Ross J. Anderson

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Ross J. Anderson bigraphy, stories - British computer scientist, cryptographer

Ross J. Anderson : biography

15 September 1956 –

Ross John Anderson, FRS, (born 1956) is a researcher, writer, and industry consultant in security engineering. He is Professor in Security Engineering at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, – “The Computer Laboratory: an Introduction”, University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, August 2007 where he is engaged in the .

Education

In 1978, Anderson graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics and natural science from Trinity College, Cambridge, and subsequently received a qualification in computer engineering. He worked in the avionics and banking industry before moving in 1992 back to the University of Cambridge, to work on his doctorate under the supervision of Roger Needham and start his career as an academic researcher., May 2007 He received his PhD in 1995, and became a lecturer in the same year., Who’s Who 2008, A & C Black, 2008; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2007. He lives near Sandy, Bedfordshire.

Research

Anderson’s research interests are in computer security. In cryptography, he designed with Eli Biham the BEAR, LION and Tiger cryptographic primitives, and coauthored with Biham and Lars Knudsen the block cipher Serpent, one of the finalists in the AES competition. He has also discovered weaknesses in the FISH cipher and designed the stream cipher Pike.

In 1998, Anderson founded the Foundation for Information Policy Research, a think tank and lobbying group on information-technology policy.

Anderson is also a founder of the UK-Crypto mailing list and the economics of security research domain.Ross Anderson: , ACSAC 2001.

He is well-known among Cambridge academics as an outspoken defender of academic freedoms, intellectual property, and other matters of university politics. He is engaged in the and has been an elected member of Cambridge University Council since 2002.Election to the Council: Notices and , In January 2004, the student newspaper Varsity declared Anderson to be Cambridge University’s “most powerful person”.Cambridge Power 100, Varsity, , 16 January 2004

In 2002, he became an outspoken critic of trusted computing proposals, in particular Microsoft’s Palladium operating system vision.Ross Anderson: , August 2003

Anderson’s TCPA FAQ has been characterized by IBM TC researcher David Safford as "full of technical errors" and of "presenting speculation as fact."http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/research_projects.nsf/pages/gsal.TCG.html/$FILE/tcpa_rebuttal.pdf

For years Anderson has been arguing that by their nature large databases will never be free of abuse by breaches of security. He has said that if a large system is designed for ease of access it becomes insecure; if made watertight it becomes impossible to use. This is sometimes known as Anderson’s Rule.

Anderson is the author of Security Engineering, published by Wiley in 2001, ISBN 0-471-38922-6. http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/book.html He was the founder and editor of Computer and Communications Security Reviews.