Adam Back

Adam Back (born July 1970)[1] is a British businessman and cryptographer, and cypherpunk. Back corresponded with Satoshi Nakamoto and was cited in the Bitcoin whitepaper.

Adam Back
Born
Adam Back

July 1970 (age 49)
London, England, UK
NationalityBritish
OccupationCryptographer
Known forhashcash, Blockstream, RSA (cryptosystem)
Home townSliema, Malta
Websitehttp://www.cypherspace.org/adam/

Life

Back was born in London, England, United Kingdom, and he now resides in Sliema, Malta. He has a computer science Ph.D.[2] from University of Exeter in South West England.

Cryptography software
Photos of Back's "Munitions" t-shirt that featured computer code that was considered to be a weapon in the USA

In 1997,[3] Back invented Hashcash. A similar system is used in bitcoin.[4][5][6] Hashcash has also been used in a number of other protocols such as combating blog spam, and defending against user namespace pollution. Back is a pioneer of early digital asset research that includes Wei Dai, David Chaum and Hal Finney.[7][8]

He also implemented credlib,[9][10] a library that implements the credential systems of Stefan Brands and David Chaum.

He was the first to describe the "non-interactive forward secrecy"[11][12][13] security property for email and to observe that any identity based encryption scheme can be used to provide non-interactive forward secrecy.

He is also known for promoting the use of ultra-compact code with his 2-line[14] and 3-line RSA (cryptosystem) in Perl[15][16][17] signature file and non-exportable T-shirts[18][19] to protest cryptography export regulations.[20]

Back was one of the first two people to receive an email from Satoshi Nakamoto.[21][2] In 2016 Financial Times cited Back as a potential Satoshi candidate, along with Nick Szabo and Hal Finney.[22] In 2020, a YouTube channel called BarelySociable claimed that Back, was Satoshi. Back denied this.[2] Craig Steven Wright had sued Back because Back stated that Wright was not Nakamoto, with Wright subsequently dropping the suit.[2]

Back has promoted the use of satellites and mesh networks to broadcast and receive bitcoin transactions, as a backup for the traditional internet.[23]

Business career

Adam is currently the CEO of Blockstream.[4]

See also

References
  1. Singh, Rachna (2019). The Bitcoin Saga: A Mixed Montage. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-9388271837.
  2. Kharif, Olga (2 June 2020). "Latest Satoshi Nakamoto Candidate Buying Bitcoin No Matter What". Bloomberg. Retrieved 3 June 2020.
  3. Back, Adam. "Hashcash - A Denial of Service Counter-Measure" (PDF). hashcash.org. Retrieved 29 May 2019.
  4. Shaw, Jessica Marmor (8 January 2018). "Bitcoin and cryptocurrency on Twitter: The most important people to follow". Marketwatch. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
  5. "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" (PDF).
  6. Casey, Michael J. (22 October 2020). "BitBeat: Bitcoin Coding Allstars Launch Sidechains Project to Boost Innovation". WSJBlogs. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
  7. Leising, Matthew (30 June 2018). "Is Bitcoin Creator Writing a Book? Cryptic Note Indicates Yes". Bloomberg. Retrieved 13 May 2020.
  8. Bustillos, Maria (25 August 2015). "Inside the Fight Over Bitcoin's Future". New Yorker. Retrieved 13 May 2020.
  9. Frisby, Dominic (2015). "Footnotes". Bitcoin: The future of money?. Unbound. ISBN 978-1783521029.
  10. "credlib - Credential Library". cypherspace.org.
  11. Boyd, Colin. "A Modern View on Forward Security" (PDF). IACR. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
  12. Anderson, Ross (2002). "Two remarks on public key cryptology" (PDF). Cambridge University. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
  13. "Non-Interactive Forward Secrecy". cypherspace.org.
  14. Salomon, David (2003). "Secure Programming with Perl". Data Privacy and Security. Springer. p. 200. ISBN 9781441918161.
  15. Judmayer, Aljosha; Stifter, Nicholas (2017). "Before bitcoin". Blocks and Chains: Introduction to Bitcoin, Cryptocurrencies, and Their Consensus Mechanisms (Synthesis Lectures on Information Security, Privacy, and Tru). Morgan & Claypool Publishers. p. 17. ISBN 9781627057165.
  16. "export-a-crypto-system sig". cypherspace.org.
  17. Sinn, Richard (2007). "Secure Programming with Perl". Software Security Technologies. Cengage Learning. p. 366. ISBN 9781428319455.
  18. Blanchette, Jean-François (2012). "On the brink of revolution". Burdens of Proof: Cryptographic Culture and Evidence Law in the Age of Electronic Documents. MIT Press. p. 50. ISBN 978-0262017510.
  19. "Munitions T-shirt". cypherspace.org.
  20. Brunton, Finn (2019). "On the brink of revolution". Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency. Princeton Press. p. 97. ISBN 9780691179490.
  21. RATLIFF, EVAN (16 July 2019). "Was Bitcoin Created by This International Drug Dealer? Maybe!". Wired. Retrieved 13 May 2020.
  22. Kaminska, Izabella (7 May 2016). "Bitcoin: Identity crisis". Financial Times. Retrieved 4 June 2020.
  23. del Castillo, Michael (17 December 2018). "Who Needs Verizon? Blockstream Broadcasts Entire Bitcoin Blockchain From Space". Forbes. Retrieved 13 May 2020.
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