Becoming a world leader in cryptography

Photo credit: David L. Hunsberger

William Tutte joined Waterloo in 1962, just a few years after the university opened. Although he specialized in graph theory, his contributions to the study of cryptography were substantial.

During the Second World War, Tutte determined the structure of the German encryption machines without ever having seen the equipment. This allowed Great Britain to decipher military transmissions throughout the remainder of the war.

His contributions to the University of Waterloo were also significant.  Tutte helped establish the Faculty of Mathematics and was instrumental in defining Waterloo’s identity and reputation.

Tutte was instrumental in establishing the world’s only dedicated Department of Combinatorics and Optimization at Waterloo, which links cryptography researchers to those in related areas such as graph theory and algorithms. He received the Killam Prize, considered the Canadian equivalent of the Nobel, in 1982, and was inducted as an Officer in the Order of Canada in 2001.

At the forefront of the field

Decades later, Waterloo remains at the forefront of cryptographic research. The MQV protocol, based on elliptic curve cryptography, was invented at Waterloo. Certicom, the company that popularized the use of elliptic curves in cryptography, was started by Waterloo’s Scott Vanstone, one of the minds behind the MQV protocol.

Cryptography uses mathematics to keep communications secure. Today that often means protecting emails and online transactions, but the study of cryptography existed long before the Internet age.

“It’s an ancient subject,” says David Jao, Waterloo professor and member of Waterloo’s Centre for Applied Cryptographic Research. “There’s always been a need for secure communication.”

New technology, new challenges

As technology continues to evolve, researchers face new challenges in adapting cryptography software for new communication platforms.

Smartphones have presented their own set of challenges, according to Jao. They are portable, less powerful than personal computers, and always connected to the Internet. Cryptography software must be adapted with these considerations in mind.

Jao says the cryptography tools at our disposal are very good, but there is always room for improvement and the need for secure communication will persist.

“Cryptography is a really useful and important application of mathematics towards problems that are more and more important in the real world today.”