Foresight Update 28
Page 5
A publication of the Foresight Institute
 Merkle
Honored for Pioneering Public-Key
 Cryptography
Foresight Institute
board member Ralph Merkle holds the distinction of having
contributed significantly to two separate fields. In February, he
was recognized for his pioneering cryptographic work when he was
awarded The Association for Computing's (ACM) Paris
Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award. The award was presented
to Merkle and five others "for the conception (in 1976) and
first effective realization of public-key cryptography. The idea
of a public-key cryptosystem was a major conceptual breakthrough
that continues to stimulate research to this day, and without it
today's rapid growth of electronic commerce would have been
impossible," ACM said.
"The increased use of shared communications channels,
particularly wireless and local area networks (LAN's), leads to
greater connectivity, but also to a much greater opportunity to
intercept data and forge messages," said Peter Wegner, chair
of ACM's Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award committee and
computer science professor at Brown University. "The only
practical way to maintain privacy and integrity of information is
by using public-key cryptography."
ACM is a major force in advancing the skills of information
technology professionals and students. ACM serves its global
membership by delivering cutting-edge technical information and
transferring ideas from theory to practice. ACM, with its
world-class journals, magazines and books, dynamic special
interest groups, numerous conferences, workshops, and electronic
forums, is a primary resource to the IT field. For additional
information about ACM and the award, visit its web site.
Thanks
Special thanks this issue go to all those who participated in
our end-of-year fundraising campaign, which worked especially
well this year for at least two reasons: (1) the two-for-one matching fund
donated by a Senior Associate, and (2) tracking
fundraising progress on the web, so donors could see exactly
how we were doing, i.e. how much we needed to reach our goal -
which we did.
Extra-special thanks go to our new Board of Directors members:
Ralph Merkle at Foresight Institute, Linda Vetter at the
Institute for Molecular Manufacturing, and Glenn Reynolds at
Center for Constitutional Issues in Technology. For introducing
Linda to IMM, we thank long-time Senior Associate Steve Vetter.
For investment tips on how to maximize the size of our Feynman Grand Prize fund, we
thank Marc Arnold and Jim Von Ehr.
Most Foresight members are aware that the two people who really
keep our organization going are the two who run the office:
Elaine Tschorn and Judy Hill. In the background are those who
keep the workhorse Macintosh computers going: Marcia and Stephen
Seidler. We rely on Russell Whitaker as technical leader on the Hyper-G project using our
two new PCs.
For sending information, we thank Ray Alden, Jon Alexandr, John
Burke, Tom Cheyney, Richard Counihan, John Faith, Dave Forrest,
Chris Jones, Samuel Lin, Joy Martin, Tom McKendree, David
Pescovitz, James Rice, Jeff Soreff, Alvin Steinberg, Franklin Van
Ardoy, and Russell Whitaker.
--Chris Peterson, Executive Director, Foresight Institute
Upcoming
Events
Nanotechnology
Applications in a Space-Based Environment, March 25, RAND
Critical Technologies Institute & National Space Society,
Washington, DC. Speaker Ralph Merkle. Tel 202-296-5000 x5276, fax
202-296-7960, email cti@rand.org
Science
Forum on Nanoscale Science and Technology, NATO Advanced
Research Workshop, March, Spain, invitational. Dr. M.
Nieto-Vesperinas, Inst. Cienca de Materiales, C-III, Universidad
Autonoma, Cantoblanco, E-28049, Madrid, Spain
European Workshop on
Microtechnology and Scanning Probe Microscopy, April 7-9,
Mainz, Germany. Goal: to discuss needs of next generation SPMs,
"an important prerequisite for advances in
nanotechnology." Dr. Abraham, tel +49-6131-990-130, fax
+49-6131-990-305, email abraham@imm.uni-mainz.de
Second
European Symposium of the Protein Society, April 12-16,
Cambridge, England. Includes protein design. Tel 301-530-7010,
fax 301-530-7014, email europrot97@faseb.org
Senior Associate
Gathering, May 2-4, Palo Alto. Annual meeting of
Foresight, IMM, and CCIT Senior Associates to discuss
nanotechnology, other coming technologies. Tel 415-917-1122, fax
415-917-1123, email foresight@foresight.org
Nanomeeting-97, Belarausian State Univ, May 19-23, Minsk,
Belarus. Includes nanotechnology, atomic engineering instruments,
software for nanotechnological instrumentation, "chemical
synthesis of nanostructures on the basis of scanning probe
fabrication." Prof. Borisenko, tel +375-172-398-869, fax
+375-172-310-914, email victor@nano.rei.minsk.by
Ninth International Precision Engineering Seminar & Fourth
International Conference on Ultraprecision in Manufacturing
Engineering, May 26-30, Braunschweig, Germany. Includes SPM;
"Trends and Priorities in Precision Engineering and
Nanotechnology." Tel +49-531-592-5300, fax +49-531-592-5305,
email IPES-UME@ptb.de
Nanotechnology:
Materials, Manufacturing, and Applications, Cambridge
Healthtech Institute, June 26-27, San Francisco. Nanostructured
materials, molecular manufacturing, atomic structures and
manipulation, electronics, micromachines and devices. Similar to
Foresight Conference series. Tel 617-630-1300, fax 617-630-1325,
email chi@healthtech.com
On
the Edge: Exploring Tomorrow's High-Risk, High-Payoff
Technologies, Index Vanguard, July 15-16, Philadelphia.
Includes nanotechnology and ultrascale computing. Index Vanguard,
Cambridge, MA; Tel 617-492-1500
American Vacuum Society
Annual Meeting8, Oct 20-24, San Jose, CA. Includes
nanoscale science & technology. Tel 212-248-0200, fax
212-248-0245, email avsnyc@vacuum.org
Tutorial on
Critical Enabling Technologies for Nanotechnology,
Wednesday, Nov. 5, 1997, Hyatt Hotel, Palo Alto, California. This
tutorial will provide an introduction and overview of four
relevant fields, as well as a consideration of how the advances
in each will address the challenges raised by the design of any
molecular manufacturing system.
Fifth Foresight
Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology, Nov. 5-8, Palo
Alto, CA. Enabling science and technology, computational models.
Contact Foresight, tel 415-917-1122, fax 415-917-1123, email
foresight@foresight.org
7th
International Symposium on Molecular Electronics and Biocomputing,
Nov. 10-12, Nanjing, PR China. Tel +86-25-361-9983, fax
+86-25-771-2719, email zhlu@seu.edu.cn
Foresight Update 28 was originally
published 30 March 1997.
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