Melanie Rieback
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Melanie R. Rieback (born 26 October 1978) is a
computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...
, chiefly known for her work regarding the privacy and security of
radio-frequency identification Radio-frequency identification (RFID) uses electromagnetic fields to automatically Automatic identification system, identify and Tracking system, track tags attached to objects. An RFID system consists of a tiny radio transponder called a tag, ...
technology.


Personal life

Melanie Rieback was born in
Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...
,
Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...
on October 26, 1978. and raised in
Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...
. Her parents are David John Rieback and Eileen Sharon Rieback who worked at
Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, commonly referred to as ''Bell Labs'', is an American industrial research and development company owned by Finnish technology company Nokia. With headquarters located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Murray Hill, New Jersey, the compa ...
.


Education

She obtained her
Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...
in both Computer Science and Biology from the
University of Miami The University of Miami (UM, UMiami, Miami, U of M, and The U) is a private university, private research university in Coral Gables, Florida, United States. , the university enrolled 19,852 students in two colleges and ten schools across over ...
in 2000. She received her Master‘s in Computer Science from the
Delft University of Technology The Delft University of Technology (TU Delft; ) is the oldest and largest Dutch public university, public Institute of technology, technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. It specializes in engineering, technology, computing, design, a ...
in the Netherlands in 2003. In 2008, she completed her PhD in Computer Science at
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam The (abbreviated as ''VU Amsterdam'' or simply ''VU'' when in context) is a public university, public research university in Amsterdam, Netherlands, founded in 1880. The VU Amsterdam is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in ...
in the Netherlands.


Work


RFID Guardian

In an interview, Rieback stated the importance of the radio-frequency identification security, she stated ″If you are using RFID on cows, who cares? But, with a passport, it takes one breach at the wrong time and it could wreck it for the RFID industry.″ The RFID Guardian was developed when Rieback was a graduate student at the Vrije Universiteit. She was supervised by
Andrew S. Tanenbaum Andrew Stuart Tanenbaum (born March 16, 1944), sometimes referred to by the handle AST, is an American-born Dutch computer scientist and retired professor emeritus of computer science at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands. H ...
. She created the first RFID virus to show the loopholes in its security. The technology "jams" the signal so that the tags cannot be read from a certain distance. However, this technology still has limitations because it can block only the responses but not kill the queries of the tags. However, they have no intentions of mass-producing the technology. Although there was concern about publishing the different ways that RFID tags could be exploited online, it causes the threats to this technology to no longer be theoretical. Also, it allows these concerns to be approached rather than proceeding with the idea that these threats do not exist.


Girl Geek Dinner NL

Girl Geek Dinner NL was founded as the Dutch chapter of
Girl Geek Dinners Girl Geek Dinners is an informal organisation that promotes women in the information technology industry, with 64 established chapters in 23 countries. The organisation was founded in London, United Kingdom, by software engineer Sarah Lamb (''née' ...
. It is meant as a way to promote the idea of women pursuing fields that are typically male-dominated. Each dinner consists of talks from women who are exceptional in their field followed by a Q&A Session. Additionally, men are allowed to attend if they are invited by a female.


Radically Open Security

Radically Open Security was co-founded by Rieback, now its CEO. It is a non-profit organization that helps make the cyberworld more secure. They do only "non-fishy" jobs and provide step-by-step procedures in order for companies to do the same work without the company interfering. They also provide the tools and source code on their website to help others perform the same tasks that they do even if "it costs
hem A hem in sewing is a garment finishing method, where the edge of a piece of cloth is folded and sewn to prevent unravelling of the fabric and to adjust the length of the piece in garments, such as at the end of the sleeve or the bottom of the ga ...
repeat business". Radically Open Security provides services regarding code audits, cryptographic analysis, forensics, malware reversing, and more. Radically Open Security is also part of ACE Venture Lab


Other work

At the MIT Center for Genome Research/ Whitehead Institute, she worked on the Human Genome Project and co-authored the paper "Initial Sequencing and Analysis of the Human Genome".


Awards

In 2010, Rieback was a finalist for the ICT Professional of the Year Award and named one of the most successful women in the Netherlands by Viva Magazine Rieback was named as one of the top fifty Dutch inspirational women in 2016 in the list "Inspiring Fifty: Netherlands 2016".


Further reading

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rieback, Melanie American computer scientists Dutch computer scientists Dutch women computer scientists 1978 births Living people Delft University of Technology alumni University of Miami alumni Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam alumni 21st-century American scientists 21st-century American engineers 21st-century American women scientists Scientists from Cleveland Dutch women scientists Engineers from Ohio