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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.
Moe: Phone call for C. Cocks. C Cocks? Anyone?
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"
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.
They can't. But what is a "purely mathematical" algorithm? Can you find one which, for some reason, could never have any useful application whatsoever? The RSA algorithm wasn't patented - it's use in encrypting "messages" was.
This is why the typical programmer argument against software patents, "But it's just math!", is futile and justifiably derided by the typical Patent Attorney. The proper (and extremely powerful) argument to use aganst software patents is an economic one.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In other words, Brits are great at creating innovative technology, while Americans are good at exploiting it to make as much money as possible?