Merkle Honored for Pioneering Public-Key
Cryptography
Foresight Institute board member
Ralph Merkle holds the distinction of having contributed significantly
to two separate fields. In February, he was recognized for his pioneering
cryptographic work when he was awarded The Association for Computing's (ACM)
Paris Kanellakis
Theory and Practice Award. The award was presented to Merkle and five
others "for the conception (in 1976) and first effective realization
of public-key cryptography. The idea of a public-key cryptosystem was a
major conceptual breakthrough that continues to stimulate research to this
day, and without it today's rapid growth of electronic commerce would have
been impossible," ACM said.
"The increased use of shared communications channels, particularly
wireless and local area networks (LAN's), leads to greater connectivity,
but also to a much greater opportunity to intercept data and forge messages,"
said Peter Wegner, chair of ACM's Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award
committee and computer science professor at Brown University. "The
only practical way to maintain privacy and integrity of information is by
using public-key cryptography."
ACM is a major force in advancing the skills of information technology professionals
and students. ACM serves its global membership by delivering cutting-edge
technical information and transferring ideas from theory to practice. ACM,
with its world-class journals, magazines and books, dynamic special interest
groups, numerous conferences, workshops, and electronic forums, is a primary
resource to the IT field. For additional information about ACM and the award,
visit its web site.
Special thanks this issue go to all those who participated in our end-of-year
fundraising campaign, which worked especially well this year for at least
two reasons: (1) the two-for-one
matching fund donated by a Senior Associate, and (2) tracking
fundraising progress on the web, so donors could see exactly how we
were doing, i.e. how much we needed to reach our goal - which we did.
Extra-special thanks go to our new Board of Directors members: Ralph Merkle
at Foresight Institute, Linda Vetter at the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing,
and Glenn Reynolds at Center for Constitutional Issues in Technology. For
introducing Linda to IMM, we thank long-time Senior Associate Steve Vetter.
For investment tips on how to maximize the size of our Feynman
Grand Prize fund, we thank Marc Arnold and Jim Von Ehr.
Most Foresight members are aware that the two people who really keep our
organization going are the two who run the office: Elaine Tschorn and Judy
Hill. In the background are those who keep the workhorse Macintosh computers
going: Marcia and Stephen Seidler. We rely on Russell Whitaker as technical
leader on the Hyper-G project
using our two new PCs.
For sending information, we thank Ray Alden, Jon Alexandr, John Burke, Tom
Cheyney, Richard Counihan, John Faith, Dave Forrest, Chris Jones, Samuel
Lin, Joy Martin, Tom McKendree, David Pescovitz, James Rice, Jeff Soreff,
Alvin Steinberg, Franklin Van Ardoy, and Russell Whitaker.
--Chris Peterson, Executive Director, Foresight Institute
Nanotechnology
Applications in a Space-Based Environment, March 25, RAND Critical
Technologies Institute & National Space Society, Washington, DC. Speaker
Ralph Merkle. Tel 202-296-5000 x5276, fax 202-296-7960, email cti@rand.org Science Forum on Nanoscale
Science and Technology, NATO Advanced Research Workshop, March,
Spain, invitational. Dr. M. Nieto-Vesperinas, Inst. Cienca de Materiales,
C-III, Universidad Autonoma, Cantoblanco, E-28049, Madrid, Spain European Workshop on Microtechnology
and Scanning Probe Microscopy, April 7-9, Mainz, Germany. Goal:
to discuss needs of next generation SPMs, "an important prerequisite
for advances in nanotechnology." Dr. Abraham, tel +49-6131-990-130,
fax +49-6131-990-305, email abraham@imm.uni-mainz.de Second European
Symposium of the Protein Society, April 12-16, Cambridge, England.
Includes protein design. Tel 301-530-7010, fax 301-530-7014, email europrot97@faseb.org Senior Associate Gathering,
May 2-4, Palo Alto. Annual meeting of Foresight, IMM, and CCIT Senior Associates
to discuss nanotechnology, other coming technologies. Tel 415-917-1122,
fax 415-917-1123, email inform@foresight.org Nanomeeting-97, Belarausian State Univ, May 19-23, Minsk, Belarus.
Includes nanotechnology, atomic engineering instruments, software for nanotechnological
instrumentation, "chemical synthesis of nanostructures on the basis
of scanning probe fabrication." Prof. Borisenko, tel +375-172-398-869,
fax +375-172-310-914, email victor@nano.rei.minsk.by Ninth International Precision Engineering Seminar & Fourth International
Conference on Ultraprecision in Manufacturing Engineering, May 26-30,
Braunschweig, Germany. Includes SPM; "Trends and Priorities in Precision
Engineering and Nanotechnology." Tel +49-531-592-5300, fax +49-531-592-5305,
email IPES-UME@ptb.de Nanotechnology:
Materials, Manufacturing, and Applications, Cambridge Healthtech
Institute, June 26-27, San Francisco. Nanostructured materials, molecular
manufacturing, atomic structures and manipulation, electronics, micromachines
and devices. Similar to Foresight Conference series. Tel 617-630-1300, fax
617-630-1325, email chi@healthtech.com On
the Edge: Exploring Tomorrow's High-Risk, High-Payoff Technologies,
Index Vanguard, July 15-16, Philadelphia. Includes nanotechnology and ultrascale
computing. Index Vanguard, Cambridge, MA; Tel 617-492-1500 American Vacuum Society Annual Meeting8,
Oct 20-24, San Jose, CA. Includes nanoscale science & technology. Tel
212-248-0200, fax 212-248-0245, email avsnyc@vacuum.org Tutorial on Critical
Enabling Technologies for Nanotechnology, Wednesday, Nov. 5, 1997,
Hyatt Hotel, Palo Alto, California. This tutorial will provide an introduction
and overview of four relevant fields, as well as a consideration of how
the advances in each will address the challenges raised by the design of
any molecular manufacturing system. Fifth Foresight Conference
on Molecular Nanotechnology, Nov. 5-8, Palo Alto, CA. Enabling science
and technology, computational models. Contact Foresight, tel 415-917-1122,
fax 415-917-1123, email inform@foresight.org 7th International Symposium on
Molecular Electronics and Biocomputing, Nov. 10-12, Nanjing, PR
China. Tel +86-25-361-9983, fax +86-25-771-2719, email zhlu@seu.edu.cn
