Sean Murphy (cryptographer)
Encyclopedia
Sean Murphy is a cryptographer, currently a professor at Royal Holloway, University of London
. He worked on the NESSIE
and ECRYPT
projects. His notable research includes the cryptanalysis
of FEAL
and the Advanced Encryption Standard
, and the use of stochastic
and statistical
techniques in cryptology. With Donald Davies
he also developed Davies' attack
on DES
.
Murphy received his Ph.D.
in mathematics
in 1989 from the University of Bath
.
Royal Holloway, University of London
Royal Holloway, University of London is a constituent college of the University of London. The college has three faculties, 18 academic departments, and about 8,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students from over 130 different countries...
. He worked on the NESSIE
NESSIE
NESSIE was a European research project funded from 2000–2003 to identify secure cryptographic primitives. The project was comparable to the NIST AES process and the Japanese Government-sponsored CRYPTREC project, but with notable differences from both...
and ECRYPT
ECRYPT
ECRYPT is a 4-year European research initiative launched on 1 February 2004.The stated objective is to, "intensify the collaboration of European researchers in information security, and more in particular in cryptology and digital watermarking.ECRYPT list five core research areas, termed "virtual...
projects. His notable research includes the cryptanalysis
Cryptanalysis
Cryptanalysis is the study of methods for obtaining the meaning of encrypted information, without access to the secret information that is normally required to do so. Typically, this involves knowing how the system works and finding a secret key...
of FEAL
FEAL
In cryptography, FEAL is a block cipher proposed as an alternative to the Data Encryption Standard , and designed to be much faster in software. The Feistel based algorithm was first published in 1987 by Akihiro Shimizu and Shoji Miyaguchi from NTT...
and the Advanced Encryption Standard
Advanced Encryption Standard
Advanced Encryption Standard is a specification for the encryption of electronic data. It has been adopted by the U.S. government and is now used worldwide. It supersedes DES...
, and the use of stochastic
Stochastic
Stochastic refers to systems whose behaviour is intrinsically non-deterministic. A stochastic process is one whose behavior is non-deterministic, in that a system's subsequent state is determined both by the process's predictable actions and by a random element. However, according to M. Kac and E...
and statistical
Statistics
Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....
techniques in cryptology. With Donald Davies
Donald Davies
Donald Watts Davies, CBE FRS was a Welsh computer scientist who was one of the inventors of packet switching computer networking, and originator of the term.-Career history:...
he also developed Davies' attack
Davies' attack
In cryptography, is a dedicated statistical cryptanalysis method for attacking the Data Encryption Standard . The attack was originally created in 1987 by Donald Davies. In 1994, Eli Biham and Alex Biryukov made significant improvements to the technique. It is a known-plaintext attack based on the...
on DES
Data Encryption Standard
The Data Encryption Standard is a block cipher that uses shared secret encryption. It was selected by the National Bureau of Standards as an official Federal Information Processing Standard for the United States in 1976 and which has subsequently enjoyed widespread use internationally. It is...
.
Murphy received his Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
in mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
in 1989 from the University of Bath
University of Bath
The University of Bath is a campus university located in Bath, United Kingdom. It received its Royal Charter in 1966....
.