Whitfield & middot; Photographed by Zou Fei, a journalist from the upper reaches of Difei
Whitfield, the father of Modern Cryptography & middot; Duffy:
Further in the future, encryption will not be needed
Profile:
Whitfield & middot; Duffy, the winner of the Turing prize in 2015, is now an academician of the National Academy of engineering and a foreign academician of the Royal Society.
Main academic achievements: he created Diffie Hellman, the first key exchange mechanism in history, and pioneered key encryption algorithm and digital signature mechanism.
Whitfield & middot, known as the father of modern cryptography; Duffy, on the theme forum of the 2019 Chongqing global scientists summit, surprised everyone: "in the further future, there is no need for encryption."
Father is a historian, mother is a scholar and writer, Whitfield & middot; How did Duffy embark on the road of 'password' research? He told Chongqing Morning Post & middot; Upstream journalists described this process.
primary school teacher
Opened his way of cryptography research
Whitfield & middot; How did Duffy open his way of cryptography research? He said it was due to one of his teachers, 'I was ten years old and was in the fifth grade of primary school. There was a teacher named Mary & middot; Collins, she spent a day and a half introducing us to some knowledge about passwords, and I was very interested. " The seed sown by the teacher thrives under the irrigation of his parents.
'because my father has a library card from the city university library, he lent me all kinds of books, some of which are children's books, but I'm most interested in the books with password. Later, I went to high school, went to MIT and later worked. I also came into contact with some knowledge about cryptography from time to time. " For mysterious cryptography, in Whitfield & middot; According to Duffy, 'it just sounds very difficult. In fact, cryptography is a kind of conversion. It uses mathematical methods to convert simple plain text information into incomprehensible or difficult to decrypt information, and uses passwords to protect information.'
Whitfield & middot; Duffy, in 1976 and Martin & middot; Herman published the new direction of cryptography, which laid the foundation of today's public cryptographic switching system and is widely used in current network communication.
Major challenges
Cryptography is difficult to solve the problem of Internet of things
Due to the co creation of the well-known Diffie Hellman key exchange protocol / algorithm, Whitfield & middot; Duffy and Martin & middot; Herman won the Turing Award in 2015.
The Turing Award can be called an Oscar in the field of computer science and technology.
Whitfield & middot, who won the Turing Award; Duffy said that today's cryptography is facing major challenges.
'first, the Internet of things and energy consumption, and then expand the Internet to billions of devices; The second is the mathematical algorithm behind encryption. I am a Cryptologist. We must be able to provide the necessary evidence, but no one can succeed, which is very difficult. Perhaps the biggest disadvantage of cryptography, especially in the field of information security, is that the implementation effect is uneven; In addition, we also face the threat of quantum computing. If we have billions of devices, many of which are micro energy consuming devices or use nanotechnology, it may be more difficult for us to encrypt. We are now using some 21st century technologies to solve the problems of the 1950s, but there are still some difficulties in solving the problems faced by the Internet of things. "
Make predictions
Encryption will not be needed in the further future
For the future, Whitfield & middot; Duffy said that cryptography will have three opportunities.
"One is homomorphic encryption, that is, encryption can be performed in the cloud, but the cloud does not know that the data has been encrypted; The second is blockchain. The main driving force is bitcoin. Bitcoin has achieved great success, but it requires a huge workload; Third, new public key technology. "
Of course, Whitfield & middot; Duffy believes that 'encryption is not needed, because encryption requires a certain degree of independence. If human autonomy continues to decline, human beings may not have enough sufficiency or independence to support encryption in less than 100 years.'
'it's like coming home to Chongqing'
Face to face news
Reporter: people are increasingly dependent on mobile phones. How to ensure the security of private information in mobile phones?
Whitfield & middot; Deefy: it's really complicated. I'm not sure if my view today is correct. I think if you keep the information completely on your mobile phone, the mobile phone may break down or lose, and the information may not be so safe. However, if you keep your information in the cloud, it may be safer. Because the information can be encrypted in the cloud, but in fact, the cloud does not know that the data has been encrypted. Under the framework of a contract, this mechanism can provide you with information or hide information. So I think the right way is to encrypt your information in the cloud and let several people share the encryption key at the same time.
Reporter: what's your impression of Chongqing?
Whitfield & middot; Duffy: I think it's like coming home. Chongqing is very similar to New York City where I grew up. The summers in both cities are very hot, the houses are very high and full of vitality.
Reporter: Chongqing is vigorously developing the big data intelligent industry. What do you suggest?
Whitfield & middot; Deefy: Chongqing's development of big data intelligent industry is very good. I can't put forward any suggestions yet. However, I think it is worthwhile for Chongqing to carry out talent education, resource development and investment attraction in industrial development. These can undoubtedly bring lasting benefits to Chongqing and benefit the citizens of the city.