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Looking Back—My Life as a Mathematician and Cryptographer

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Selected Areas in Cryptography – SAC 2019 (SAC 2019)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNSC,volume 11959))

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Abstract

In this paper, I look back at my career as a mathematician and mathematical cryptographer, mainly concentrating on my student days and the early parts of my career. I also discuss my research philosophy and what I mean by the term “combinatorial cryptography.” Along the way, I recall some influential people, books and papers.

D. R. Stinson’s research is supported by NSERC Discovery grant RGPIN-03882.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    I did have to memorize the multiplication table, but this did not bother me.

  2. 2.

    This quote is from the Wikipedia article “Conway’s Soldiers” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway’s_Soldiers), which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.

  3. 3.

    This quote is from the Wikipedia article “Murray S. Klamkin” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_S._Klamkin), which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.

  4. 4.

    This is sometimes called a Minkowski diagram.

  5. 5.

    Gus was another important influence on my career.

  6. 6.

    Unconditional security is basically the same thing as being secure against an infinitely powerful adversary.

  7. 7.

    I attribute this amusing term to Curt Lindner.

  8. 8.

    This quote is from the Wikipedia article “Computers and Intractability” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computers_and_Intractability), which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.

  9. 9.

    There is apparently no source to substantiate the claim that Einstein actually said this, but it is still a good quote.

  10. 10.

    I should emphasize that I am not specifically criticizing the wording and notation in this definition. I am just using it to illustrate how complicated cryptographic definitions have become in recent years.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada

    Douglas R. Stinson

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  1. Douglas R. Stinson
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Correspondence to Douglas R. Stinson .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Kenneth G. Paterson

  2. Department of Combinatorics and Optimization, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    Douglas Stebila

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Stinson, D.R. (2020). Looking Back—My Life as a Mathematician and Cryptographer. In: Paterson, K., Stebila, D. (eds) Selected Areas in Cryptography – SAC 2019. SAC 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11959. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38471-5_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38471-5_1

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