Scott Vanstone
| Scott Vanstone | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Scott Alexander Vanstone September 14, 1947 |
| Died |
2 March 2014 (aged 66) Milton, Ontario |
| Nationality | Canada |
| Occupation | Mathematician, Cryptographer |
| Known for |
Elliptic Curve Cryptography founder of Certicom |
| Awards |
RSA Security Award in Mathematics Catalyst Award for Lifetime Achievement in Innovation |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | University of Waterloo |
| Doctoral advisor | Ron Mullin |
| Academic work | |
| Institutions |
University of Waterloo Certicom |
| Doctoral students |
Paul van Oorschot Alfred Menezes |
Scott A. Vanstone was a mathematician and cryptographer in the University of Waterloo Faculty of Mathematics. He was a member of the school's Centre for Applied Cryptographic Research, and was also a founder of the cybersecurity company Certicom. He received his PhD in 1974 at the University of Waterloo, and for about a decade worked principally in combinatorial design theory, finite geometry, and finite fields. In the 1980s he started working in cryptography.[1]:287 An early result of Vanstone (joint with Ian Blake, R. Fuji-Hara, and Ron Mullin) was an improved algorithm for computing discrete logarithms in binary fields,[2] which inspired Don Coppersmith to develop his famous exp(n^{1/3+ε}) algorithm (where n is the degree of the field).[3]
Vanstone was one of the first[1]:289 to see the commercial potential of Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC), and much of his subsequent work was devoted to developing ECC algorithms, protocols, and standards. In 1985 he co-founded Certicom, which later became the chief developer and promoter of ECC.
Vanstone authored or coauthored five widely-used books and almost two hundred research articles, and he held several patents.[1]:292-299 He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a Fellow of the International Association for Cryptologic Research. In 2001 he won the RSA Security Award in Mathematics,[4] and in 2009 he received the Ontario Premier's Catalyst Award for Lifetime Achievement in Innovation.[3]
He died on March 2, 2014 after a short illness.[5]
Bibliography
- van Oorschot, Paul; Vanstone, Scott A. (1989). An Introduction to Error Correctng Codes with Applications. Kluwer Academic Publishers. ISBN 9780792390176.
- Blake, Ian; Gao, Shuhong; Menezes, Alfred J.; Mullin, Ron; Vanstone, Scott A.; Yaghoobian, Tomik (1993). Applications of Finite Fields. Kluwer Academic Publishers. ISBN 0-7923-9282-5.
- Menezes, Alfred J.; van Oorschot, Paul; Vanstone, Scott A. (1996). Handbook of Applied Cryptography. CRC Press. ISBN 0-8493-8523-7.
- Hankerson, D.; Vanstone, S.; Menezes, A. (2004). Guide to Elliptic Curve Cryptography. Springer Professional Computing. New York: Springer. doi:10.1007/b97644. ISBN 0-387-95273-X.
- Gilbert, William J.; Vanstone, Scott A. (2005). Introduction to Mathematical Thinking: Algebra and Number Systems. Pearson Prentice Hall. ISBN 9780131848689.
References
Notes
- 1 2 3 Blake, Ian; Menezes, Alfred J.; Stinson, Doug (2015), "Guest editorial: Special issue in honor of Scott A. Vanstone", Designs, Codes and Cryptography, 77: 287–299, doi:10.1007/s10623-015-0106-2
- ↑ Blake, Ian; Fuji-Hara, R.; Mullin, Ron; Vanstone, Scott A. (1984), "Computing logarithms in finite fields of characteristic two", SIAM J. Algebraic & Discrete Methods, 5: 276–285, doi:10.1137/0605029
- 1 2 "Prof. Scott Vanstone, FRSC, FIACR, 1947-2014". Retrieved 9 April 2018.
- ↑ "Certicom Founder Receives Security Award for Mathematics from RSA". Retrieved 9 April 2018.
- ↑ "In Memory of Scott Alexander Vanstone". J. Scott Early funeral home web site. Archived from the original on March 4, 2014.
