Scienceעדי שמיר

Adi Shamir

Adi Shamir is an Israeli cryptographer and computer scientist at the Weizmann Institute, known as a co-inventor of the RSA encryption algorithm.

born 1952Co-inventing the RSA algorithmDifferential cryptanalysisShamir secret sharingThe 2002 Turing Award

Born: 6 July 1952, Tel Aviv
Occupation: mathematician, cryptologist, computer scientist
Education: Tel Aviv University, University of Warwick, Weizmann Institute of Science
Founded: RSA (1986)

Adi Shamir was born in 1952 in Tel Aviv

Adi Shamir was born in Tel Aviv on July 6, 1952. He is married to Dr. Leah Shamir-Shinan, has two daughters and a son, and lives in Rehovot.

He earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Tel Aviv University in 1973. He then completed a master's degree in 1975 and a doctorate in 1977 in computer science at the Weizmann Institute, with Professor Zohar Manna as his advisor. He spent a year at the University of Warwick and worked at MIT from 1977 to 1980.

At MIT in 1977 he developed the RSA algorithm with Ron Rivest and Len Adleman, and the three later founded the company RSA. In 1980 he joined the Weizmann Institute, and since 2006 he has also been an invited professor at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. With Eli Biham he discovered differential cryptanalysis, and his other work includes secret sharing, identity-based cryptography and the proof that IP equals PSPACE.

He has also exposed weaknesses in existing systems, including the WEP protocol for wireless networks and the A5/1 cipher used in GSM phones. His smart card technology became the basis of the company Datacom in 1988. In 2013 and again in 2019 he did not receive a visa to enter the United States.