Oral History Interview with Phillip Rogaway

Abstract

This oral history interview is sponsored by and a part of NSF 2202484, “Mining Usable Past: Perspectives, Paradoxes, and Possibilities with Security and Privacy,” at the Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota. The interview is with Phillip Rogaway, Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at the University of California, Davis. Rogaway reflects on his early life in Los Angeles, his education at UC Berkeley and MIT, and his development as a cryptographer. He discusses his influential work on block cipher modes of operation, his collaborations with Mihir Bellare, and his broader contributions to theoretical and applied cryptography. The interview explores Rogaway’s critiques of NSA influence in academic cryptography, his call for ethically grounded technical research, and the political dimensions of privacy and security. He concludes with thoughts on teaching, activism, and the role of cryptographers in confronting authoritarianism and injustice.