Clifford Cocks
Clifford Christopher Cocks CB FRS (born 28 December 1950) is a British mathematician and cryptographer. In the early 1970s, while working at the United Kingdom Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), he developed an early public-key cryptography (PKC) system. This pre-dated commercial offerings, but due the classified nature of Cocks' work, it did not become widely known until 1997 when the work was declassified.
Clifford Cocks CB FRS | |
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Clifford Cocks at the Royal Society admissions day in London, July 2015 | |
| Born | Clifford Christopher Cocks 28 December 1950 Prestbury, Cheshire, England, United Kingdom |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | Manchester Grammar School |
| Alma mater | University of Cambridge (BA) |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Cryptography |
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As his work was not available for public review until 1997, it had no impact on numerous commercial initiatives relating to Internet security that had been commercially developed and that were well established by 1997. His work was technically aligned with the Diffie–Hellman key exchange and elements of the RSA algorithm, these well known systems were independently developed and commercialized.