whoosh" and I'm feeling particularly pedantic today, so I'm going to give you a short lesson in mathematics, the internet, and life in general. I hope you find it useful (I'd like to think you will).
First, as I hope you realize, my post was a joke. A joke wrapped around what I think is an interesting idea, but a joke nonetheless. Since you didn't get the joke I have to assume you didn't get the idea. Let's start with the idea and work our way up from there. You're right about Newton and Leibniz, but what you're missing is that a lot of ideas in math have the same history; that of being developed independently by different people at around the same time. In fact, if you crack open a random math text and point to a random theorem, there is a good chance that there is either an ongoing controversy about whether the person after whom it's named is it's discoverer, or that person is uncontroversially recognized as not being responsible. This phenomena is not limited to math. Inventions and other feats of engineering have the habit of popping up in different places at the same time. Things as everyday as the locomotive, light bulb, and telephone all have multiple independent inventors credibly claiming paternity. The thing to understand here, is that this is not rare, but common. Cocks is a mathematician; he knows about the calculus kerfuffle, he knows that some things named after Newton were probably Simpson, many things named after Gauss were really other people, and many things named after other people were really Gauss (who supposedly kept a stack of unpublished theorems on his desk to hand off to editors when they had space in journals they needed to fill). What I find so interesting is that, Cocks, who knows all of this, is still surprised when he learns that another team of researchers has independently invented the same algorithm he and his team had only a few years earlier. Do you get it yet? Maybe? Let's continue.
Take a moment to reread my post and GP. You heard the Newton/Leibniz story for the first time in Calculus, right? Just like everyone else on the planet. What do you think are the odds that someone posting on Slashdot has never been in that class? I understand that text, divorced from tone of voice and body language, can be hard to interpret, but look at the tone of GP. It's very silly, right? Look at the tone of my post; much more serious, right? What seems more likely: that I'm expressing sincere skepticism at GP's claim of discovering relativity, or that I'm using a little irony to make a point? Feel free to open up a tab and google the definition of irony, I'll still be here when you get back. Okay? Good. Look how my own mock surprise at the idea of multiple independent discovery mirrors that expressed by Cocks in the article. I know, I know, you didn't RTFA. I know that 90% of Slashdot is trash, but there's a solid 10% there, so please, at least sometimes, RTFA. You'll be a smarter person, maybe a better person, for it and girls will like you more*. Now you have the idea and the joke. Is it funny? It's probably not funny after all this. That's okay, it wasn't very funny to begin with.
Finally, please, use some fucking punctuation. Your post is almost unreadable. It's hard to tell who you're saying claimed they were what first. If I didn't already know exactly what you were talking about when I read your post, I wouldn't have been able to figure it out. If you can't communicate your ideas to other people, they're effectively worthless. What if Newton discovered the calculus, but then was unable to explain it to anyone? The paternity of calculus would be even more fucked up then it already is (which is something no one wants).
So, in summary, multiple independent discovery/invention is common, have the self awareness to recognize in yourself that which you see in other people, think longer before you write (or speak), and please, please, please, for fucks sake, use some punctuation and grammar.
I s
Yes and it was so totally a shame when the Wrong brothers invented the airplane first but the credit went to a couple other guys.
"Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace." V.Stone, Microsoft Corporation
...the decision was not made simply to annoy you personally.
Actually, if you read the unpublished section 3 of the Official Secrets Act, you will see that one of the purposes was to personally annoy "Richard W.M. Jones".
un-ALTERED reproduction and dissimination of this IMPORTANT information is ENCOURAGED
Yes. Unlike the US system, there is (generally) no requirement to do courses unrelated to your degree subject - you are expected to acquire a rounded education on your own time (you are free to attend lectures in other subjects - I went to quite a few history and politics lectures while doing a computer science degree, but I didn't take any exams in these subjects). In some cases, people will take a foundation year, which contains general stuff for people who didn't get the required grades at A-level, but this doesn't count towards the degree, it's just an alternative prerequisite.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
If you're talking about jet engines, they were actually independently developed by both the British and the Germans. The Germans were just the first ones to actually build an operational jet fighter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Russel_Wallace
The grandparent is by and large accurate...
