Michael Waidner (born on December 20, 1961 in

Mühlacker Mühlacker is a town in the eastern part of the Enz district of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Mühlacker station has direct rail connections with Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, Heidelberg, Pforzheim and the Northern Black Forest. Mühlhausen an der Enz ...

) is a German

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus ( ...

. He is director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology and

ATHENE Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of v ...

, the largest research institute for

IT security Computer security, cybersecurity (cyber security), or information technology security (IT security) is the protection of computer systems and networks from attack by malicious actors that may result in unauthorized information disclosure, th ...

in Europe. He is also professor of security in information technology at the department of computer science of the

Technische Universität Darmstadt The Technische Universität Darmstadt (official English name Technical University of Darmstadt, sometimes also referred to as Darmstadt University of Technology), commonly known as TU Darmstadt, is a research university in the city of Darmstadt ...

. He is known for his work in

privacy Privacy (, ) is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively. The domain of privacy partially overlaps with security, which can include the concepts of a ...

cryptography Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adve ...

and

dependability In systems engineering, dependability is a measure of a system's availability, reliability, maintainability, and in some cases, other characteristics such as durability, safety and security. In real-time computing, dependability is the ability to ...

Life

Waidner studied

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includin ...

at the

University of Karlsruhe The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT; german: Karlsruher Institut für Technologie) is a public research university in Karlsruhe, Germany. The institute is a national research center of the Helmholtz Association. KIT was created in 2009 ...

and received his

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' ...

in computer science in 1991. The title of his dissertation was "Byzantine distribution without cryptographic assumptions despite any number of errors". From 1994 to 2006, he headed research in IT security and data protection at

IBM Research - Zurich IBM Research is the research and development division for IBM, an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, with operations in over 170 countries. IBM Research is the largest industrial research orga ...

and was one of the initiators of the Zurich Information Security Center at

ETH Zurich (colloquially) , former_name = eidgenössische polytechnische Schule , image = ETHZ.JPG , image_size = , established = , type = Public , budget = CHF 1.896 billion (2021) , rector = Günther Dissertori , president = Joël Mesot , a ...

. He then moved to IBM in New York, where he was IBM Chief Technology Officer for Security and chairman of the IBM Security Architecture Board until September 2010. Since 2010, Waidner is professor at the department of computer science of the

and director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology in

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it th ...

. Waidner is also director of ATHENE, the largest research institute for

in Europe. He is a visiting professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Since 2017, Waidner has also been

chief digital officer A chief digital officer (CDO) or a chief digital information officer (CDIO) is an individual who helps a company, a government organization or a city drive growth by converting traditional "analog" businesses to digital ones using the potential of ...

Publications

* Steiner, Michael & Tsudik, Gene & Waidner, Michael. (1999). Diffie-Hellman Key Distribution Extended to Group Communication. Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security. DOI: 10.1145/238168.238182. * Steiner, Michael & Tsudik, Gene & Waidner, Michael. (2000). Key Agreement in Dynamic Peer Groups. IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems. DOI: 11.10.1109/71.877936. * Asokan, N. & Schunter, Matthias & Waidner, Michael. (1997). Optimistic protocols for fair exchange. Proceedings of the 4th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS '97). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 7-17. DOI: 10.1145/266420.266426. *Asokan, N. & Shoup, Victor & Waidner, Michael. (1998). Optimistic Fair Exchange of Digital Signatures. DOI: 10.1007/BFb0054156.

Awards

He is a Fellow of the

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operati ...

and ACM Distinguished Scientist.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Waidner, Michael 1961 births Fellow Members of the IEEE Academic staff of Technische Universität Darmstadt German computer scientists Living people Karlsruhe Institute of Technology alumni German cryptographers People from Mühlacker Chief technology officers