Under Lock & Key
Named after computer pioneer Alan Turing, the award is given for contributions to public key cryptography and is considered the most prestigious in computer science.
It carries a $100,000 prize, with funding provided by Intel Corp.
At MIT in 1977, Adleman worked with Ronald L. Rivest and Adi Shamir to develop the RSA code, which has become the foundation of an entire generation of technology security products. It also has inspired important work in both theoretical computer science and mathematics.
RSA is an algorithm -- named for Rivest, Shamir and Adleman -- that uses a number theory to provide a pragmatic approach to secure transactions.
It is today’s most widely used encryption method, with applications in Internet browsers and servers, electronic transactions in the credit card industry and products providing e-mail services.
The RSA scheme provides secure communications over distances between parties that have not previously met, reversing historical conventions that required the parties to exchange secret keys prior to communication.
Because the new key exchange algorithm eliminated this inconvenient and often insecure step, it provided the ideal mechanism for private communications over electronic networks.
RSA gained widespread attention when it was published in a detailed paper in Communications of the ACM, in February 1978.
Rivest, Shamir and Adleman shared the 1996 ACM Paris Kanallakis Award for Theory and Practice, together with professors Whitfield Diffie, Martin Hellman and Ralph Merkle, who pioneered the concept of public-key cryptography.
The Kanellakis Award honors specific theoretical accomplishments that have had a significant and demonstrable effect on the practice of computing.
Robert E. Kahn, chairman, president and CEO of the Corporation for National Research Initiatives, headed the 2002 Turing Award committee.
He said the committee quickly agreed on Rivest, Shamir and Adleman as this year's honorees.
“We had a large number of highly qualified candidates, but what impressed us was the combination of their theoretical contribution and its widespread practical application,” Kahn said.
“They clearly deserved this recognition for their well-known seminal work in advancing the theory and application of public key cryptography,” he said.
Adleman, also a professor of molecular biology, earned a bachelor of science degree in mathematics and a Ph.D. in computer science from UC Berkeley.
Rivest is the Viterbi Professor of Computer Science in MIT's department of electrical engineering and computer science. Shamir is the Borman Professor in the applied math department of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.
ACM will present the Turing Award at the annual ACM Awards Banquet on June 7, 2003, at the Town and Country Conference Center in San Diego. The event will be held in conjunction with the Federated Computing Research Conference.
Contact Eric Mankin at (310) 448-9112 or (213) 821-1887.
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The Chronicle of Higher Education mentioned USC’s $6 billion fundraising campaign. The story noted that USC had already raised $1 billion in a “quiet phase,” including the $200 million naming gift from USC Trustee and alumnus David Dornsife and wife Dana Dornsife to the USC Dornsife College.
The Guardian (U.K.) highlighted two major gifts to USC in a list of the 10 biggest philanthropic benefactors in America. The list included the $200 million naming gift from USC Trustee and alumnus David Dornsife and wife Dana Dornsife to the USC Dornsife College, and the $110 million gift from USC Trustee and USC Viterbi School alumnus John Mork and wife Julie to create the USC Mork Family Scholars Program.
The New York Times featured the USC U.S.-China Institute documentary “Assignment: China — The Week that Changed the World.” The documentary, part of a series, examines media coverage of the 1972 Nixon trip that reshaped U.S.-China relations after a quarter century of isolation and hostility. “People look back now and take it for granted that the outcome was preordained,” said the institute’s Mike Chinoy, who produced the documentary. Voice of America also featured the story.
Los Angeles Times featured the Oscar Senti-meter, a tool developed by the USC Annenberg School, Los Angeles Times and IBM that analyzes thousands of tweets about the Academy Awards nominees. The story noted that Mexican actor Demian Bechir received an enormous boost on Twitter the day of the nominations, with a total of 6,893 tweets mentioning him, a 47-fold increase from the day before. The story noted the tool uses language-recognition technology developed in collaboration with USC Viterbi School’s Signal Analysis and Interpretation Lab.
The Times of India (India) featured a three-day medical emergency training workshop organized in association with USC. At the workshop, held at GCS Medical College in India, 50 doctors and more than 100 paramedics learned how to improve emergency support systems. William Mallon of the Keck School of USC said that discussion topics included the use of portable ultrasonic devices to scan patients. “The ultrasound applications help physicians make accurate and timely decisions,” he noted. Daily News & Analysis (India) also featured the workshop.
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