Martin Hellman talks about crypto & eliminating nuclear weapons
2
Feb
2008
Prof. Martin Hellman gave a talk recently about the rationale behind his decision to work on “foolish” problems. The first of which resulted in the discovery of public-key cryptography with Diffie and Merkle, which is now used to secure all modern communications – from email (PGP) to credit card transactions (SSL) and phone calls (Skype). The prevailing wisdom at the time was that there was no point doing the research because the the NSA had probably already done it (they’re the largest employer of mathematicians in the world), and even if one were to to find something out, the government would classify it.
This is the best analogy I’ve seen for how it works, in the form of a puzzle:
“
You’re living in the Soviet Union under Stalin’s rule. You’ve been jailed and sent to the gulags, but you must tell your wife in St. Petersburg to arrange for your release. You’re afraid, however, that your mail will be read by the secret police, so you think of using a lock (assume that it’s not going to be broken due to the time it would take to do so). The problem is, your wife doesn’t have the key. This is how you’d do it: Put a lock on the package you send to your wife. On the outside of the package, enclose a message that instructs her to put a second lock alongside your lock, and mail it back. When the package is returned, remove your lock, then mail it once again to your wife. When she receives it, she can then unlock it with her own key.
”
or download the MP3 here.
His “fools errand, version 2″ refers to his new project related to the elimination of nuclear weapons – he’s asking for help changing the “conventional wisdom” about nukes through online advocacy (he’s already got signatures from former heads/deputy heads of the NSA and CIA, respectively).