| Ian Avrum Goldberg | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 31, 1973 |
| Fields | Computer Science |
| Alma mater | University of California, Berkeley University of Waterloo |
| Doctoral advisor | Eric Brewer |
| Known for | Off-the-Record Messaging |
Ian Avrum Goldberg (born March 31, 1973) is a cryptographer and cypherpunk. He is best known for breaking Netscape's implementation of SSL (with David Wagner),[1] and for his role as Chief Scientist of Radialpoint (formerly Zero-Knowledge Systems), a Canadian software company. Goldberg is currently an associate professor at the School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo.
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He attended high school at the University of Toronto Schools, graduating in 1991. In 1995, he received a B.Math from the University of Waterloo in Pure Mathematics and Computer Science. He obtained a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in December 2000. His thesis was entitled A Pseudonymous Communications Infrastructure for the Internet.[2] His advisor was Eric Brewer.
As a high school student, Goldberg was a member of Canada's team to the International Math Olympiad from 1989 to 1991, where he received a bronze, silver, and gold medal respectively.[3] He was also a member of University of Waterloo team that won the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest in 1994.[4] In 1998, Wired Magazine chose him as a member of the "Wired 25".[5] In 2011 he won the EFF Pioneer Award.[6]
In 1995, Ian Goldberg with David Wagner discovered a flaw in the random number generator used for temporary key generation in the SSL implementation of Netscape Navigator.[1]
One of the first cryptanalyses on the WEP wireless encryption protocol was conducted by Goldberg with Nikita Borisov and David Wagner, revealing serious flaws in its design.[7]
Goldberg was a co-author of the Off-the-Record instant messaging encryption protocol. He is also the author of the Perl script given in Cryptonomicon, a novel by Neal Stephenson.[8]