Cliff Cocks on the Origins of Public Key Cryptography

Public key cryptography transformed the way we secure communications but its story began decades ago in the late 1960s.

Cliff Cocks, one of the pioneers behind RSA, shares his journey into the development of public key systems alongside the groundbreaking work of James Ellis and Malcolm Williamson at GCHQ, the UK’s intelligence, security and cyber agency.

From James Ellis’s visionary idea to eliminate the need for key distribution to Cliff’s use of prime numbers as a cornerstone of encryption and Williamson’s introduction of Diffie-Hellman, this conversation traces the evolution of two algorithms that remain the foundation of modern cryptography.

Cliff also reflects on the dramatic changes in cryptography over 50 years – from niche military applications to its ubiquity in everyday communications.

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