Matt Blaze
Template:Short description Template:Infobox scientist Matt Blaze is an American researcher who focuses on the areas of secure systems, cryptography, and trust management. He is currently the McDevitt Chair of Computer Science and Law at Georgetown University,<ref name="georgetown.edu">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and is on the board of directors of the Tor Project.<ref name=tor>Template:Cite news</ref>
WorkEdit
Blaze received his PhD in computer science from Princeton University.
In 1992, while working for AT&T, Blaze implemented a strong cryptographic package known as "CFS", the Cryptographic File System, for Unix, since ported to Linux.<ref>"Using CFS, the Cryptographic Filesystem", Oct 15, 2002, Jerry Sweet, Linux Journal</ref> CFS uses Network File System as its transport mechanism, allowing users to encrypt selected directory hierarchies, but mount them unencrypted after providing the key. In November, 1993, he presented a paper on this project, "A Cryptographic File System for Unix", at the 1st ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security.<ref>"A Cryptographic File System for Unix", Matt Blaze, att.com</ref> Blaze also published a paper "Key Management in an Encrypting File System", in the Proceedings USENIX Summer 1994 Technical Conference.
In the early 1990s, at the height of the "crypto war", Blaze was a participant in the Cypherpunks mailing list<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and in 1994, he found a critical weakness in the wiretapping mechanisms of the Clipper chip.<ref name="Markoff-1994-06-03">Template:Cite news</ref> His paper, Protocol Failure in the Escrowed Encryption Standard,<ref name=Blaze>Template:Cite journal</ref> pointed out that the Clipper's escrow system had a serious vulnerability: a brute-force attack could allow the Clipper chip to be used as an encryption device, while disabling the key escrow capability.<ref name=Blaze/><ref>Security Flaw Allows Wiretaps to Be Evaded, Study Finds", John Schwartz and John Markoff, New York Times, November 30, 2005</ref><ref>Between a Hacker and a Hard Place", Peter H. Lewis, The New York Times, April 10, 1995</ref> Later during this time, he was one of the authors of a seminal paper on calculating secure key lengths.<ref name="fortify">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
After leaving Bell, Blaze was an associate professor of computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> from 2004 to 2018.<ref name="georgetown.edu"/> Blaze has noted a long-term conflict with the university's locksmith over his master key & safecracking publications.<ref>Template:Cite tweet</ref> He then joined the faculty at Georgetown University, on a joint appointment at Georgetown Law and the department of computer science.
In 2015, Blaze was part of a team of proponents that included Steven M. Bellovin, J. Alex Halderman, Nadia Heninger, and Andrea M. Matwyshyn who successfully proposed a security research exemption to Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In July 2016, the complete board of the Tor Project resigned and announced a new board, including Matt Blaze.<ref>"Tor Project installs new board of directors after Jacob Appelbaum controversy", Colin Lecher, July 13, 2016, The Verge</ref><ref>"The Tor Project Elects New Board of Directors" Template:Webarchive, July 13th, 2016, Tor.org</ref>
In 2018, crypto Visa card company Monaco paid Blaze an undisclosed amount for the rights to the domain Crypto.com.<ref name=crypto>Template:Cite news</ref> Blaze had registered the domain in 1993 and sellers have estimated that the value of the domain was US$5–10 million.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
EducationEdit
- Ph.D., Computer Science, January 1993. Princeton University. (Dissertation: Caching in Large-Scale Distributed File Systems)
- M.A., Computer Science, June 1989. Princeton University
- M.S., Computer Science, May 1988. Columbia University
- B.S., January 1986. City University of New York (Hunter College)
PublicationsEdit
- Ioannidis, John; Blaze, Matt. The Architecture and Implementation of Network-Layer Security Under Unix, in Proc. of the 4th USENIX Security Symp., pages 29–39, Santa Clara, California, US, October 1993.
- Bellovin, Steven M.; Blaze, Matt; Landau, Susan; Pell, Stephanie K. It's Too Complicated: How the Internet Upends Katz, Smith, and Electronic Surveillance Law, in Harvard Journal of Law and Technology Volume 30.1, pages 1–101. February 2017.
- Bellovin, Steven M.; Blaze, Matt; Landau, Susan; Owsley, Brian L. Seeking the Source: Criminal Defendants’ Constitutional Right to Source Code in Ohio State Technology Law Journal Volume 17.1, pages 1–73. December 2020.