Matt Blaze
The Clipper Chip Breaker
Killing key escrow, then auditing the voting machines
Rating
92Impact score
Domains
CryptographyElection securityPhysical security
Scouting report
Found the protocol flaw in the NSA’s Clipper chip escrow scheme in 1994 and published it, which did more to end mandated key escrow than any amount of lobbying. Later led state-commissioned source reviews of US voting systems, published work on the vulnerabilities of master-keyed physical locks and wiretap systems, and became a law-school professor arguing the same points to a different audience.
Curator’s note
Has broken the government’s preferred backdoor design once already.
Portrait
Painted from a photograph of Matt Blaze by DEFCONConference, licensed CC BY 3.0.
Sources
- 01Matt Blaze en.wikipedia.org
- 02Protocol Failure in the Escrowed Encryption Standard (1994) mattblaze.org