Niels Ferguson Cryptographer

Niels Ferguson

I am a cryptographer with more than 17 years of experience in the specification, design, implementation, and evaluation of cryptographically secured systems. I have done research on electronic payment systems for the Internet, privacy-protection technologies, cryptographically secured transactional databases, cryptographic protocols, block ciphers (Twofish), secure scripting, cryptographic pseudo-random generators, and smart-card based systems. I have provided consulting services in cryptography, computer security, and secure-systems design to companies ranging from tiny to multi-nationals.

For more information see my list of publications, my work experiences, or my personal home page.

Major results

I spent a good part of my career as a consultant, and most of that work is confidential. My major public results are:

• I co-authored the book Practical Cryptography with Bruce Schneier.
• I designed Michael, an authentication function for the 802.11 wireless network (also known as WiFi). Michael is part of the WPA security upgrade, which provides good security on old 802.11 hardware.
• I co-designed the CCM block cipher mode, which is a patent-free mode that provides both encryption and authentication. CCM has been standardized and is used in the WPA2 security protocol for wireless networks.
• I was one of the designers of the Twofish block cipher, and I developed some of the best attacks against Rijndael/AES.
• At DigiCash I worked on various electronic payment schemes, including eCash, the first internet payment scheme.

For more information, I can be contacted at niels«at»macfergus«dot»com.

Copyright © 2003-2008 by MacFergus BV, last update 2008-02-10.