Adam Back | |
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Born | July 1970 (age 53–54) London, England, UK |
Education | University of Exeter |
Scientific career | |
Fields | |
Institutions |
|
Thesis | Parallelization of general purpose programs using optimistic techniques from parallel discrete event simulation (1995) |
Doctoral advisor | Stephen Turner |
Website |
cypherspace |
Adam Back (born July 1970) is a British cryptographer and cypherpunk. He is the CEO of Blockstream, which he co-founded in 2014. He invented Hashcash, which is used in the Bitcoin mining process.
Back was born in London, England, in July 1970. [1] His first computer was a Sinclair ZX81. He taught himself Basic, and spent his time reverse engineering video games, finding decryption keys in software packages. He completed his A levels in advanced mathematics, physics, and economics.
He has a computer science PhD in distributed systems from the University of Exeter. [2] During his PhD, Back worked with compilers to make use of parallel computers in a semi automated way. He became interested in PGP encryption, electronic cash and remailers. He spent two thirds of his time working with encryption. After graduation, Adam spent his career as a consultant in start ups and larger companies in applied cryptography, writing cryptographic libraries, designing, reviewing and breaking other people's cryptographic protocols. [3]
Back is a pioneer of early digital asset research similar to Wei Dai, David Chaum, and Hal Finney. [4] [5] In 1997, Back invented Hashcash. [6] A similar system is used in Bitcoin. [7] [8] [9]
He also implemented credlib, [10][ better source needed] [11][ better source needed] a library that implements the credential systems of Stefan Brands and David Chaum.
He was the first to describe the "non-interactive forward secrecy" [12] [13] [14] 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 [15] and 3-line RSA in Perl [16] [17] [18] signature file and non-exportable T-shirts [19] [20] to protest cryptography export regulations. [21]
Back was one of the first two people to receive an email from Satoshi Nakamoto. [22] [2] In 2016, the Financial Times cited Back as a potential Nakamoto candidate, along with Nick Szabo and Hal Finney. [23] Craig Wright had sued Back for stating 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. [24]
On 3 October 2016, Back was appointed as CEO of Blockstream. [25] Since then he has introduced products such as the Liquid sidechain, Blockstream Mining Notes, mining colocation services, the Jade hardware wallet, and the Core Lightning implementation.
Adam Back | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Born | July 1970 (age 53–54) London, England, UK |
Education | University of Exeter |
Scientific career | |
Fields | |
Institutions |
|
Thesis | Parallelization of general purpose programs using optimistic techniques from parallel discrete event simulation (1995) |
Doctoral advisor | Stephen Turner |
Website |
cypherspace |
Adam Back (born July 1970) is a British cryptographer and cypherpunk. He is the CEO of Blockstream, which he co-founded in 2014. He invented Hashcash, which is used in the Bitcoin mining process.
Back was born in London, England, in July 1970. [1] His first computer was a Sinclair ZX81. He taught himself Basic, and spent his time reverse engineering video games, finding decryption keys in software packages. He completed his A levels in advanced mathematics, physics, and economics.
He has a computer science PhD in distributed systems from the University of Exeter. [2] During his PhD, Back worked with compilers to make use of parallel computers in a semi automated way. He became interested in PGP encryption, electronic cash and remailers. He spent two thirds of his time working with encryption. After graduation, Adam spent his career as a consultant in start ups and larger companies in applied cryptography, writing cryptographic libraries, designing, reviewing and breaking other people's cryptographic protocols. [3]
Back is a pioneer of early digital asset research similar to Wei Dai, David Chaum, and Hal Finney. [4] [5] In 1997, Back invented Hashcash. [6] A similar system is used in Bitcoin. [7] [8] [9]
He also implemented credlib, [10][ better source needed] [11][ better source needed] a library that implements the credential systems of Stefan Brands and David Chaum.
He was the first to describe the "non-interactive forward secrecy" [12] [13] [14] 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 [15] and 3-line RSA in Perl [16] [17] [18] signature file and non-exportable T-shirts [19] [20] to protest cryptography export regulations. [21]
Back was one of the first two people to receive an email from Satoshi Nakamoto. [22] [2] In 2016, the Financial Times cited Back as a potential Nakamoto candidate, along with Nick Szabo and Hal Finney. [23] Craig Wright had sued Back for stating 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. [24]
On 3 October 2016, Back was appointed as CEO of Blockstream. [25] Since then he has introduced products such as the Liquid sidechain, Blockstream Mining Notes, mining colocation services, the Jade hardware wallet, and the Core Lightning implementation.