Martin Edward Hellman (born October 2, 1945) is an American code expert and mathematician, best known for helping create public-key cryptography with Whitfield Diffie and Ralph Merkle. Hellman has long worked on issues related to computer privacy and has used risk analysis to study the possibility of nuclear deterrence failing.

Hellman was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2002 for his work in developing and using cryptographic methods. In 2015, he and Whitfield Diffie received the ACM Turing Award.

In 2016, Hellman wrote a book with his wife, Dorothie Hellman, that connects creating love at home with bringing peace to the planet (A New Map for Relationships: Creating True Love at Home and Peace on the Planet).

Early life

Born in New York to a Jewish family, Hellman graduated from the Bronx High School of Science. He then earned his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from New York University in 1966. At Stanford University, he received a master's degree and a Ph.D. in the same field in 1967 and 1969.

Career

From 1968 to 1969, he worked at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, where he met Horst Feistel. From 1969 to 1971, he was an assistant professor of electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1971, he joined the electrical engineering department at Stanford University as an assistant professor. He worked full-time as a professor there for twenty-five years until 1996, when he became an emeritus professor.

Public key cryptography

In 1976, Hellman and Whitfield Diffie published a paper titled "New Directions in Cryptography." This paper presented a new way to share secret codes, solving a major problem in cryptography called key distribution. This method is now known as the Diffie–Hellman key exchange. Hellman has suggested it should be named the Diffie–Hellman-Merkle key exchange because Merkle also made important contributions. The paper helped create a new type of encryption methods, called public key encryption or asymmetric encryption. In 2000, Hellman and Diffie received the Marconi Fellowship and prize for their work on public-key cryptography and for helping make cryptography a serious area of academic study. They also received the 2015 Turing Award for the same work.

Computer privacy debate

Hellman has been a longtime participant in discussions about computer privacy. In 1975, he and Diffie were among the most important critics of the small key size used in the Data Encryption Standard (DES). A recording of their review of DES at Stanford in 1976 with Dennis Branstad of NBS and representatives from the National Security Agency still exists. Their concern was correct: later events showed that the National Security Agency worked with IBM and NBS to reduce the key size, and that the small key size allowed the creation of machines that could try many keys quickly, as Hellman and Diffie had predicted. In response to RSA Security's DES Challenges, which began in 1997, special machines were built that could break DES, proving it was no longer secure. By 2012, a $10,000 machine available for purchase could recover a DES key in days.

Hellman also worked on the National Research Council's Committee to Study National Cryptographic Policy from 1994 to 1996. The committee's main recommendations have since been put into practice.

International security

Martin Hellman has worked in the field of international security since 1985. He was part of the original Beyond War movement and was the main editor of the booklet titled "BEYOND WAR: A New Way of Thinking."

In 1987, more than 30 scholars collaborated to create Russian and English editions of the book Breakthrough: Emerging New Thinking, Soviet and Western Scholars Issue a Challenge to Build a World Beyond War. Anatoly Gromyko and Martin Hellman were the chief editors of the book. The authors explored questions such as: How can we avoid a conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union? How can we create a shared vision for the future? How can we change our thinking to match the needs of the modern world?

Today, Hellman’s work in international security focuses on reducing the risk of nuclear weapons. He studies the chances and dangers linked to nuclear weapons and supports more international research on this topic. His website, NuclearRisk.org, has received support from several well-known individuals, including a former director of the National Security Agency, a former president of Stanford University, and two Nobel Prize winners.

Hellman is a member of the Board of Directors for Daisy Alliance, a non-governmental organization in Atlanta, Georgia. The group works to improve global security by preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and promoting their elimination.

Awards and honors

In 1980, Martin Hellman was named an IEEE Fellow for his work in cryptography. In 1997, he received the Louis E. Levy Medal from The Franklin Institute. In 1981, he shared the IEEE Donald G. Fink Prize Paper Award with Whitfield Diffie. In 2000, Hellman won the Marconi Prize for creating public-key cryptography, which helps protect privacy on the Internet, along with Whitfield Diffie. In 1998, he was honored with the Golden Jubilee Award for Technological Innovation by the IEEE Information Theory Society. In 2010, he received the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal.

In 2011, Hellman was added to the National Inventors Hall of Fame. That same year, he became a Fellow of the Computer History Museum for his role, along with Whitfield Diffie and Ralph Merkle, in developing public key cryptography.

In 2015, Hellman shared the Turing Award with Whitfield Diffie. The Turing Award is considered the most important honor in computer science. The award recognized their work for "fundamental contributions to modern cryptography." Their 1976 paper, "New Directions in Cryptography," introduced the ideas of public-key cryptography and digital signatures, which are the basis for many security systems used on the Internet today.