:-)
For example:
Jets --> Frank whittle developed the jet engine before the German, (the jets powering the meteor were superior to those powering the ME 262). The US jet program was kicked off in ww2 based after they saw British jets. they were even given a Gloster Meteor to study and to help things along.
LCDs -- George William Gray pioneered the field and laid the foundations for LCDs
As for the internet, everyone knows that the internet is kept in the tower of London
What is it that they say about explaining your own jokes? Woosh indeed.
Don't the royals essentially pay for themselves through tourism, appearance fees, etc? Don't get me wrong, I find the concept of a royal family in this day and age ludicrous. But, like college football, if it's bringing enough money to pay for itself, who cares.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
That's because you're no Einstein, and neither is the guy he did that to.
so how many RSA patents are now invalidated?
Zero.
"Prior Art" doesn't mean it happened before, it means the public knew it happened before.
If you want public recognition, you have no business being in the military.
Actually 'Pop Idol' was a rip-off of a Kiwi show, 'Popstars'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popstars
New Zealand would like to take this opportunity to apologize.
In other words, Brits are great at creating innovative technology, while Americans are good at exploiting it to make as much money as possible?
That was before the copyright everything mindset took over American Businesses.
Yankee Doodle was a song about the blatant counterfeiting of European goods by the colonists.
Work bio at MMWD
Yes. What's tragic about that is that Darwin sat on the theory of evolution for years. He though publishing it would anger God or some such nonsense. When Wallace wrote to him to share his thoughts, Darwin thought "Screw God! I have to beat this guy!" PS. The Mod who flagged that a troll seriously needs to get a sense of humor.
> I don't believe you.
I did. I really, really did. Honest.
you didn't know that?
oh shit, did i just reveal...
nevermind
(whistling)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If this is true then some patents may prove invalid.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
He said 'up to'. And what 'up to' means is Medics & Architects.
Architecture is not a 3 year course, but a 7 year course. You read that right, seven years!
Medicine is a 5 year course - that's £50,000 absolute bare minimum given your numbers (rent is probably closer to £250 \month, that's in a not-particularly-expensive student city, before bills) and doesn't include likely half-rent over summer in the first 2 years, and then the fact that for years 3-4 you get virutally no time off during the summer so in reality you need 12 months rent, and no chance to have a summer job to offset any of that.
As a medic you'll also need a shocking quantity of textbooks and various other things (like a life-size skeleton model and a stethescope), and during 5 years you'll probably need at least 1 new computer.
Oh, and you'll be on placements which could be MILES away from where you're actually studying, so you'll probably need to own\insure\run a car.
How are we getting for £100,000 now?
Now imagine that you're not in a not-particularly-expensive student city, but in the really expensive one (i.e. London).
Think you could be pushing up to that 'up to £100k'? I think you could.
FGD 135
It's not as ludicrous as you think. Constitutionally, having a continuous (if powerless) non-politicised head of state (who is entirely seperate from the head of government) is a very good way of doing things.
FGD 135
The shipyards closed because you can get a ship built for a third of the price in Korea, and the unions wouldn't let the yard owners rebuild with newer equipment as it would involve less manpower. (Clydebank and John Brown's yard a prime example)
The steel works closed because the cost of British steel was higher than that from overseas, and with the mines the government wanted to close the most uneconomical pits and focus investment on the remaining borderline ones. Unfortunately the NUM decided they would challenge them, as they had done in the 70's by holding the country to ransom. Thatcher said no more and stood her ground for over a year. By that time the pits had become totally uneconomical and so even more closed.
Even if that's true**, having enough money to bring someone else's idea to market isn't much to brag about.
** which I doubt, if you factor in the difference in scale between the US and UK