Browsing by Subject "Cryptography"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Oral history interview with Robert E. Mumma
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 1984-04-19) Mumma, Robert E.
    Mumma describes National Cash Register's (now NCR) early years in the electronic computing industry. Mumma went to work for NCR in 1939 in their newly formed Electronic Research Department. Before the war he designed gas thyratron tubes for use as decimal counters in an electronic calculator, a working model of which was completed before the war. Mumma discusses the contact NCR had during this period with MIT and Harvard, and reviews some of the early research projects and personnel at NCR. He describes in guarded terms work NCR did before the war for NDRC on a secret communication system and during the war on a high speed counter for measuring muzzle velocity of cannon shells. He recounts how war-time work on cryptanalytic equipment took all the company's effort, and how this shaped company policy resisting government contract work after the war. The second half of the interview describes NCR's move into commercial electronic computing in the 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s, with such products as cash registers with punched tape, accounting machines with electronic multiplier, high-speed printers, bar code readers, point-of-sale terminals, and magnetic ink character recognition equipment. Mumma explains how NCR considered purchasing the Eckert-Mauchly Company prior to its acquisition of Computer Research Corporation, as a way of entering the computer field. The division of labor between NCR-Dayton and the NCR-CRC division are considered, as are the difficulties of promoting, developing, and marketing electronic technology in the mechanically-oriented environment of NCR headquarters in Dayton.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Oral History with Paul Kocher
    (Charles Babbage Institute, 2023-06-29) Kocher, Paul
    This oral history interview is sponsored by and a part of NSF 2202484 “Mining a Useable Past: Perspectives, Paradoxes, and Possibilities with Security and Privacy,” at the Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota. It is an interview with Paul Kocher by videoconference. The interview begins with Kocher’s interest and experience programming prior to attending Stanford University, his interests in math and biology, and his goal to be a veterinarian. He relates summer jobs he had while at Stanford, first at software company Symantec and then at RSA Data Security. He discusses meeting Hellman at Stanford in his second year, support and encouragement from Hellman, and his participation as a student in a group at Stanford of Silicon Valley cryptographers. Hellman referred consulting opportunities to Kocher during the early the growth of the Internet and Web, which enabled to Kocher to pursue cryptography as an early career. Kocher formed Cryptography Research Inc. in 1995, initially with just him doing consulting but soon adding others and branching beyond consulting. Kocher discusses various projects, including his pathbreaking work with Taher Elgamal on Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) 3.0/Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.0, a protocol to protect communications over the Internet. He relates how his knowledge and exposure to many areas like statistics without a focus in one contributed to his discovery of timing channel attacks and power analysis attacks (both categories of side channel attacks). The interview also explores the growth of the company, the variety of technical projects it did for clients, and how consulting led to opportunities to also explore other security research. He recounts the context of the Spectre paper. He also reflects upon the field of computer security broadly in terms complexity adding to vulnerabilities/risks and the economics of computer security. He highlights that he was able to work with many great people who together achieved impactful new technologies, techniques, and understandings in the field of computer security. Kocher tells of how, as the company grew larger, it needed to internally expand more of the infrastructure typical of larger corporations, or be acquired by another corporation. The latter made more sense and Cryptography Research, Inc. merged with Rambus in 2011. Finally, he mentions how the success of the company and the merger allowed him to become more involved in philanthropy.