Peter Gutmann

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the computer scientist. For the writer, see Peter Gutmann (journalist).

Peter Gutmann is a computer scientist based in Auckland, New Zealand; he received his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Auckland. He is particularly interested in computer security issues, including security architecture, security usability (or more precisely the lack thereof), and hardware security, and has written widely in those fields. He has discovered assorted flaws in publicly released cryptosystems and protocols. He is the developer of the cryptlib open source software security library and contributed to PGP version 2. He is also known for his analysis of data deletion on electronic memory media, magnetic and otherwise, and devised the Gutmann method for erasing data from a hard drive more or less securely.

Having lived in New Zealand (NZ) for some time, various NZ issues have come to his attention. These include wetas, which are peculiar to NZ, and the great blackout of 1998 in Auckland, during which electrical power failed for some months in the city. He has written extensively on both subjects, among many others. See, for instance, Auckland: Your Y2K beta test site on Gutmann's Homepage. He has also written on his career as an "arms courier" for New Zealand, detailing the difficulty faced in complying with customs control regulations with respect to cryptographic products (once classed as "munitions").