Scienceאלי ביהם

Eli Biham

Eli Biham is an Israeli cryptographer and professor of computer science at the Technion, known for publicly inventing differential cryptanalysis.

born 1960Inventing differential cryptanalysisCo-designing the Serpent block cipherBreaking GSM security mechanismsOpposing the biometric database law

Occupation: cryptologist, mathematician, computer scientist, engineer
Education: Tel Aviv University, Weizmann Institute of Science

Eli Biham was born in 1960 in Israel

Eli Biham was born in Israel in 1960. As a youth he studied at the Erika Landau school for gifted children at Tel Aviv University.

He earned his Ph.D. under Adi Shamir. His doctoral work centered on differential cryptanalysis, which he invented publicly.

Biham became a professor in the Technion computer science department. He headed its graduate school for two years and was dean of the department from 2008 to 2013. In 2012 he was named a Fellow of the International Association for Cryptologic Research.

He developed extensions of his method, such as impossible differential cryptanalysis and differential fault analysis. He co-designed the Serpent block cipher, a finalist for the Advanced Encryption Standard, as well as the Tiger hash function, the Py stream cipher and the SHAvite-3 hash function. With others he broke the GSM security mechanisms, the CBCM mode and the Keeloq cipher.

Biham opposed the biometric database law, arguing it would harm civil rights. In 2012 he called on the public to boycott the Interior Ministry's biometric database pilot.